University of Arizona Augmented Reality Project and J Rêve International Global Educator Program
The 2016 Beauford Delaney: Resonance of Form and Vibration of Color art exhibition in Paris, France was the launchpad for WIF’s travel/study abroad Strategic Focus Area (SFA). We collaborated on two major initiatives through the exhibition: the University of Arizona (U of A) Resonance of Form Augmented Reality App project and the J Rêve International Global Educator Program.
Through a first-of-its-kind collaboration with U of A, six (6) undergraduate students flew from Tucson to Paris to create an Augmented Reality app for the exhibition and present their work to the ~300 people who attended the exhibition opening. Five of the six students applied for their first passport to participate in this project.
View the playlist of videos recorded by several of the students expressing their views on their experience by clicking HERE.
In collaboration with J Rêve International’s Global Educator Program, WIF organized a second STEAM project through which seven (7) K-12 educators learned to incorporate the arts into the teaching of science and math using Beauford Delaney works as inspiration. This was the first trip abroad for two (2) of the educators who participated in the program.
Watch the participants of the Global Educator Program talk about their experiences by clicking on the image below.
Entrée to Black Paris (ETBP) Cultural Awareness Program
In Autumn 2020, WIF and the French travel company, Entrée to Black Paris tours, entered into an official collaboration to offer this program.
Our initial project was a video series for Columbia Global Centers | Paris. Our founder, Dr. Monique Y. Wells, narrated six vignettes about painter Beauford Delaney on the streets of the Montparnasse district and at the center. The series was designed as a virtual introduction of the neighborhood for students who would not be able to attend classes in person due to the pandemic.
Filming first video vignette at Le Select
Subsequently, we launched two programs in collaboration with Entrée to Black Paris tours.
Creole Culinary Arts
In 2020, Dr. Wells and the Academy coordinated a multi-year program for students at the Marion P. Thomas Charter School High School of Culinary and Performing Arts (MPTCS) in Newark, NJ. The course consists of virtual presentations and cooking classes delivered by chefs at the Academy and is intended to culminate with the students traveling to Paris for a culinary study abroad experience.
Based on experience gleaned from WIF’s established relationships with more than 100 local Parisian restaurants and renowned chefs operating in Paris and the U.S., WIF’s food blogging course for MPTCS took place during Fall Semester 2020. In preparation for the above mentioned virtual training, Dr. Wells delivered a six-week course that taught MPTCS students how to write and maintain a food blog so they could record and share their transatlantic culinary experiences. The participants decided to name the blog “What’s Cookin’ at the ‘P’.”
PowerPoint slide from Week 2 of food blogging course
By teaching the students how to create and produce their own culinary blog, this course paved the way for advantageous interactions between the MPTCS students and the chefs of the Academy, which were to have begun in January 2021. Due to pandemic restrictions on both sides of the Atlantic, we now anticipate that the video cooking classes will begin during the 2021-2022 academic year.
Virtual Black Paris Experience
In collaboration with STEM Atlanta Women, WIF provided a virtual field trip to Paris for CSKYWLA (267 attendees) and the Thurgood Marshall Trust Center in Washington, D.C. (~25 attendees).
In collaboration with STEM Atlanta Women and Diamond in the Rough (DITR), another Atlanta area non-profit, we delivered a “Christmas in Paris” trip for 66 DITR families. In collaboration with STEM Atlanta Women and Gem Makers, DITR’s for-profit collaborative partner, we delivered a New Year’s Eve “Virtual Ladies’ Trip to Paris” trip for the general public, which lasted over four hours and was attended by over 120 persons.
These “trips” consisted of Dr. Wells providing live commentary on video recordings of Entrée to Black Paris walking tours. The host organization receives a list of destinations on the tour in advance so that students can research them and prepare questions that Dr. Wells answers in real time during these encounters. They led to the creation of our signature online travel event, the VIRTUAL BLACK PARIS EXPERIENCE.
Paris Internship Program
2017 Summer Interns
L to R: Samantha Gilliams, Hanna Gressler, and Tatiana Balabanis
Through various sponsors, four of the six undergraduate women accepted into our Paris Summer Internship program from 2016 through 2019 – from Stanford University, the Juilliard School, the American University of Paris, and Smith College – worked on arts projects involving visual arts curation, filmmaking and /or poetry.
Three of them also investigated Paris and the surrounding suburbs from a culinary perspective, preparing Haïtian and Indian meals and writing about their experiences doing so, as well as exploring the explosion of vegan shopping and dining options that are accessible on a student budget.
In 2019, WIF welcomed its first graduate student as a Winter-Spring intern. Hailing from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she researched the lives of multiple African-American and Afro-French women as part of her gender-based studies on post-colonialism and the African Diaspora in France.
Due to restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, we were unable to welcome an intern in 2020.
In 2021, because pandemic restrictions remained in place, we accepted our first remote summer intern. A political science major and media studies minor at Penn State, she worked on our Art & Conversation event.
Learn more about our program here: Paris Internship Program
Classes Duo Paris/Knoxville
One of our greatest successes to date has been Classes Duo Paris/ Knoxville – a groundbreaking two-year cultural exchange program (2018-2019) that brought 42 U.S. and French elementary school students from Nature’s Way Montessori School in Knoxville, TN and Jean Zay Elementary Public School in Paris together through Beauford Delaney’s life and art.
Preparing for the Beauford Delaney’s Montparnasse walking tour
Classes Duo Paris/ Knoxville was accomplished through WIF’s collaboration with the City of Paris’s CASPE (Circonscription des Affaires Scolaires et de la Petite Enfance) office, which is responsible for after-school activities for school-aged children. CASPE embraced the use of several of the works shown in the Beauford Delaney: Resonance of Form and Vibration of Color catalog as the inspiration for the children’s artistic activities.
For complete information about the Classes Duo Paris/Knoxville project, including videos and photo galleries, click HERE.
African Diaspora Cultural Impact in Paris
The ADCI Paris Facebook group and Instagram page offer a unique opportunity for African-American university students throughout the U. S. to connect with the vibrant history, culture, and contemporary life of the African Diaspora in Paris.
Students come together virtually to discover the incredible diversity of Paris’ African Diaspora through the exploration of plastic arts (painting, sculpture, photography…), culinary arts, and performing arts (theater, slam poetry…), as well as aspects of everyday life in the City of Light.
Paris interns have traditionally curated content for these platforms.
