First Annual Harvard x Yale Art Show Kicks Off ‘The Game’ Festivities

Sheltered from the cold rain, students gathered inside Winthrop Library for a night of music and art on the eve of the 2024 annual Harvard-Yale game. Unique art by Harvard and Yale students transformed the library into an art gallery for the first annual Harvard x Yale Art Show.

Hosted on Nov. 22 in the Winthrop Library, the event featured art by both Harvard and Yale students, along with live music by Harvard bands and student performers, including acts Midnight Curfew, Mariachi Véritas de Harvard, Sanjna (Sanjna Rajagopalan ’26), and Eleni Paris (Eleni P. Sekas-Dadian ’26). Visual art showcased varied from short films and paintings to sculptures and carpet-weaving. The show even included a collaborative mural for event goers to add to and take part in the creative process.

It was after feeling that there was a lack of opportunities to display visual arts on campus that Katherrin A. Billordo ’26 conceived of the art show.

Billordo has been setting up art shows since she was a senior in high school, providing art opportunities for people in the Chicago area. In college, Billordo found it difficult to organize shows in Chicago while studying in Cambridge, but wanted to continue bringing the community together through art shows. To her, organizing art shows is about more than showcasing art and talent — it is about “bringing people together.”
Billordo recalled thinking about the various community events throughout the Harvard-Yale festivities and wondering, “Hello, where’s the visual arts mixer?” The Harvard-Yale art show aimed to fill this gap, building community through art amidst the jovial school rivalry.

“It’s not going to look like a typical gallery, but I think the point of it is to bring people together and to inspire artists to continue to make work, and I think that’s what it’s going to do,” Billordo said.

To prepare for the exhibition, Billordo drove to Yale to pick up art from Yale’s campus and collected art from Harvard’s artists in the days leading up to the show. The artists worked together to set up the gallery, each hanging their own pieces, as an opportunity to collaboratively create the joint display. The show even featured Billordo’s own art — a series of drawings, paintings, and sculptures — and she sang as part of the line-up of live musicians.

Bassist and lead vocalist of one of the performing bands, STRYK9, Chloe M. Becker ’25 remarked that it was great to see “art outside of standard AFVS classes.”

Fellow bandmate and guitarist Ethan W. Ocasio ’25 was fond of the collaboration and the community that the show provided.

“It’s great to meet other artists from Yale,” Ocasio said.

STRYK9’s punk rock sound enthralled a seated audience and accompanied the variety of pieces that graced the library. With the extensive display, there was a lot to see. The art show featured multiple mediums of art, as Billordo wanted to create a space for all visual artists to display their work. Short films, sculptures, charcoal drawings, paintings, and digital art drew the attention of both Harvard and Yale students, who mingled while they walked around the library.

As for the future of the Harvard x Yale Art Show, Billordo aims to take it to Yale’s campus in 2025 and hopes that art lovers will continue the tradition of togetherness through art at following Harvard-Yale weekends.

“The core of it is to inspire empathy and inspire new relationships, because that’s how we learn. It’s from one another,” she said.