Student Guides and DMSAC members learning about exhibitions and artwork to develop public tours.
Campus Engagement
The Davis's encyclopedic collections form an extraordinary resource at the core of Wellesley’s rich liberal arts education. The Davis is committed to sustaining campus teaching and learning across academic disciplines and to providing global access to our collections and program resources online. The Davis collaborates with faculty, advising on incorporating gallery-based teaching into the curriculum and helping to craft object-based assignments that utilize the great diversity of artwork in our holdings. We also offer unique hands-on learning opportunities for Wellesley students—providing training and forging skills for a lifetime—including paid and volunteer positions.
Class Visits
Artist Fatimah Tuggar speaks to Professor Nikki Greene’s fall 2019 course “African Art: Powers, Passages, Performances” about Fai-Fain Gramophone (2010), which was acquired by the Davis this year.
The number of campus visits to the Davis was larger than ever in 2019, as we welcomed a whopping 1902 students comprising 101 Wellesley College classes. In addition to numerous sessions with Art History and Studio Art professors, faculty from across disciplines incorporated the Davis into their teaching, including: American Studies, Classics, Computer Science, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Economics, Education, English, French, History, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology, and Spanish. In addition to close study of objects in the permanent collections and temporary exhibitions, students had the opportunity to meet in small conversational groups with visiting artists Ann Parker, Sergio González-Tornero, Liliana Porter, Tabitha Soren, and Fatimah Tuggar..
Linda Wyatt Gruber '66 Curatorial Fellowship in Photography
Carrie Cushman, Linda Wyatt Gruber ’66 Curatorial Fellow in Photography, leading a class on Japanese Pop Culture in the Print Study at the Davis
During her first year as the Linda Wyatt Gruber ’66 Curatorial Fellow in Photography, Carrie Cushman mounted the exhibition, Bread and Roses: The Social Documentary of Milton and Anne Rogovin; led numerous class visits for the Art and East Asian Studies departments; facilitated the acquisition of photographic works from East Asia, her area of specialization; and presented her research at multiple academic conferences. Currently, Carrie is planning two exhibitions on vernacular photography that will be on view in the spring of 2020: one on snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Collection gift, and another on nineteenth-century studio portrait photography.
Natural dye workshop participants pick plants on the Wellesley campus during the Fatimah Tuggar: Time and Technology symposium.
Campus Collaborations
Campus partners are essential to the vibrant inter-disciplinarity of Davis programming. In February, for example, the Davis held the third annual Black History Month tour in collaboration with Harambee House. Ongoing collaborations with the Human Computer Interaction Lab on the potential applications for Augmented Reality (AR) in the Museum galleries hold exciting promise. The Wellesley Office of Religious and Spiritual Life co-sponsors the Davis’s Mindful Meditation series.
Many on campus contributed to the development of our exhibition Fatimah Tuggar: Home’s Horizons—from the diverse group of faculty and staff who participated in a seminar on art, race, gender, and technology, sponsored by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and hosted by the Newhouse Center for the Humanities; to a panel on extended reality projects with Tuggar co-sponsored by Media Arts and Sciences; to the major symposium, Fatimah Tuggar: Time and Technology, co-organized with the Paulson Ecology of Place Initiative, the Botanical Gardens, the Knapp Center, and the Newhouse Center for the Humanities. The project exemplified the Davis’s power as a driver of cross-disciplinary innovation and ingenuity at Wellesley.
Bark and Metal Tours
Four enterprising students—Sharon Liu ’17, Virginia White ’17, Ningyi Xi ’17, and Charlotte Yu ’17—developed the Bark and Metal Tour to create opportunities for the Wellesley community to discover more about the eco-systems and outdoor art they pass every day, including a series of talks on campus sculptures and nearby natural environments. Building on these materials, students from the Davis, Botanic Gardens, and Paulson Ecology of Place Initiative continue to provide "Bark and Metal" student training, as well as the interactive talks.
First Generation Students
The Davis hosts an annual event in early fall to welcome first generation college students at Wellesley. Members of the First Generation Network meet faculty and Davis staff who are also first generation college graduates, including Arthurina Fears, Curator of Education and Programs. In 2019, Fears led a tour for First Gen students to explore art that connected to their experiences of home and family.
