The Christian Petersen Art Museum has opened its spring exhibition called “Creating Global Understanding,” in which eight programs within the World Languages and Cultures Department each curated a different area of art pieces that displayed in the museum in Morrill Hall earlier this semester.

The American Indian Studies program, the Chinese Studies program, the Classical Studies program, the French program, the German program, the Russian Studies program, the Spanish program and the U.S. Latino/a Studies program all donated their time and effort towards this exhibition.

To follow the opening of this exhibit, from 5-6 p.m. Thursday in the Christian Petersen Art Museum of Morrill Hall, there will be a “Roundtable Discussion: Creating Global Understanding” in which five contributors to this exhibition will discuss their experiences in the collaboration and creation of this exhibit.

The five speakers consist of:

– William Carter, associate professor of German.

– Adrienne Gennett, University Museums associate curator.

– Rachel Meyers, assistant professor of classical studies.

– Lucia Suarez, irector of U.S. Latino/a Studies and associate professor of Spanish.

– Michele Schaal, associate professor of French and women’s and gender studies.

Lilah Anderson, program coordinator of University Museums, said this event is an opportunity for a more in depth discussion over the different perspectives of the faculty involved in the exhibition. She said speakers will talk about collaborating with other departments and the museum, how different pieces were chosen and what it was like to write about the pieces.

“They will talk about the experiences they had while working on this project,” Anderson said. “It will be a behind the scenes look at how this exhibition came together.”

Anderson said the event will consist of these five speakers discussing their different perspectives, asking each other questions about their work and then giving the audience an opportunity to ask questions as well.

Anderson also said this event is an amazing opportunity for students and community members to see how these different faculty members at Iowa State collaborated on a very diverse project.

“I think for students especially, seeing faculty working on different projects and having different partnerships and getting to ask them questions about it, will give students an interesting inside look,” Anderson said. “For us at the museum, we are always hopeful that this is an example of an experience where you can gain a different perspective when coming into a museum space.”

This event is free to the public, and students can register for this event here.

This exhibition was co-curated and organized by Gennett and Schaal. Support for this exhibition was given by the World Languages and Cultures Department, the American Indian Studies program, the International Studies program, the Office of the Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion and the Women’s and Gender Studies program.