Project Director: Joanna Inglot, Art History
Part of our 2021/2022 DLA Faculty Fellows Cohort

Digital technologies are dramatically changing the field of art history and pedagogical approaches in the discipline. We are observing dramatic shifts towards new digital applications in publishing, archiving practices, and producing online exhibitions and virtual curatorial projects. These new applications proved particularly important during the Covid-19 pandemic, when public interest in online and virtual exhibitions soared, offering remarkable alternatives to in-person viewing and interactions with art. While immersive exhibitions in museums are based on extremely sophisticated, state-of-the art digital projection technology, there are many new programs and methods that can help independent curators and scholars make walk-through virtual projections to disseminate their scholarship and to advance curatorial projects outside of the official museum or gallery networks. As college professor and curator, I am greatly interested in learning how to make virtual exhibitions. 

As an expert in contemporary art with focus on gender studies, I am currently doing research that explores oppression of feminist and the LGBTQPAI+ art in Eastern Europe and post-Soviet world. Many alternative contemporary artists working in this region are being censored by repressive regimes and in mainstream art institutions. Since it is very difficult, or at times entirely impossible, for these artists to exhibit in their own country, I decided to curate a virtual exhibition to document and disseminate their work globally. As a Macalester DLA Faculty Fellow, I would like to focus on featuring a select group of artists and to use it as a foundation for a larger project that I hope to continue during my sabbatical next year. 

I have previously worked only with Google Sketchup, but now I would like to learn new programs, such as Artsteps, Lightroom, ThingLink, Matterport to create immersive 3D art viewing experiences, which include walk-throughs, video and audio elements, and possible interview rooms where the viewers can meet with the featured artists to listen to their experiences.

I plan to bring this content to my art history course on Globalization and Contemporary Art this fall and to work with students in class on related virtual curatorial projects. Students are learning aspects of these new digital art history technologies with me, sharing their ideas, insights, and providing valuable feedback throughout this process.