Minnetrista Cultural Center and Ball State are showing that the Hoosier state has a unique history, as well as an interesting story to be told.
Students from Ball State have put together an exhibit at Minnetrista regarding Indiana's past. The program's director is Pamela Harwood, associate professor of architecture.
"Finding Indiana: Our Search for Place" is a display of objects around the state culled by students who participated in the Virginia B. Ball Center program for creative inquiry as part of the "Crossroads of America" program.
According to Juan Mendez, a senior urban planning major, the project took a semester to put together and people worked right up until the hour the display was to be opened. He said the class split into groups of two and three and broke up the state into about 10 sections to start researching.
"The first couple of weeks we had a bunch of authors and historians give background about Indiana," Mendez said.
Later in the program, students went out to investigate and interview people around Indiana to get more information about what has taken place in the past. Most of the research was conducted away from the university.
Mendez said once students were done collecting information and the different artifacts for the exhibit, they reconvened to compile their work into what would be the final result of the project.
"We had lots of stories and then had to try to come up with some kind of script," Mendez said. "Other people were in charge of multimedia functions, such as contacting the media."
He also said that Minnetrista was a great help in putting together the exhibit by donating many hours and members of its personal staff.
Those wishing to see this exhibit will get a chance to participate too. According to Mendez, those who wish to do so can write their own stories about Indiana or what the history of Indiana means to them. The stories are then put on display for other visitors to read. This way people can be part of the exhibit as well as view the other contributions students have made.
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