Young artists imagine a place of belonging at North Bethesda’s Strathmore
Multimedia installation transforms mansion into meditation on safety, identity and connection
By
Jacqueline KalilJune 11, 2026 4:21 p.m.
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Where do young people go to feel safe?
It’s a question that nine young artists, including two recent Montgomery County high school graduates, are tackling in a multimedia installation on Sunday at North Bethesda’s Mansion at Strathmore.
“We’re trying to create a forum to talk without the interference of technology, modern technology, and everything that’s going on around us politically,” said Noah Morris, 18, one of the Montgomery County fellows.
“Sanctuary of Solace” is the culminating project of Strathmore and the Washington, D.C.-based Woolly Mammoth Theatre Co.’s 2026 Arts and Social Justice Fellowship (ASJF).
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The fellowship, now in its fifth year, pairs high school students from the Washington, D.C. area with professional artists and mentors to explore creative expression and social justice themes. The program runs from January through July and, this year, culminates with a five-room exhibition displaying how different communities within the Washington area have found solace.
Morris, a Montgomery Village resident and graduate of Classical Conversations, a Christian homeschool program, brings a historical lens to the project. A rising American University freshman majoring in international relations, he examines how the DMV’s past illuminates its present. “History gives us more of a basis for what’s going on in modern day,” he said. “It can really explain and sort of unravel all the different parts of our society.”
Rihanna Pabai, 18, of Rockville, approaches the theme differently — through a documentary film, which will be screened at the exhibit. A recent graduate of Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Pabai recorded community members sharing their feelings about third spaces and belonging.
“Arts and social justice are things I’ve always cared deeply about,” said Pabai. “As a student, there’s so much focus on academics that I often find myself neglecting many of my passions.”
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The installation will be on view during a pay-what-you-can event Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. at the mansion at 10701 Rockville Pike. The five-room exhibition explores themes of identity, home, safety and community, with a focus on the disappearance of third spaces — informal gathering spots where people can connect without having to spend money. Scenic elements including recreations of teenage bedrooms ground the more abstract themes in intimate, recognizable environments.
A fellowship born from a rock opera
The Arts and Social Justice Fellowship grew from an unlikely pivot. In 2020, Woolly Mammoth, a Washington, D.C.-based theater company known for contemporary productions that tackle social and political themes, and Strathmore were co-presenting Parable of the Sower. The COVID-19 pandemic forced a delay of the stage adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s landmark Afrofuturist novel, created by mother-daughter duo Bernice Johnson Reagon and Toshi Reagon.
Rather than simply rescheduling, Toshi Reagon challenged both organizations to rethink their approach. “How can you rise to the level of community engagement this story requires?” asked Reagon, according to Lauren Campbell, Strathmore’s vice president of education and community engagement, who oversees the program.
The answer was a youth fellowship built around the novel’s central character, a teenage girl named Lauren Oya Olamina who leads her community through crisis. When the show finally opened in 2021, the first fellowship cohort followed in 2022. Now in its fifth year, the program draws applications from high schoolers across the DMV — growing from roughly 25 applicants in its first year to 70 in its most competitive cycle.
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This year’s nine fellows were selected from a competitive pool, submitting essays, videos or audio recordings about their artistic disciplines and their relationship to activism. In a first, the cohort tackled a single group project rather than individual ones — a challenge Campbell said has paid off. “Nine of them came together and figured out how to do something collectively,” she said. “It’s coming together so beautifully.”
The cohort’s project idea emerged organically from their weekly workshops and group discussions. “This is something that we all just had a discussion about, and it was something that we all thought should be shed light on, and we just grew on that idea,” Pabai said. Fellows with musical theater backgrounds also helped shape the exhibition’s look and feel, drawing on their experience with set design and staging.
Campbell is clear the program’s power lies in its partnership model. Strathmore and Woolly Mammoth staff meet nearly every week and that close collaboration between two very different institutions is fully intentional. “The health of that collaboration is a mirror for how we want the students to learn to collaborate with each other,” she said. “The world needs people who can wrestle with the difficulty of collaboration.”
The fellows are also supported by working artist mentors between the ages of roughly 25 and 40 — a relationship Campbell describes as reciprocal. “We’re really trying to surround them and amplify the wisdom they have to bring,” she said. “We’re learning from them more than they’re learning from us.”
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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine