FAB Opening Engages Local Community
The Wesleyan and Middletown communities intermingled at the community opening of the Fries Arts Building (FAB) on Oct. 4, an event that provided a snapshot of the multi-disciplinary potential of the innovative space.
Students, faculty, staff, and community members took self-guided tours through the facility—engaging with musical and dance performances, interactive art exhibitions, and beginner-friendly artmaking stations. They tracked their journeys on a stamp-able passport provided by the Center for the Arts (CFA) Director’s Council. Guests were exposed to the many facets of the arts on display and engaged in conversations about them in the FAB’s communal areas.
“As a university, especially as an art center, our first priority is to serve the students, but I think the idea [is] that the kind of space and education we produce, it can't be contained by the walls of the CFA,” said Joshua Lubin-Levy, director of the CFA. “How does that become an opportunity for people who live nearby, or who are connected to the University through families or friends or partners? How does that all become part of a rich community where we can enjoy things like arts together—especially at a school like Wesleyan, where so much of our arts curriculum isn't just about studying art but practicing it?”
The FAB—named in honor of Mike Fries ’85, a longtime supporter of Wesleyan—was designed to house new performance, teaching, practice, and studio facilities alongside formal and informal gathering areas for students to engage with the arts. One of those spaces, the black box theater, housed a concert series throughout the day with the large garage door opened to share the music with guests from Middletown.
The series highlighted the work of 40 years of Ebony Singers under Pastor Marichal Monts, a decade of Noah Baerman’s Jazz Ensemble, experimental music taught in Professor of Music Ron Kuivila’s MUSC 109: Introduction to Experimental Music class, and West African music taught by Assistant Professor of Music John Dankwa. Following the series, guests were invited to a collective dance party with WesGrooves, an Afro Pop musical group on campus led by Associate Professor of Dance Iddi Saaka and Dankwa. The series was curated by Emerson Jenisch ’25, a member of the CFA Director’s Council, under the supervision of the CFA’s Assistant Curator of Performance Kiara Benn ’20.
“[While] we are inviting all of these different faculty members to display and show their works, it's not at all encompassing of the entire breadth of how art lives at Wesleyan,” said Benn. “This is just the jumping off point, it's a bite-sized version of what could be.”
Alongside a lineup of musical offerings, guests also enjoyed two art exhibitions. Antithesis, curated by Chloe Duncan-Wald ’25, displayed faculty art, including sculptures and choreography videos, in the movement studio.
“I think a part about the building that's really exciting is that it has all these kinds of common spaces,” Benn said. “It’s just as exciting to have all these kinds of activations throughout the building as it is an invitation to walk through and see the places that you can create community.”
On the second floor, patrons took in another exhibit, Self-Portrait as a Diptych, which included dozens of works by students in an introductory drawing course taught by Julia Randall, associate professor of art, at Cheshire Correctional Institution this past summer through the Center for Prison Education. The upstairs area was at near capacity for the whole event and served as a real connecting point for conversation.
“Community was at the heart of this inclusive event, where CPE students were represented in a way we've not seen previously,” said Shirley Sullivan, program coordinator and fellow at the Center for Prison Education. Hearing passersby comment on the distinctive line work in one piece or poignant hidden meanings of another was unforgettable and an immeasurable joy, as this opening gave an audience to what can be an otherwise unseen part of our community.”
In addition to taking in the art and music created by the Wesleyan community, guests were given the chance to contribute some of their own art. Upstairs in the drawing studio, community members designed fabric squares, which will be stitched together into a quilt commemorating the opening. Downstairs, they were tasked with drawing a fictional mascot for the University—to hypothetically replace the Cardinal. After each exercise, guests’ works were hung up on the wall so their art, too, could be exhibited.
“Accessibility is something that I'm personally passionate about, and it's the field that I've worked in within my interest in the art world,” said Vansh Kapoor ’26, a Director’s Council member who led the fabric-square designing event. “Something that we've really tried to do for this event specifically is appeal to people of every age and try to make the experience itself as tactile as possible."
The Director’s Council, who planned the opening, is a student-led organization that works closely with the CFA’s professional staff to gain hands-on experience in curating, arts management, and leadership. Next, the Director’s Council will continue to brainstorm ideas for bringing arts events, like the FAB opening, outside the CFA, Kapoor said.
