This spring was a banner semester for class visits to the Museum of Art. Nearly fifty unique classes visited the museum representing two dozen departments and programs across the disciplines on Bowdoin’s campus. A selection of portfolios highlighting some of the 1500+ objects used in the Zuckert Seminar Room during class visits this semester is featured online on at http://artmuseum.bowdoin.edu/kiosk/classp.htm Many of these classes made repeat visits to the Museum over the course of the semester. Below are some of the exciting projects and discussions that occurred this past spring.

Students in Lauren Kohut’s course “Descendants of the Sun: The Inca and Their Ancestors” (ANTH 2830 / LAS 2730), used digital imaging to create 3D models of Peruvian vessels in the collections of the Museum of Art, as well as several from the Bates College Museum of Art brought to Bowdoin through a generous class loan. In the process of creating their 3D models, students gained new insights into their vessels, and into the cultures that created them. Among them, student Niki Bothwick ’20 discovered that a Chimu vessel in the Bowdoin collection had a concealed hole and was a type of whistling vessel that originally made noise when filled with liquids. More information about this exciting class can be found at https://www.bowdoin.edu/news/2019/05/making-khipus-and-pots.html

Jim Higginbotham’s “Pottery in Archaeology” (ARCH 3304) met weekly in the Museum to make use of the museums outstanding collection of Greek vases and ceramics. Throughout the semester, students pursued a variety of methodologies to examine objects closely in the Zuckert Seminar Room, including microscopic analysis and Reflectance Transformation Imaging. For their final project, students curated and presented thematic installations of objects on themes such as drinking and banqueting in Greek culture, on race and representation, and on the evolution of the Gorgon in Greek ceramics. 

Students in Susan Wegner’s “Mannerism” course (ARTH 2240) curated a “pop-up” exhibition on a series of prints from the workshop of the leading Dutch engraver Hendrik Goltzius. Titled The Women of Ovid: The Struggle for Power, this student installation focused on the role and representation of women in Goltzius’s designs for a series of engravings based on the Metamorphoses, a first century poem in Latin by the Roman poet that was a touchstone among Renaissance authors and artists. A portfolio of the prints selected by the students is featured on the museum’s website. During the April installation in the Zuckert Seminar Room, students discussed their works and engaged across the disciplines, with special visits by students in Barbara Boyd’s classes “The Transformations of Ovid” (CLAS 2241) and “Ovid’s Metamorphoses” (LATN 3302).

Students in the class “Database Design & Applications,” (CSCI 2340) offered by new faculty member Stacy Doore, spent the semester working in teams on an initiative aimed at developing new models and strategies for the Museum to make the Bowdoin Gallery accessible for visually-impaired visitors. Students collaborated to collect data and develop a database of the Renaissance-era work on view there. They also created a smartphone app to deliver information about those works, and gallery navigation aids for blind and low vision visitors. At the end of the semester, students made presentations on their work and offered demos of this project to members of the Museum staff and Bowdoin’s Accessibility Committee. Professor Doore hopes to build on the success of this semester through future iterations of the project. 

Sean P. Burrus, Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Curatorial Fellow