At Wilton House Museum, art students calling shots as curators

Mark Robinson
Staff Writer

For the first time in its 56-year history, the Wilton House Museum has given curatorial powers to VCUarts undergraduate students.

Senior art history Shazia Aziz, junior art history Claire Bui and junior sculpture Andrew Schmidt will host a reception to debut their exhibit, “Get Found: Mapping Place and Time,” at the museum on Friday, April 15 from 6 to 8 p.m. Admission is free for VCU students with a valid I.D.

The exhibit navigates through the evolution of maps from the 18th to 21st century; it features historical maps from the Wilton House Museum’s collection, modern satellite imagery and cartography tools and devices from both time periods.

“We just want to get people more interested in old maps; a lot of people pass them over and don’t pay attention to the details,” Schmidt said. “We use maps every day; people don’t realize it.”

“Get Found” features interactive displays, comparisons of old topographical maps to new topographical maps and even a map of the universe.

Aziz, Bui and Schmidt developed the project in the “Museums in the 21st Century” course offered by the Art History Department last semester.

The class delves into the history of museum practices to help students develop knowledge and skills applicable to current issues in the museum profession.

Following individual proposals, students in the fall 2010 class were divided into six groups. Each group then conceptualized an exhibition and presented a proposal to the Wilton House Board of Directors.

Despite having the second smallest group in the class (half of their original group members dropped the class), the curators of “Get Found” were chosen for the feature.

Aziz, Bui and Schmidt were budgeted $8,000 dollars to complete the exhibit.

“Honestly, coming into the project, I had no idea how the behind-the-scenes aspects worked,” Bui said. “I’ve never had to write text labels or do proper formatting or display, so it’s been very interesting.”

The “Get Found” curators are hopeful that their exhibition at the Wilton House Museum will lead to other opportunities for undergraduate students to display their work.

“I know success will be measured by the crowd, or by how many people show up,” Aziz said. “But I think the success should be measured by how we’ve been able to implement this project from start to finish.”

“Get Found: Mapping Place and Time” will remain on display at the Wilton House Museum until Aug. 31.

For more information on the Get Found exhibit, or the Wilton House Museum, visit their website at www.wiltonhousemuseum.org.