The Creative Bridge: Hopkins and Yali-Peicui Students Create a Shared Canvas

Sunlight streams into Hopkins art teacher Austin Casebolt’s capacious art classroom, and a soft jazz playlist murmurs in the background as nine Hopkins students settle in to paint five panels of an iconic American painting.

Meanwhile, across the ocean in China, students at Hopkins’ sister school Yali-Peicui are completing the corresponding canvas. Under the guidance of Casebolt, Hopkins Modern Language Department Chair Lan Lin, and Yali art teacher Le, these panels will be merged into a single completed work, a cross-cultural initiative that connects young artists through a unified composition.

The city of New Haven and Hopkins School established a sister city partnership with Changsha, China, in 2017, building on Yale University’s relationship with China dating back to 1901. Since then, Hopkins and the Yali-Peicui School in Changsha have participated in numerous collaborative programs. Most notably, the partnership includes reciprocal student and faculty exchanges every other year during March vacation: Hopkins students travel to Changsha, while a group of Yali-Peicui students visits Hopkins.

“There is something profoundly meaningful in students working together across distance, engaging the same image with care and intention, each contributing to a larger, shared vision,” reflected Casebolt.

Participating Hopkins students were Simi B. ’28, Maia C. ’28, Fereol F. ’26, Ava K. ’26, Livia L. ’26, Moupriya M. ’26, Elyssa P. ’28, Seren S. ’29, and Teyanna W. ’27. Together, the students recreated a piece called Looking Up the Yosemite Valley (1865) by Albert Bierstadt, a central artist in the late 19th century who is renowned for his landscapes that capture the grandeur of the American West.

According to Casebolt, the work serves as a foundation for technical study and artistic interpretation. For Hopkins art student Ava K., it was exciting to know that the paintings will eventually be united.

“It’s thrilling to know that so far away, students are working on the exact same painting, awaiting our pieces to complete the puzzle,” she said. “It’s difficult to collaborate on a single canvas, but more rewarding to see the finished square once assembled.”

This collaboration between sister schools marks the second piece of artwork created between Yali-Peicui and Hopkins art students. In 2018, under the guidance of Casebolt’s predecessor, Peter Ziou, the students recreated the traditional Chinese scroll A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains by Wang Ximeng. In the fall of 2018, the Yali-Peicui students brought their half of the mural to Hopkins when they visited—a mural that still hangs in Casebolt’s classroom today.

“I felt like having students paint [A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains] was to form another connection that was beyond cultural; it’s also very human,” said Art Department Chair Bobby Smith.

Casebolt was quick to credit Ziou with having the vision to create the artistic partnership between schools.

“Peter Ziou’s work helped establish and strengthen the relationship between the Hopkins and Yali-Peicui art programs,” Casebolt said. “I stepped into teaching fine art at Hopkins following his retirement, so it felt important to continue that exchange, but also to honor the sense of artistic and academic continuity at Hopkins School.”

Art student Fereol F. reflected on the significance of the collaboration.

“When Yali-Peicui gave us their painting, they shared with us a piece of their culture,” he said. “Working on this project felt like an opportunity to return the gesture while sharing a piece of our culture with them.”

The project was further enriched with the collaboration of the Haggin Museum in Stockton, California, which houses the original Bierstadt painting. According to Casebolt, the museum supported the initiative by providing high-resolution visual resources of the artwork, enabling students to engage with the work on a deeper level of accuracy and understanding.

“Students were able to closely study brushwork, compositional structure, and subtle shifts in color that would be nearly impossible to observe through standard reproductions,” Casebolt said. “That level of access encouraged students to think more carefully about how paintings are physically constructed. The collaboration with the Haggin Museum has transformed the project into a form of close visual research.”

After an entire semester of the students approaching the colossal painting with technical sensitivity, the finished panels now await shipment across the sea to the Yali-Peicui School in China. There, they will go on permanent display.

“This project speaks to the enduring relevance of artistic practice as a bridge, connecting students not only to shared traditions, but to a broader, more interconnected world,” said Casebolt.