The Seattle Project: I Wish I Knew Who I Was Before I Was Me

Curated by students working with Arts Corps teaching artists, poet Roberto Ascalon and musician/producer Amos Miller, I Wish I Knew Who I Was Before I Was Me offers unique insight into the Frye collection as experienced by youth. Over the course of several months, students participated in the behind-the-scenes operations of the Museum, working together with Ascalon and Miller to select objects from the Frye’s permanent collection and to determine an exhibition theme and title. Incorporating music, poetry, and spoken word, I Wish I Knew Who I Was Before I Was Me includes the students’ responses to the artwork they chose for the exhibition. Arts Corps, the largest nonprofit arts educator in the Seattle area, fosters creative habits of mind in young people through a passionate corps of teaching artists. Active since 2000, Arts Corps brings the lifelong practices of persistence and discipline, critical thinking, courage and risk-taking, reflection and imagining possibilities to the classroom and beyond.

Go behind-the-scenes of the collaboration between the Frye and Arts Corps on Flickr or YouTube.

The Seattle Project

The Seattle Project is a series of collaborative exhibitions and projects commissioned by the Frye to celebrate the Museum’s fifty-eight year-old commitment to community outreach and art education. The Project reflects the spirit of interdisciplinary collaboration in Tim Rollins and K.O.S.: A History, and it places that exhibition in the context of the needs of our community in Seattle. Above all, it acknowledges the excellent work of partner organizations Arts Corps, Path with Art, and the Center School.

The Seattle Project also includes Public Belongings and The Center School Connection.