Athens is known far and wide as a music town, and the collection at the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia is no exception. Students in Callan Steinmann’s spring 2025 Topics in Art Museum Education course spent much of their semester putting together the exhibition “Feel the Beat: Rhythm, Music and Movement.”
The exhibition, which runs from May 31 to Aug. 3, features works by 20 artists from around the world and explores the powerful connections between dance, music and visual art across cultures, histories and media.
Students selected works from the museum’s collection that reflect a range of ways in which artists have interpreted sound and movement. Some pieces celebrate the energy and joy of performing music, while others highlight its healing power. Artists include Woody Crumbo, Lamar Dodd, Ronnie Goodman, Francisco Goya, Wadsworth Jarrell, America Meredith, Art Rosenbaum, May Stevens, Arthur Tress and many others. As a whole, the exhibition creates an engaging sensory experience designed to captivate and inspire viewers.
Over the course of the semester, students collaborated closely to bring the exhibition to life by researching works of art, writing interpretive labels and developing an overarching curatorial vision centered on music. The class also created interactive features to encourage visitor participation. Visitors can listen to a Spotify playlist, play with a hands-on instrument activity station, write their own responses and take home a brochure that extends the experience beyond the gallery.
The exhibition was a major focus of the course, which introduces students to visitor-centered strategies in art museum education and interpretation. Steinmann is the museum’s head of education and curator of academic and public programs as well as a key part of UGA’s museum studies certificate program. She regularly teaches museum education and introduction to museum studies.
The student curators for “Feel the Beat” were Rainier Barfield, Noel Corbin, Isabela Doulatshahi, Cullen Doyle, Angelina Gladwin, Johnson Lin, Carley Rossano, Agustina Rovayo, Tallulah Sanders, Kaleb Santos-Felgenhauer and Kristen Spiros.