On January 13, Sunny Leerasanthanah’s Visitor Center was unveiled at the Anne Reid ’72 Gallery here at Princeton Day School. An elaborately crafted exhibit, this piece explored the complex and often contentious topic of immigration by drawing parallels between human migration and invasive species. Through months of meticulous work, Leerasanthanah completely transformed the gallery from a stark, white-walled room to a fully immersive experience. Every object was intentionally chosen and repurposed, utilizing only environmentally friendly materials, including tables, chairs, and benches from PDS. Reflecting on their process, Leerasanthanah remarked, “I can turn this bench into part of a world…It’s really an amazing thing.”
The discipline of installation art has often been overlooked in social and artistic circles. Gwen Shockey, the Gallery Curator and Fine Arts Teacher, therefore felt that it was important to introduce to PDS students. She commented, “I think it’s a cool opportunity to see that art can be anything…art can be worldbuilding, and art can be transformation…I think it’s very helpful, especially for filmmaking and acting students, to experience this form of installation art.”
This sentiment was echoed by freshman Ahana Subbaraman, who said this after visiting the exhibit: “It was a unique type of art and a new experience, but the whole atmosphere was really cool.” Subbaraman went on to say that she would encourage fellow students to visit the show because of its broader cultural relevance at PDS. “There’s a lot of people from diverse backgrounds…It shows that, at school, we’re all connected, but we’re all different as well, and I think the exhibit shows that not everyone has had an easy path.”
The subject of immigration has been particularly relevant in the contemporary context. Leerasanthanah recognized this and hoped to promote discourse among students concerning the subject. Leerasanthanah expressed, “I want to create dialogue on immigration within the school context…My purpose here as an artist is to inspire people and create conversation.”
Ms. Shockey voiced Leerasanthanah’s success in this aspect, adding, “I think Sunny brilliantly allows us to consider what it means to belong…it leaves me with more questions than answers, and for me, that’s the sign of a really genius artist.”
Visitor Center was an exhibit that not only depicted its core ideas, but enacted them physically, forcing its audience to move through these concepts and to inhabit a space that embodies transition, precarity, and adaptation. Immigration has been the subject of vast political and ideological tensions, and yet, as Visitor Center makes clear, it is not an abstraction but a lived reality. It is an issue that demands recognition, understanding, and, above all, questioning and examination of the jingoistic anti-immigration rhetoric that continues to permeate society. As the future inheritors of this world with all its issues, it would be highly beneficial for every student of PDS to take a look at Visitor Center and understand both its meaning and the questions it provokes.
