Exhibition: Penn in the World

huliq.com

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has built its reputation both as a sponsor of groundbreaking fieldwork, and a center for research and education. It is fitting, then, when developing an exhibition about its 120-plus years of growth and change, the Museum invited Penn students to research and shape the story.

PENN IN THE WORLD: Twelve Decades at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, is an exhibition organized by nine undergraduate and graduate students from an interdisciplinary Halpern-Rogath Curatorial Seminar in Penn's Department of the History of Art. PENN IN THE WORLD tells the still-evolving story of Penn Museum, its majestic building and the grand, often groundbreaking international work carried out by the archaeologists, anthropologists, other scholars and educators within. PENN IN THE WORLD runs through September 28, 2008, in the Museum's William B. Dietrich Gallery.

The exhibition brings together a kaleidoscope of materials from Penn Museum's own vast archives and collections, the University of Pennsylvania archives, and the Architectural Archives. Using historic photographs, original documents, architectural drawings, and a selection of about 30 artifacts from more than a dozen of the Museum's most renowned expeditions—as well as short footage from the 1950s TV program "What in the World," and an interactive research kiosk—PENN IN THE WORLD weaves together diverse narratives of the Museum's long history.

The Expeditions section of the exhibition covers 400 different expeditions including Memphis in Egypt.