A Heart gallery of New Jersey Special Photograpic Exhibition

100 Waiting Children

The Historical Society of Princeton, in collaboration with the Princeton Public Library and the Arts Council of Princeton, presents 100 Waiting Children this summer. This powerful photographic exhibition is produced by the Heart Gallery of New Jersey and the New Jersey Department of Children and Families’ (DCF). The exhibition focuses on the 100 children who have been in New Jersey’s foster care system the longest and are in greatest need of finding a permanent home before they “age out” of the system. Some of these children are considered hard to adopt because of their age, special needs, or because they want to be adopted with their siblings. These children are available for adoption nationwide.

The Heart Gallery of New Jersey is a unique not-for-profit corporation dedicated to raising awareness about foster children available for adoption. Through the volunteer efforts of some of the country’s most prestigious photographers, portraits were taken that help capture the individuality and spirit of each foster child who is eligible for adoption. The photographs are then shared via the Web and through exhibitions that travel throughout the state in hopes that potential loving families will be moved to inquire about adoption. In Princeton, 100 Waiting Children will be exhibited at the Historical Society of Princeton’s headquarters, Bainbridge House, at 158 Nassau Street, and at the Princeton Public Library’s Witherspoon Street building.

The Heart Gallery idea began in New Mexico and quickly spread to other states. New Jersey is the site of the largest project to date. In 2005, the Heart Gallery of New Jersey photographed 346 of the state’s foster children. More than 100 have been adopted and many more are in the adoption process.

All children featured in the Heart Gallery participated with the permission of the DCF Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS), the state child welfare agency responsible for their care. The photographers involved followed guidelines set by DYFS and the Heart Gallery and met with caseworkers responsible for the children chosen to be in the gallery.

For more information about the Heart Gallery of New Jersey, visit www.heartgallerynj.org
Exhibition Dates:          Tuesday, July 22 through Sunday, August 10, 2008

Exhibition Locations:   Historical Society of Princeton, 158 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ
                                    Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon Street, Princeton, NJ

Contacts:

Historical Society of Princeton: Candice Howard, 609-921-6748 or candice@princetonhistory.org
Princeton Public Library, Tim Quinn, 609-924-9529 x258 or TQuinn@princetonlibrary.org
Arts Council of Princeton: Maria Evans, 609-924-8777, mevans@artscouncilofprinceton.org

Heart Gallery: Janina Hecht, 908-334-2474 or janina@heartgallerynj.com  

Stand Up, Speak Out: Princeton's Citizens Find Their Voice

The Historical Society of Princeton’s fall 2008 exhibition is Stand Up, Speak Out: Princeton’s Citizens Find Their Voice. A temporary exhibition, Stand Up, Speak Out will open to the public on September 3, 2008 at the Society’s Bainbridge House headquarters and run through June 2009.

The struggle to “have a voice” in the democratic process has been an on-going issue throughout the nation’s history. This exhibition is inspired by the national elections of fall 2008, and historic, pivotal moments in the struggles for voting rights—and “having a voice”—as they played out in Princeton. The “moments” are centered on: Continental Congress coming to Princeton in 1783; the aftermath of women’s suffrage in the early and mid-20th century; African-American voting rights and civil rights in the 1960s; and university student activism in the late 1960s and 1970s. The exhibition will also contextualize human and voting rights on a national and international scale, briefly highlighting very recent events and locations where rights are challenged, or completely void. Through images, manuscripts, hands-on interactives, newspaper accounts, and objects (including the physical machinery of voting), the exhibition will bring to life this timely topic.  

Through this exhibition, HSP is participating in the 2008 town-wide celebration of the 225th anniversary of Continental Congress in Princeton. With other exhibitions and events at such historic sites as Morven, Drumthwacket and Rockingham, HSP expects to serve a large audience during the initial months of the exhibition. As the national election occurs in November 2008, the Society will invite local, state and national political candidates to Princeton to use the issues in the exhibition as a backdrop for their campaigns. Following the November election, the Society plans a full slate of programs throughout the winter and spring to highlight the issues addressed in the exhibition, including, for example, a collaborative panel discussion with the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University on human rights around the world, focusing on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Darfur. Students will be a major focus of the exhibition and a wide variety of programs are in the planning stages, particularly with PVotes, the student voter registration organization at Princeton University. The exhibition will be highlighted in the Society’s 2008/2009 Programs for Schools brochure, thus inviting classes from throughout Mercer and surrounding counties to take a field trip to the Society.

The exhibition team consists of HSP’s Curator and Project Director, Eileen Morales; exhibition curator Ellen Snyder-Grenier; exhibition designer, Dan Schnur; and an Advisory Committee consisting of Jane Junn, Ph.D., professor of History at Rutgers University; Richard Miller, Ph.D., the Social Studies Specialist for the Princeton Regional Schools; Peter David Nelson, the Director of the New York office of the organization Facing History and Ourselves and three HSP trustees, Wanda S. Gunning, George Sanderson and Shirley Satterfield.

Exhibition research has already begun and will continue through February.  Writing and designing will commence in the spring, with fabrication and installation occurring in the summer of 2008.  The press will be invited to preview the exhibition on September 2; it opens to the public on September 3, 2008. On Sunday, September 14, 2008, an exhibition reception will be open to HSP members, funders, lenders and other guests.

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