Mathers Museum inspires visitors with cultural exhibits

It is a dimly lit room coated with lime green walls and lined with antiques and vases. Sixties-style furniture finished with green and orange paint fills the room while a typewriter, fondue set and rotary dial phone are scattered throughout.\nNo, this is not the worst designed dorm room on campus, but rather one of the many exhibits on display at the William Hammond Mathers Museum of World Cultures.\nThe museum has been helping Bloomington residents understand more about different cultures since it was started in 1983.\n“We are all a part of one larger community,” said the museum’s assistant director, Judy Kirk. “All humans share one thing: we are creatures of culture, who we are depends on our cultural traditions.”\nKirk and the museum staff want visitors to get a sense of the common threads that bind people together, regardless of culture or background.\n“When they come to the museum, they have to meet other people and other places of the world but also make some sort of connection to another group,” Kirk said. “They are similar as well as different. That’s an underlying motive we have here: we all have the same kind of problems to contend with – the range of the human experience.”\nFacilities coordinator Kelly Wherley said the museum serves to broaden people’s perspective on community.\n“We try to enhance appreciation for different culture across the globe and also an appreciation for culture and human phenomenon. We’re all different, but we’re all the same,” Wherley said. \nThe museum has two main exhibits and several smaller ones. The largest is entitled “Thoughts, Things, and Theories” and gives information and background on how culture affects individuals. The Wanamaker Collection documents Native American life at the beginning of the 20th century and is one of the largest collections on Native Americans.\nThe museum houses about 25,000 artifacts and 40,000 photographs. The exhibits are rotated every three to six months and can be organized by anyone, including IU students. Currently there is an exhibit about Turkish shadow theatre by undergraduate Yasemin Gencer.\nMathers is a university facility and works to keep close ties with both the students and faculty. The museum has helped students in the fields of anthropology, ethnomusicology, museum studies and informatics.\nThey are open to research of all types and have opened their databases to everyone from 13-year-olds to the Pentagon.\nIn three weeks they will be unveiling a new exhibit called “Afghanistan: A Doctor Returns from Exile,” which will be told through black and white photographs.\nKirk believes the artifacts give people a powerful opportunity to learn about themselves.\n“These things are imbued with knowledge that allow us to learn about not just others but ourselves as well,” he said.\nThe museum will be holding special events this fall, including Sounds of Brazil, family craft days and a traditional Indonesian dance called Sanan.\nAll of the museum’s free programming as well as its exhibits hope to leave visitors with more than just a sense of entertainment.\n“We want people to enjoy themselves and have a good time, and hopefully when they walk away they will take some knowledge with them,” Kirk said.