Working in collaboration with the No-Freeze Shelter in Willimantic, students in Professor Gail Gelburd’s Museum and Exhibitions class at Eastern Connecticut State University are curating the museum exhibit, “Displaced: Perspectives from Within.” The exhibition runs until Jan. 30, 2014, in the Student Art Gallery in Shafer Hall, Room 114.
The exhibition includes art created by Eastern students and young students from other towns; its main focus is work created by guests of the No-Freeze Shelter in Willimantic. The students in the class met with homeless men and women at the shelter and gave them cameras and art supplies. This gave the guests an opportunity to share their perceptions of being homeless and their life in Willimantic. The exhibition is accompanied by information about homelessness in America.
Students in the course devised the theme and conducted the research. They were divided into museum departments and curated the works, condition reported, catalogued and labeled the images, prepared accompanying educational programming, promoted the exhibition, managed the budget, and then designed the exhibition, the flyers, didactics and labels. They worked as a team to carefully install the exhibition and open it up for public viewing. For a video on the process the students used, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2_hwaar5Wo&feature=youtu.be.