By Julene Thompson
Students are putting together their own exhibits at Museum of Peoples and Cultures.
Two students are curating the current exhibit, “Custom Made: Artifacts as Cultural Expression.”
The title plays off the idea of custom-made or made to order. “Peoples made these things to express their individuality often without even knowing it,” said Audrey Maldonado, 21, a senior majoring in European studies from Springfield Center, NY.
Audrey is one of the two student curators of the exhibit.
“I”m just taking this to get museum experience,” said Paul Stavast, 23. He is from Orem and studying archeology. Stavast is the other student curator.
To curate an exhibit for the Museum of people”s and cultures, students are required to take three archeology classes.
They are taken one at a time consecutively in the fall and winter semesters and the following spring term, said Marti Lu Allen, director of the Museum of People”s and cultures.
In the first class we learn about collections laws and processes, said Stavast.
In the second class we learn how exhibits are made and how to form a thesis.
And for our last class we learn how to educate people in a museum environment and how people learn in different age groups.
“Most museums cater to 5th graders but we cater to adults assuming parents or scout leaders will help the kids,” said Allen.
“We try to gear toward college people which is our biggest audience,” said Maldonado.
“We accommodate the community as well with programs for scout troups and families,” Stavast added.
“Students mainly come if assigned. It”s a pity that not more of the University comes for leisure,” said Maldonado.
Items for the exhibit came from many different sources.
“Some donors gave humungous collections,” said Maldonado.
Some of the items came from private donors like the BYU religion department and the BYU archeology field school.
The objects from the field school were excavated in the late 70s early 80s.
Maldonado and Stavast filtered through all the items and chose the best.
“What is in the exhibit is only a shadow of what the museum actually has,” said Maldonado.
The work was hard but often fun for the student curators.
“I loved dealing with the pottery and textiles,” said Maldonado. “Things were passed down through so many generations.”
“I like the technologies that people used and seeing the results of what they call “primitive techniques,” said Stavast. “There is a quality to things that were handmade. You see a lot more of the person who made and it leaves more of an impression on you.”
The students started working on the exhibit in September 2001, said Allen. They have a great mentoring situation.
Allen spends about eight contact hours with the students a week and they also get contact hours with other professors.
