The exhibit “Inspiration and Imagination: Art Intersecting Anthropology” will open Tuesday, March 8, at noon at the Linfield Anthropology Museum in Walker Hall at Linfield College.
The exhibit will feature objects from Linfield’s anthropology collection and works of art inspired by these objects and created by art and visual culture students last fall. The exhibit offers a unique opportunity for art students to interact with ethnographic objects to create something completely original. It also offers anthropology students this semester a chance to install their first exhibition.
Students were asked to reinterpret a previous artist’s vision of something, in this case, a vision expressed in the form of an ethnographic object. After viewing the object, the student is meant to grapple with the question of what they are going to do with it, how are they going to react and what they want to say. The class was made of mostly non-art majors.
The prospect was a collaborative effort on the part of Keni Sturgeon, faculty curator, and Totem Shriver, adjunct professor of art and visual culture. The exhibit highlights cross-cultural collaboration that occurs when faculty and students come together with a shared purpose, Sturgeon said.
“This is exactly the sort of project that the collections in the Linfield Anthropology Museum should be used for,” she added.
The exhibit will be open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday until June.
Light refreshments will be served at the opening which will also feature Professors Amy Orr and Brian Winkenweder, department chairs. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Sturgeon at kenis@missionmill.org, 503-883-2596.
