IU Art Museum Student Docents @ Work to Display Pieces Surrounding Labor.

For this post Themester interviewed Hanwen Fan a sophomore Hutton Honors College Student Docent who gives tours on the Themester show “@ Work” at the IU Art Museum going on this semester. 

 

That is your role as a Hutton Honors College Student Docent?

My main project is to give a tour to the guests of the IU Art Museum’s show “@ Work” and to provide them more knowledge and information about works of art that were chosen to go along with the main theme of labor.  We relate different paintings to this one topic from all of the art museum’s areas different areas; especially the Chinese, Pacific, African, Egyptian and Western pieces of art.

There are 20-30 Student Docents that work throughout the year.  Docents mainly work together, I am the first shift and give information in the 4 or 5 on the Western level with my partner. I work the IUAM Coffeehouse Night and it focuses mainly on the first floor exhibit. Some docents give a tour of the entire exhibit that is spread out throughout the entire museum. In training we learn about all of the paintings that pertain to the exhibit.  We also show the paintings to art classes and hold the discussion section about the works.

How are people's reactions?

Yeah I think people really like the show “@Work” when I tell them the information on the background of the paintings they are very surprised. Sometimes the things I point out they have said that they would have never thought about. My friends have even said that they would never have known any of the information about the works of art if I had not shared it. I think it is very interesting tour, my econ professor even came to see the event.

Are there a wide variety of people that come to the IU Coffeehouse?

Yeah lots of different people come; my friends, professors and many other people

I am a History and Economics major I really like this topic and that they care about the different sections of the labor force. I am currently in a class about the 1940s-1970s and I can relate this information to that class which is really cool.

Allison Larmann 
2015 Intern