DANVILLE SCHOOLS

News release

Danville High School has been selected as a site for a three-city tour called the Never Again exhibit. The Never Again exhibit features 20 life-size theme murals depicting one of the worst genocides in human history, the Holocaust.

“The Danville Independent School District was chosen as a site for the exhibit because of our commitment to educating the whole student and arts education for all,” said Dr. Keith Look, superintendent for the Danville Schools.

In 2014, John W. Bate Middle School was one of 12 schools in Kentucky selected to be a part of the Bearing Witness program, a program that provides schools with training and resources for arts-integrated Holocaust education for a period of three years.

“There are times when words may be difficult to find – in those times visual and performing arts can help students create and express a deeper understanding of the experience,” said Look.

The murals featured in the exhibit are not the works of individual artists. Murals were created by gifted teens studying at Western Kentucky University for the past 25 years. The teens ranging from seventh to tenth grade were a part of WKU’s Summer Program for Verbally and Mathematically Precocious Youth (VAMPY) taking the program’s Nazi Germany and the Holocaust course. While enrolled in the course students worked in groups create these works of art. The murals, which are done primarily in charcoal, are six feet tall by eight-nine feet wide.

In addition to the murals, the exhibit will feature a film on the creation of the murals as well as a Holocaust educator. Holocaust educators will include first and second generation Holocaust survivors.

The exhibit will be installed at Gravely Hall Performing Arts Center in Danville High School from November 15-30 and will be open primarily to student groups during that time. The public may see the exhibit at the open house scheduled for Wednesday, November 15, from 5:30 pm to 7:30 p.m. Individuals seeking more information on the open house should contact Jane Dewey, Director of Arts Education at the Danville Schools, at 859-936-8416 or jane.dewey@danville.kyschools.us.

This exhibit is made possible through the generous support of The Jewish Heritage Fund for Excellence, and is a partnership of The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, The J Arts & Ideas program, Western Kentucky University and Kentucky Educational Television.