Hands On, Hands Off: Managing a Student Exhibition

Abstract

Building a coherent, provocative exhibit is difficult enough with one curator at the helm, but in Spring 2016, I signed up to oversee an exhibit that was developed, curated, designed, installed, and promoted entirely by 21 undergraduate students. Working as an embedded librarian in a course on the historical and changing nature of print media, I helped guide students through their final project: a fully-realized, three-case exhibit controlled entirely by them. Though I walked into the experience with clear goals (and plans to achieve them), I did not anticipate some of the challenges that teaching and managing mass curatorship would entail.