Few students can say they spent three weeks in July creating art in Thailand. However, for two UW-Eau Claire professors and four art students, this is true.

After receiving a grant from the International Fellows Program, the group collaborated with Thai students and professors for an eye-opening immersion experience in Bangkok.

“Born and raised in Thailand until the age of 24, I moved to the USA and began my education and practice in art,” said Wanrudee Buranakorn, assistant professor of photography. “Returning to Thailand this summer with this exhibition is a continuation of this quest and a reverse cross-cultural learning experience as this artwork was created in the USA by a Thai person with art training in the USA.”

Buranakorn was invited to do a solo exhibition of her own work entitled “Language In-Form” after she visited her native Thailand in 2008. Soon after, Buranakorn invited Jyl Kelley, another assistant professor of photography at UW-Eau Claire, to curate the exhibition.

Kelley and Buranakorn saw this as a great opportunity to include students in doing art on an international level. However, in order to involve the students, the professors and students had to apply for a grant from the new International Fellows Program, which is funded by differential tuition and the Blugold Commitment.

“(The) students got heavily involved in the production of the show here before the show ever went to Thailand,” Kelley said.

Senior Margie Berg, senior Rachel Konsella, senior Kaleb Durocher and junior Daniel Smith had to each write an individual proposal of what they intended to research and work on while abroad in order to get the grant.

“We had to really emphasize how important it is for art students to be able to still have the available funds that a lot of science and social science students do,” Berg said. “I’m not quantifying it in the same numbers or statistics that scientists do, but I’m still taking it in and making it a part of me.”

The students were instrumental in not only helping but in planning as well. Durocher, a graphic design major, designed the entire exhibition catalog, postcard and the gallery’s title banner. Konsella said the group worked as a team to create a miniature model of the gallery itself and Buranakorn’s work, rearranging the pieces until they were satisfied with the layout.

While at Assumption University in Bangkok, each student had an opportunity to present his or her own work, give a lecture and then collaborate with Thai students receiving and giving critiques, Kelley said.

“The only commonality that we had was photography and that was our language with those students and those professors,” Berg said. “That was just so

beautiful because not only were we able to look at each other’s work and muddle through a spoken conversation at that point, but it really allowed our work to speak volumes.”

As for the future of the project, Kelley is hopeful.

“We’d like to have a show here,” she said. “We’re all going to be gathering soon and meeting throughout the course of the semester and talking about developing artwork together.”

Buranakorn will be presenting three pieces created while in Thailand at the Foster Gallery’s Faculty Art Show opening Thursday, Sept. 9.