The student showcase for Seeing Material Culture at Mizzou is now on display in the Ellis Library Colonnade. This semester’s Honors Tutorial, “Get Real, Go Places! Let Objects Take You There,” focused on the study of material culture, specifically the opportunities for research that objects and artifacts make possible.
Students interpreted, inspected, and wrote about objects through sketchbook journals, weekly syntheses, and a culminating analysis. The course is taught by Dr. Sarah Buchanan of the iSchool and by campus gallery, library, archive, and museum professionals who belong to the Material Culture Studies Group.
This exhibit features 22 objects created by eight undergraduate students, each based on a class visit to a particular collection.
Items on display include a mixed media booklet and a collage depicting horticulture in the Mizzou Botanic Garden, digital art based on a Harriet Frishmuth sculpture from 1920 at the Museum of Art and Archaeology, clay art based on a Beulah Ecton Woodard terra cotta from 1937-38 also at the Museum of Art and Archaeology, drawings inspired by clothing in the Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Collection and by artwork in the State Historical Society of Missouri, poetry, reflections on letterpress as seen during the Bingham Art Gallery visit, and drawings inspired by objects in the Museum of Anthropology and in Special Collections and Rare Books, among others.
Complementing the student work are two apparel items from the Missouri Historic Costume and Textile Collection and two musical scores from Special Collections and Rare Books.