Bring Your Students

The word we can mean different things to different people, but it is a concept, experience, and feeling that makes connection, learning, and growth possible. We might refer to those closest to us, our communities, or a broader sense of belonging that connects people across cultures and continents through shared and differing experiences. What can we discover about ourselves when we consider this larger, global perspective?

If the word we: 59th Carnegie International brings together the work of more than 61 artists and collectives from around the world, offering a rich context for exploration and dialogue. This global museum experience invites students to connect their own experiences to the stories, ideas, histories, and cultures reflected in the artworks. Through close looking, discussion, listening, and art-making, students will engage in inquiry-based, cross-disciplinary learning that encourages reflection, empathy, and shared understanding.

90-minute educator-led museum experience with art-making.

Learners will explore science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) in an engaging and interdisciplinary way through a visit to If the word we: 59th Carnegie International. As they encounter artworks that illuminate STEAM concepts, students will see how artistic practices connect to—and draw from—many subject areas. The artists featured demonstrate how observation, experimentation, problem-solving, and creative risk-taking are shared tools across disciplines.

Through close looking, art-making, and shared inquiry, learners will examine how inventive uses of materials, processes, and systems can inspire collaboration, build shared understanding, and imagine new ways of living together. These practices offer creative models for a more connected and responsive global future, showing how the role of art within STEAM can open pathways for learning, exchange, and collective possibility.

90-minute educator-led museum experience with art-making.

People move throughout the world, carrying their life experiences with them. If the word we: 59th Carnegie International brings together artworks that hold histories, stories, and reflections of migration and movement. These works illuminate how people navigate change across places, cultures, and generations.

Through observation, conversation, and art-making, learners will explore how social, political, and environmental contexts shape experiences of movement and migration—both physically and emotionally. Learners will engage with artworks as catalysts for exchange, examining how artists convey ideas and perspectives across physical, cultural, and conceptual boundaries.

Learners will also consider where ideas, traditions, and cultural influences in their own lives originate and will reflect on how these continue to evolve over time and across geography.

90-minute educator-led museum experience with art-making..

What comes to mind when you hear the word “we?” It might mean you and a friend, your classroom, or your community. But what happens when we expand that to include the many people, cultures, and perspectives that make up the world we share?

By looking closely at works of art created by artists from a wide range of countries and backgrounds, students will explore a more global understanding of the word “we.” Through guided discussion and thoughtful reflection, learners consider how art helps us see both shared experiences and meaningful differences. Reflective writing prompts paired with close looking create opportunities for students to connect ideas, listen to others, and share their own perspectives.

This 75-minute museum experience offers a welcoming entry point for inquiry-based learning and includes a writing component to support reflection and expression.

75-minute docent-led museum experience.

Introduce your students to the colors, textures, expressions of light, and imaginative spirit of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. From the beginnings of Impressionism in 1860 through the Post-Impressionist movement of the early 20th century, these artists embraced radical notions for their time. By painting outside (en plein air, or, “in open air,”) the subject matter found in the cities, towns, and rural areas around them, these artists pushed the boundaries of art-making and the artists’ roles in society. This tour connects and contributes to the study of art history, art-making, and visual interpretation, fostering each student’s individual interpretation and expression.

75-minute docent-led museum experience.

Engage your students’ minds in creative problem-solving and interpretative analysis through the exploration of paintings, sculptures, and multimedia installations from the mid-20th century to today. Students will engage in aesthetic and critical responses as they consider the intersection of art and our most pressing contemporary experiences. Learners will distinguish elements of color, shape, and texture, and connect their own expression to those of artists with different cultures and lived experiences.

75-minute docent-led museum experience.

Humans have made functional objects since the beginning of time. Connect the study of design and sustainability with your students’ ideas for an innovative and inclusive future. Your students will connect objects such as tableware, lighting, and furniture as catalysts for envisioning new possibilities within our shared environments. This experience introduces the objects we live with as sources of creative expression that encourage enjoyment, curiosity, agency, and creative problem-solving.

75-minute docent-led museum experience.

Looking at art together is a way we can learn from each other across our differences while practicing active listening, compassion, and empathy. Carnegie Museum of Art stewards more than 100,000 objects across art domains, including painting and sculpture; prints, drawings, and photographs; architectural casts, renderings, and models; decorative arts and design; time-based and digital media; and installations. On this tour, students will engage with a diverse range of artworks that connect across disciplines and lived experiences to strengthen visual, critical, and analytical thinking skills.

75-minute docent-led museum experience.

Discover parallels between the aesthetics and practices of visual art and writing. Looking at art can inspire reflection, imagination, and stories, offering entry points into creative writing. Through slow looking, learners will analyze works of art, identify ideas and concepts, and discuss and develop character, setting, theme, and plot. Writing prompts based on art allow learners to create their own relationship to written language and narratives as they look at art.

90-minute docent-led museum experience with writing activity.

Artists make artworks that offer ways of celebrating language, empathy, and the study of cultures. As Global Studies students collectively look at artworks that represent various social, political, and cultural histories, engage in group dialogue, and make art, they activate an expanding worldview. This tour offers learners a new approach to understanding our ever-changing relationships to the world.

90-minute museum educator-led experience with art-making activity.

Explore social-emotional learning components that generate self-awareness and the power of interconnected identities by looking at and making artwork. Museum educators will facilitate a supportive environment where students can engage with artwork to express themselves while navigating the complex dynamics of representation and agency.

90-minute museum educator-led experience with art-making activity.

Through the lens of photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris, students will experience the breadth of history, civics, social movements, and life present in a photograph. The Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive is composed of more than 70,000 photographs and moving images taken by Harris, documenting the everyday experience of 20th-century American history. Students are invited to become Charles “Teenie” Harris community archivists and contribute their own individual, familial, and collective memories and histories to Harris’s photographs.

90-minute museum educator-led experience with art-making activity.

Connect language arts to visual arts as a complementary learning practice and content area. By viewing artworks that tell stories and build narratives, students will engage in creative writing, reading, active listening, communication, and context-building. Artworks shared in this workshop offer a visual inspiration for creating imaginative and expressive content. Learners will cultivate an active practice of analyzing an artwork as they would analyze a book and visualizing a book the way they would see an artwork.

90-minute museum educator-led experience with art-making activity.

Artworks that span time and place show us histories of social transformation. Driven by curiosity, students will be empowered to approach artworks with compassionate, expansive inquiry. Learners will develop their own visions through creation, conversation, and examination of artwork.

90-minute museum educator-led experience with art-making activity.

Welcome to the Carnegie Museum of Art! Initiate long-lasting relationships between art, ideas, and community with your students with this gallery tour that builds upon classroom learning and introduces students to the museum and artwork as a creative, intellectual and social-emotional resource for life! Carnegie Museum of Art is your neighborhood museum and stewards more than 100,000 objects that include paintings, sculptures, videos, installations, architectural casts and models, photographs, and decorative arts. Students will observe, wonder, reflect and discuss artworks that span time periods, cultures, mediums, materials, and perspectives.

90-minute museum educator-led experience with art-making activity.