New art exhibit at Georgian College reverses student and teacher roles

The traditional roles are reversed in a new art exhibition on display at Georgian College.

On Thursday evening, the Campus Gallery held its opening reception for the faculty exhibition Re-emerge. It's a project done by students of the Museum and Gallery Studies program. As part of the class, the students curated the exhibition that features the work of 12 different faculty members.

"The theme for the work for this exhibition is really around remerging, coming out from the pandemic, what have the faculty members been making in isolation and then what's inspiring them as they come out of isolation," says Amy Bagshaw, the campus gallery director and the coordinator of the Museum & Galleries Studies program at Georgian College.

Throughout the process, each faculty member was paired with one or two students for the curation. It's one exercise of the program teaching the students critical skills in displaying artwork.

"This is a one-year experiential program that allows students to get hands-on experience in the campus gallery curating exhibitions as well as installing the exhibitions, working on the lighting, developing the labels, the overall theme and then, of course, hosting the event tonight," says Bagshaw.

The assignment was a big adjustment for the students, but it allowed them to see their professors in a new light.

"In the program, we are taught to work with different kinds of artists, but in this situation, we were working with our own faculty, so the ones who are teaching us are now a part of our business team, as you can say," says Adita Desai, a student in the program. "So we were the curators of our faculty's art, and we were not looking at them as our faculty, but we're looking at them as our clients."

The exhibition runs until February 5. It is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends.