Student Spotlight | Biba Duffy-Boscagli ’19

November 10, 2017

Name: Biba Duffy-Boscagli ’19
Hometown: Santa Barbara, CA
Special Skills: Art Curating

Biba Duffy-Boscagli ’19 is talking a mile a minute – she’s obviously very excited, but she’s making sense. Everything seems to make sense about this scenario: a young woman with a passion, actively pursuing it. We are downtown at the Carpinteria Arts Center for Biba’s first curated gallery. “Since middle school I knew that I wanted to be a museum curator,” says Biba. She often paints and makes ceramics, but Biba is also fascinated by “the business of art and of art museums.”

The junior is in the Independent Art Program at Cate, colloquially referred to as “Varsity Art.” She says enrolled students have the option of developing their own projects through the program, which runs during the same time as sports block. “Some kids will do painting, some will do music. My [project] was to open this gallery.” Biba says the first step was to find her venue. She praised the Carpinteria Arts Center for their willingness to help with her project, as well as their kindness and encouragement. With the venue secured she designed a series of promotional flyers and reached out to students in the community. She ended up with over 100 submissions from students from Cate, Carpinteria, Santa Barbara, as well as from home-schooled students.

Biba says that she was always around art while growing up and her parents often took her to museums. “I remember I would go up and think, why is that art placed that way or even why is the name tag put that way.” She realized at a young age that the arrangement of artwork in museums “was either detracting from or adding to the art.”

She picks one wall to explain her process in the placement of pieces:
“In this one, I went for a lot of symmetry. As you can see the two charcoal pieces are made by the same person, Kate Tunnell ’19. Darling [Garcia] ’18 made this as a diptych. It’s called Me and My Sister. You can see the connection in color between the softer reds; and I thought it was interesting to put that in the center – as you turn around that’s the first thing you see.”

In a way, Biba is making this artwork make sense, together. In her gallery, her thoughtfulness is apparent on every wall – blues in one corner, a row of portraits bleeds into masks. Biba says, “I’m so grateful for this opportunity.” It’s clear that her first curated exhibit has only reinforced her middle school aspirations and has energized her for a future in museums.