Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Somali Exhibit Wins Award

Amina Abdulle and her daughter Hiloley in Banta in 1987. Both died in a refugee camp after fleeing Somalia's civil war.

A student-created museum exhibit about Somali Bantu immigrants in Maine that traveled to Museum L-A in Lewiston and was expanded to include the broader immigrant experience, won the Leaders in Innovation Award at the annual meeting of the New England Museum Association in November.

What began as a student project in a course taught by Anthropology Professor Catherine Besteman about the Somali Bantu experience turned into an award-winning museum exhibition. In conjunction with the Somali Bantu community in Lewiston, Maine, students created the Somali Bantu Experience: From East Africa to Maine—an exhibit that included photos, stories, and artifacts about immigrants in their homeland and in their adopted land.

The exhibition initially was displayed at the Colby College Museum of Art in 2008, and it later traveled to Museum L-A in Lewiston, Maine. There, with the help of Somali Bantu community leaders and Lewiston Adult Education, among others, a component was added called Rivers of Immigration: The Peoples of the Androscoggin. On display in Lewiston from Oct. 2009 to August 2010, it won the Leaders in Innovation Award at the annual meeting of the New England Museum Association in November.

A student-created website on the Somali Bantu experience, which includes audio stories, is available.

Source: Colby.edu

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