History of Art & Architecture Students Unveil “A City in Flux: Reflecting on Venice” at SCMA

Academics
A diverse group of eleven people of varying ages and genders are standing together in a museum gallery. The group is smiling and posed for a photo. A gold-framed painting and other framed artworks hang on the beige walls behind them, and the floor is a polished light-colored wood. The group appears to be a mix of students and adults, possibly a class or a group of colleagues.

This past Friday marked a proud and exciting moment for students in Professor Monika Schmitter’s Curating Views of Venice course. After months of research, collaboration, and careful planning, they celebrated the grand opening of A City in Flux: Reflecting on Venice, an exhibition they spent the entirety of last semester curating.

A photograph of a museum placard with the title "A City in Flux: Reflecting on Venice." The text describes how Venice was built on wooden piles in a lagoon and the city's continuous state of change due to tides, erosion, and human interaction.

Now on view at the Smith College Museum of Art (SCMA), the exhibition presents a rich, interdisciplinary look at Venice through a wide range of media including photography, etchings, paintings, and drawings. The works on display span across the 18th-21st century, offering viewers a complex and evolving portrait of the iconic city.

Students presented their work to a lively audience of family members, faculty, friends, and peers, many of whom came to support and experience the culmination of the students’ hard work. Reflecting on the process, Dr. Monika Schmitter shared her thoughts on the experience of guiding the class through such an ambitious project.

“It was a great experience, what can I say? There were some great discoveries that students made in their research. I think also, the collaboration that they had to do was really significant.They had to work together, especially coming up with themes for the exhibit. That was challenging, but they did it and they did a really good job. They really wanted to be innovative. I think that was an interesting learning experience for them, having to reach consensus and having to compromise.”

A diverse group of eleven people of varying ages and genders are standing together in a museum gallery. The group is smiling and posed for a photo. A gold-framed painting and other framed artworks hang on the beige walls behind them, and the floor is a polished light-colored wood. The group appears to be a mix of nine students and two adults.

The exhibition is the result of months of collaboration among a small class of just 12 students, who collectively took on the task of crafting a narrative that would honor the complexity of Venice. They selected, researched, wrote about, and arranged the pieces, while also developing the exhibition’s central themes which emphasize the many sides of the city beyond its romanticized image.

“I feel so lucky to have been able to take part in this experience. I learned a multifaceted way about Venice; I learned all the different sides of the city, which is what we’re trying to get at in this exhibition. We’re looking at Venice as not a monolith, so we’re bringing all different view points here,” explained Arlo Kellie, ’26.

A portrait of two women, Monika and Danielle, standing together in a museum gallery. The woman on the left, Monika, has on a white sleeveless top, black pants, glasses, and a name tag. The woman on the right, Danielle, has on a mustard yellow ribbed shirt with black pants and a name tag. They are both smiling at the camera. Framed artworks hang on the wall behind them.

Danielle Carrabino, curator of painting and sculpting at SCMA, provides a testament to the students' hard work, even at the semester’s close. 

“The students continued to work with me even after the end of the class. For many of them, they had already graduated but they still wished to be part of the project. Even a small exhibition like this takes more time than a semester to fully execute. We finalized the checklist of works, themes and their introductory text before the class ended.”

The opening offered students the rare opportunity to see their efforts realized in a professional museum setting. For many, seeing the physical display for the first time was a moment of surprise and reflection.

“We were just talking—I was talking to Professor Schmitter—about this difference between it being one the ground versus on the wall and how, you still have the actual physical pieces on the ground, so you would assume that you could really imagine it being on the wall, but it really is so different when you walk in,” said Sophia Lubin, ’27.

A wide shot of a museum gallery wall with four framed paintings. The paintings are in ornate gold frames and are of different sizes. The largest painting on the right is a portrait of a young boy in a large fur hat. To the left are three smaller paintings, two landscape-style paintings hung vertically, and one portrait-style painting.

For Leonard Bond, ’25, the reaction was simple but powerful:

“It’s so exciting to see it.”

The exhibition not only showcases the students’ academic research but also highlights their ability to collaborate on a real-world curatorial project, something that requires negotiation, creativity, and mutual respect.

“I think it's really interesting to see every different aspect that Venice has ever seen,” said Hannah McIver, ’25.

Many students expressed gratitude for the opportunity to engage so deeply with both the subject matter and the curatorial process.

“I’m very grateful. We did a lot of great work,” noted Leonard Bond, ’25.

A photo taken inside a museum. A woman with shoulder-length white hair and a black blazer holds a red phone up to her eye to take a picture of an artwork. Her face is partially obscured by the phone. A younger woman with long dark hair, a white shirt, and a red bag hangs to her left, looking at the same artwork with her back to the camera.

Sophia Lubin, ’27, added,

“I loved it. I learned so much not only from my professors, but from other students. There are so many elements of the curatorial process with different people and different jobs and different concerns. I was just so blown away by all of it.”

The exhibition would not have been possible without the invaluable support of SCMA staff and the broader Five College Museums community. In particular, Dr. Danielle Carrabino, SCMA’s Curator of Painting and Sculpture, played a key role in mentoring and guiding the students throughout the curatorial process.

As the exhibition opens to the public, it stands as a testament to the students’ dedication, insight, and thoughtful exploration of a city that continues to captivate the imagination of artists and scholars alike.

To experience A City in Flux: Reflecting on Venice for yourself, visit the Smith College Museum of Art from now through March 22, 2026. More information is available on the Smith College website.

Spotlight posted in Academics