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Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14648/24

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    Chapter 18: Learning on Display: Student-Curated Art History Exhibitions in the Academic Library
    (Association of College and Research Libraries, 01/01/2024) Girard, Catherine; Krause, Rose Sliger; Murphy, Maggie
    This chapter discusses a collaborative model we, an academic librarian and an art history professor, developed to embed the active learning of students with the visual in repurposed library spaces during a one-term art history course. Together, we coordinated the production of five exhibitions by undergraduate students at Eastern Washington University, a comprehensive regional university nestled in rural Washington State, between 2018 and 2020. Driven by a principle of inclusivity, we designed a model that is attuned to the limited resources of arts and humanities programs in public institutions and supports meaningful interactions with artworks without having access to an art collection or proper exhibition space. We stimulated student engagement by centering the exhibitions around topical themes, such as consent and structures of gender-based exclusion, and by giving them access to and agency over physical spaces traditionally controlled by librarians. Drawing on the librarian’s curatorial experience and on the faculty’s background in critical theory, our presentation will provide colleagues with the tools to replicate and adapt this model. First, we will present the theoretical foundations on which we built our collaborative approach. For the librarian, this project allowed her to embrace the rise of engagement as a prime concern in library studies and to shift her role from gatekeeper to facilitator. For the faculty, a project-based assignment aligned with the principles of critical pedagogy and calls to decolonize the discipline that have become central to her practice. The techniques implemented in the classroom to adequately prepare all students to produce creative displays about the visual focused on growing what Shari Tishman calls their “self-awareness as observers.” In the second part of our presentation, we will address the operational and instructional considerations required to make a library space welcoming to student contributions. From utilizing display equipment and supplies already on-hand, like book stands and plexiglass sign holders in standard sizes, to helping students find creative solutions to install their hand-made artifacts and improve the visual impact of their display, our practical remarks will emphasize the benefits of adopting a truly collaborative approach between the librarian, faculty, and students. In conclusion, we will offer thoughts on the epistemological impact of relinquishing some of our control, as educators, over the content and methods of our courses, and of the importance of welcoming student disruptions to our hegemony over academic discourses and institutional spaces.