Picturing Resilient Communities: OSU Museum of Art explores what was lost through time

May 22—The "Picturing Resilient Communities" art exhibit at the OSU Museum of Art contains photos that date back from the 20th century. The photos were taken spontaneously and were meant to give Americans a peek into the lives of minorities.

Amanda Weaver is one of the Oklahoma State University students who helped make the exhibit at the OSU Museum of Art. Weaver is an art history major who focuses on San Francisco, Chinatown, Jade dynasty and the Qing dynasty, and those are what drew her to art.

Weaver, Kate Battershell, Daniel Bonilla and Molly Johnson worked closely with the help of the Chinese community at OSU to put the exhibit together.

There was a lot of tourism in the early 20th century in San Francisco and Chinatown, and because of this, some people don't have any records of themselves.

"We kind of wanted to highlight the people who were lost in time," Weaver said. "We just wanted to celebrate the lives that we are able to see now."

The pictures in the exhibit are a part of the permanent collection of the OSU Museum of Art, and some of them are in a private collection.

Putting the exhibit together took four months. Weaver and the other students she was working with were doing this all during the busy school year. They divided the work up and laid it out in their collections at the museum just to see how others' parts would go together.

Weaver's favorite exhibit at the museum was a traveling exhibition called the "Carry Exhibition" that was borrowed and recently closed. A lot of the exhibitions come and go.

Casey Ihde is an alumna that became the marketing coordinator of the museum. The extraordinary building opened up after she graduated and gave her the opportunity of a lifetime.

Ihde is always delighted whenever a new exhibit opens up like the new one coming up that celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the museum.

"Having been here for all this time, getting to witness history in action has been really special," Ihde said. "Little highlights from collections that have been donated over the past and different artists who have been really meaningful people in our collection."

She's enthralled by photography and gets excited when the museum has photo exhibits such as the collection it has now. Ihde followed the entire process and took pictures to try and make people more excited to come.

"I want them to know how much fun these exhibits are and how you know they can really touch your life in different ways," Ihde said. "There's a different kind of something there for everybody."

She likes to see the students work and put together the exhibits themselves, because it lets students take the lead and think critically about the world around them.