Movement/s, a student-curated exhibition, will be displayed at the Media Arts Gallery until May 3. The exhibition features photographs and visual art by Boston-based artists that all explore the idea of motion—physical, emotional, and political.

The exhibition was put together by 14 students in the Curatorial Practices class, a visual and media arts seminar taught by affiliated faculty Dr. Leslie Brown. Throughout the course, students learn the ins and outs of art curation, and put together an exhibition at the end of the semester.

As an independent curator, Brown typically works alone to curate an exhibition, which can be a lengthy process. However, with 14 students dividing the duties of selecting pieces, connecting with artists, securing artwork, and constructing the necessary pieces, the entire process can fit into a semester.

“It takes a village to put on an exhibition—there’s lots more that goes into doing something like this than most people think,” Brown said. “But they’re realizing how much fun and joy and creativity you can have with it.”

On Friday, each of the 14 students will give a speech about one of the works of art displayed. As a curator, Brown thinks that the best part of curatorial work is being able to establish connections with artists and the art they create.

“The best part is having the work show up—it’s like opening up Christmas presents,” Brown said. “Oftentimes it’s even better than what you thought it would be, creating these dialogues and seeing it come to fruition.”

The course was created by former Emerson curator-in-residence Joseph Ketner in 2008. Initially, the course was focused on graduate students from different art school programs in the Boston area, but it developed over the course of a decade into a course that gives undergraduate students at Emerson hands-on experience with curating an exhibition.

Sadly, Ketner died of cancer in 2018. James Manning, Emerson Contemporary’s exhibitions manager, worked closely with Ketner during his time at Emerson. He believes Ketner’s work has been instrumental in integrating studio art into the college’s curriculum.

“He had a vision of Emerson students actually curating an exhibit from the ground up, and he built this whole course to give students that experience,” Manning said. “I think it’s very unique for Emerson to do this kind of show.”

Manning has worked on all 10 exhibitions created by the Curatorial Practices students over the years, which includes Movement/s. He believes the course offers a rare opportunity for Emerson students to work with studio art, which is underrepresented in Emerson’s film-heavy curriculum.

“We’ve had well over 100 emerging artists exhibit in these shows, and we’ve had almost as many student curators getting experience and learning first-hand what goes into these shows,” Manning said.

These opportunities are not only for curation, as three of the artists whose work is displayed are current Emerson students: Mia Cassidy, Jiayi Ma, and Mason Vaughan.

Bea Downey, a junior media arts production student at Emerson, first became interested in curation after taking an art history course while studying abroad in the Kasteel Well program. They were initially interested in production design for film sets, but realized these skills fit into the world of art curation, too.

“I realized that it was a job I’ve been doing my whole life without realizing,” Downey said. “I’ve always been decorating—as a kid, I would print art on my parents’ printer to put on my wall and I’d use all their ink. I’ve always been super interested in taking other people’s art and putting it together in the same room.”

Downey also works at the Media Art Gallery, where they work alongside Manning as a gallery associate. While the Curatorial Practices course has been a significant part of their arts education, they say classes like it that offer hands-on experience are very rare.

“It has been very hard to complete an art history minor at Emerson because they are not offering the classes we need to complete the minors,” Downey said. “I think this class is so, so, so, so important because you’re not going to find this opportunity anywhere else.”

Brown likens curating an exhibition to directing a film, or “creating art with other people’s art.” She encourages students not directly interested in studio art to try their hands at curation, as she believes the skills of picking artworks to go together and the networking required to maintain connections with artists can be transferred to any walk of life.

“I’m really proud of the exhibition and I’m really proud of the students,” Brown said. “Everybody did a great job, and I think it really gelled together—it’s timely and it’s topical. I can’t wait for people to see it.”