I curated this exhibit, also at the McHenry Museum, at the end of my freshmen year of high school in 2015. It was intended to be a physical manifestation of an online museum I maintained during 8th grade and my freshmen year. Both the exhibition and the online museum encourage visitors to reevaluate middle school and the "awkward" phase. What does "awkward" mean? Aren't we deep down the same brace faces and acne-ridden preteens we were in middle school? Why do we want to disown our younger selves? As the "About" page states: "If there is anything middle school has, it's heart. There is heart in those that desperately please, in those that genuinely, and creepily, in a sweet way, are obsessed with something. There is heart in awkwardness and it is sad that we are ashamed of a time in our lives where heart was okay to have."

 

The exhibit was comprised of four sections that I believe to be the main themes of middle school: Empire, Future, Freedom, and Wonder. The exhibition featured middle school yearbook photos dating all the way back to the 1930s, various slipped notes, and other ephemera donated by people from their middle school years which I then organized into these categories.