Academic Use of the Museum During the Fall Semester

This semester has been a whirlwind at the BCMA! Since arriving in August, Curator Casey Braun and Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow Sean Kramer have dived headlong into teaching.

The Museum has hosted seventy-eight individual class visits this semester from disciplines such as Art History, Economics, Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies, Russian, Francophone Studies, History, Visual Art, and Environmental Studies, to name a few. Many of these have been self-guided visits during which professors teach from Museum objects in the galleries and in the Zuckert Seminar Room, but Casey and Sean have also led classes on a range of topics themselves. Since both are new to the BCMA, each visit has doubled as an opportunity to learn more about what the Museum collects and stewards, how it operates, and how faculty perceive and use it as a resource.

Class visits have also proved to be an energizing way to meet students and faculty across campus. After professors complete a class visit request form on the BCMA website, Casey and/or Sean reach out directly to faculty to set joint expectations for the visit, discuss possible works of art to explore, and design activities to meet specific curricular goals. Often faculty come to the Museum for these meetings, but Casey and Sean have also paid house calls to Adams Hall, Sills Hall, Massachusetts Hall, the Visual Arts Center and more, which helps them get out of their offices and better familiarize themselves with campus. Some faculty have brought their classes to the Museum for years, and their lesson plans are well-oiled machines; others come with just a broad subject or concept they want to explore through works of art and work with Casey and Sean to co-develop a unique class session tailored to their initial ideas. The many conversations they have held in their offices or on campus so far this semester have included in topics from surrealism to museums’ collecting histories, friendship, crime, the environment, archaeological hoaxes, myth-making, and more.

In addition to bringing classes into the Museum, Casey and Sean have also been working with faculty and their students to curate exhibitions. The Museum’s history of collaboration with students in curation was a main draw as both independently considered their perspective roles on campus. This past semester, Casey has been helping facilitate Professor Carolyn Wolfenson Niego’s class “The Modern Worldview of the Andes: Art, Literature, Architecture, and the Environment,” as they develop the upcoming Becker Gallery exhibition Andean Modernities / Contemporary Art: Cultural Transformation in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. They have helped arrange conversations with and loans from contemporary artists, edit student-written labels, and develop public programs. Casey, Sean, and co-director Frank Goodyear have also been working with an Advanced Collaborative Study led by Professor Matthew Klingle, as his students prepare an exhibition in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Environmental Studies at Bowdoin.

Looking toward the future, Casey and Sean view transparency and accessibility as essential to successful collaboration with campus and community partners. A wish they have is for the Museum to be a space where students, faculty, staff, locals, visitors—anyone—feel welcome to reflect, study, and meditate in addition to engaging with works of art and participating in scheduled programs. As the spring semester approaches, Casey and Sean aim to further diversify the faculty and disciplines that visit with the Museum, while also meeting the specific needs of those who have long viewed the Museum as a key pedagogical resource and partner in teaching. With the curatorial team and campus partners, they also look forward to hosting dynamic workshops aimed at demonstrating the creative ways works of art can enrich classroom learning and student engagement with the Museum.

Through collaborative brainstorming and transparent communication with campus and community partners, Casey and Sean look forward to connecting the Museum and its collections with new audiences and serving faculty, students, and the public in the New Year and beyond.

 

Cassandra (Casey) Braun, Curator
Sean Kramer, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow
Bowdoin College Museum of Art

 

Illustration: A class meeting of Carolyn Wolfenson Niego’s students in “The Modern Worldview of the Andes: Art, Literature, Architecture, and the Environment”