Voyages of Wonder: Reggio Emilia Educators Explore The Age of Black Metal

MONTCLAIR, NJ — On Saturday, November 23, 2025, the George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University became a space of radical imagination as New Jersey Educators Exploring the Practices of Reggio Emilia (NJEEPRE) convened for “Voyages of Wonder: Exploring The Age of Black Metal Through the Eyes of a Child.” Organized by Gina Miele, faculty member in MSU’s Department of World Languages and Cultures and NJEEPRE executive board member, the four-hour professional development experience brought together educators from New Jersey’s public and private schools to engage with “The Age of Black Metal,” a visionary exhibition curated by Afrotectopia founder Ari Melenciano, through the lens of Reggio Emilia inspired practice. The program invited participants to explore the gallery as children do, guided by curiosity, sensory discovery, and open-ended inquiry. University Galleries Engagement and Outreach Manager Alyssa Leslie Villasenor worked closely with Miele to design Saturday’s experience for NJEEPRE educators and mentored the student educators who guided participants through the exhibition.

The event represented a powerful convergence of educational philosophies. Melenciano, who attended the gathering and spoke with the educators, later reflected on the unexpected resonance between Afrotectopia’s approach and Reggio Emilia principles: “A shared belief in pedagogy that begins as play — a rigorous yet porous method for imagination and inquiry,” she wrote. “Reggio Emilia centers the design of environments, forms of participation, and professional growth through organic, student-centered approaches. Values that deeply resonate with Afrotectopia. The creation of Black Metal, and much of Afrotectopia’s ethos overall, has been about designing the ‘container’ for imagination to thrive without a preset destination. Black Metal emerged from four aligned artists mind-melding and simply asking, ‘What’s possible?'”

Following the gallery experience, several participants who had traveled to Italy as part of an innovative Reggio Emilia immersion program (2024, 2025) at Montclair State shared reflections on how their international study informs their teaching practices. Through this program, designed and taught by Dr. Miele and Dr. Elizabeth Erwin (CEEL), two cohorts of MSU undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students have studied at the Loris Malaguzzi International Center in Reggio Emilia.

Miele has been engaged with progressive approaches to education, and Reggio Emilia in particular, since 2010. In 2016, she organized a widely attended panel on “The Reggio Emilia Approach: The U.S. School System’s Responses to an Italian Educational Philosophy” that drew educators from across New Jersey, covered extensively in La Voce di New York (Teaching by Observation, A Child Has a Hundred Languages). Saturday’s event attracted a similarly robust turnout, reflecting continued enthusiasm for child-centered pedagogy.

For more information about NJEEPRE, visit https://www.njeepre.org/. The Age of Black Metal is on view at the George Segal Gallery through December 14.