Every year, students from the University of Toronto’s Museum Studies Program create exhibition projects as part of their coursework. Typically, students collaborate with a partner institution to create an exhibit on a topic related to art, culture, history, or science. From the planning stage in September, through the exhibit launch in the spring, students gain experience with a variety of tasks such as interpretive planning, installation, project management, budgeting, graphic design, event planning, and promotion. As an alternative to a masters’ thesis, these projects represent an enormous investment of time and critical thought.
DisplayCase is an online platform which showcases these projects. It is a professional way for students to show their work to employers and colleagues. It acts as a record and allows current and potential students to learn from the previous years.
History
Heather Anderson and Martha Kroeker developed the idea for DisplayCase in 2010. They attended a talk given by Robert Janes, where he chatted about the challenges museum professionals faced with publishing their work. They designed the original website which ran off of Omeka.
In 2017 the website was revamped by Orvis Starkweather. They migrated the content to WordPress and added new features such as the map and sorting functions.
People
Previous instructors and teaching assistants include:
2008 – 2009: Taught by Cheryl Meszaros
2009 – 2010: Taught by Matt Brower and Jennifer Carter
2010 – 2011: Taught by Matt Brower
2011 – 2012: Taught by Matt Brower
2012 – 2013: Taught by Matt Brower
2013 – 2014: Taught by Matt Brower
2014 – 2015: Taught by Matt Brower with Chaya Litvack and Rebecca Noone as teaching assistants
2015 – 2016: Taught by Matt Brower and Carmen Victor with Rebecca Noone as the teaching assistant
2016 – 2017: Taught by Matt Brower with Rebecca Noone and Hillary Walker Gugin as teaching assistants
2018 – 2019: Taught by Matt Brower and Carmen Victor with Hillary Walker Gugin and Camille-Mary Sharp as the teaching assistants
2019 – 2020: Taught by Agnieszka Chalas with Camille-Mary Sharp and Haley Bryant as the teaching assistants