“Sophie, would you mind going to 1942? Try not to step on any rocks.”
Gary Vikan ’67, the Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor in Art History, is standing in the middle of the Braucher Gallery in Carleton’s Perlman Teaching Museum, leading a joint meeting of his “Art of the Exhibition” class and history professor Bill North’s “Carleton in the Archives” course. Sophie Buchmueller ’16 (Ann Arbor, Mich.) is about to tell the group about the World War II section she’s helping curate for a fall-term exhibition that will celebrate Carleton’s sesquicentennial by showcasing different eras of its history.
The gallery’s current exhibition, Crossings, is spacious and open, and the floor is littered with stones. But that’s not what Vikan sees as he describes dropped ceilings, passageways, and lighting. He’s visualizing his class’s handiwork for the fall exhibit: a journey through the college’s history that poignantly showcases how it has changed physically—yet has retained its unique character. Each stop will engage visitors’ senses with sights, sounds, and objects.
Formerly director of the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, Vikan is drawing on his experience to teach students how to take a broad topic—like Carleton’s 150-year history— and distill it into an intellectual, emotional, and sensory experience that conveys the institution’s core values. “We’re trying to anthropomorphize the college over time,” he says. “It’s like Carleton is a person who’s lived 150 years, but never got older than 22. The Dorian Gray of undergraduate life.”
The students’ challenge is to design a powerful experience for visitors, yet not overwhelm them. “It’s not a smorgasbord where you take some and leave some,” Vikan says, “but more like a five-course meal.”