Teaching Museum

Interdisciplinary research and innovation

Programs for Students and Faculty
In a gallery, a group of university students sit on chairs in a semi-circle in front of a large, intricate embroidery that hangs from the ceiling in front of them. The students are focused on small stitching projects. They hold squares of felt in their hands. Some extend their arms while pulling stitches, others work on threading their needles.

In 2012, the Jean and Francis Chubb Endowment for Teaching and Learning was established. This initiative positions the Owens as a “teaching museum” and important site for interdisciplinary research and innovation at Mount Allison.

Since the creation of the endowment, the Owens has collaborated with faculty in Art History, Canadian Studies, Commerce, English, Fine Arts, Geography and Environment, History, Modern Languages, Music, Religious Studies, and Visual and Material Culture Studies, finding points of intersection between the exhibitions and collections at the Owens and various fields of study. The Owens was instrumental in the creation of Mount Allison’s Museum and Curatorial Studies Minor and we continue to support the program through teaching and experiential learning.

Course enrichment sessions take many forms and may integrate discussion-based, hands-on, whole class, small group, and self-directed approaches.

In an art conservation lab, a group of students stand around a large table covered in quilted fabric listening to gallery Preparator, Roxie Ibbitson. Displayed on the table are nine large works on paper by Mary Pratt that depict images of food.
Teaching Museum Class Visits
In a gallery, a group of university students stand around their professor who is holding up a print. Many more prints protected by mat board sit on the table in the centre of the room.
Teaching Museum Class Visits
A group of university students sit on the floor and on folding stools drawing objects displayed in glass cabinets. The cabinets hold various specimens including animal bones, shells and fossils. A far cabinet displays a standing human skeleton.
Teaching Museum Class Visits
In front of the Owens Art Gallery, four adults sit, drawing and looking at the plants in the garden.
Class Visits
A student looks at a painting through a microscope. Behind them a cabinet holds camera equipment and a pastel drawing of a child sits on an easel.
Class Visits
Two hands hold a small photocopied zine on green paper. The two page spread uses collaged images with hand written text to read “Start planning today, Understand! Internal controls. IT environment.” next to an illustration of a person holding a bag of money and the words “the client”.
Zine Library Class Visits
In a gallery, students sit drawing. In the foreground of the image, a rose made of ceramic and metal sits on a low plinth close to the floor.
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A group of students surround a table in the art conservation lab. Their attention is focused on Lucy MacDonald, as she turns the page of an artist book.
Class Visits

Resources that support teaching include the Gallery’s permanent collection, our video archive Owens TV, and in-house publications and exhibition catalogues.

The permanent collection contains over 4,000 works of art encompassing painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and multimedia by Canadian and international artists. The collection spans the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries with new acquisitions made each year.

Owens TV is a dedicated Vimeo channel that presents an extensive archive of artist talks, lectures, interviews, and behind-the-scenes features. There are currently more than 100 videos available, highlighting creative practices that explore wide-ranging topics, including gender, queer culture, Indigenous ways of knowing, protest, disability studies, feminism, the environment, plastic pollution, place, landscape, and memory. Most of the videos on Owens TV have been captioned.

The Owens publishes catalogues to accompany exhibitions. These richly illustrated, high-quality publications feature essays by curators and guest writers. Selected publications are available in digital format.

Our role as a teaching museum is extended through numerous work-integrated experiential learning and internship opportunities in all facets of museum of work for current students and recent graduates. The Owens has a long-standing commitment to the mentorship of emerging museum professionals.

A group of students stand in a paint vault, watching as their professor motions to a painting. In front and behind them are rows upon rows of sliding panels, filled with paintings. One panel is pulled out into the centre of the room.