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Peace Corps at 60 Inside the Volunteer Experience

Presented by the AU Museum Project Space

This exhibition is featured in our Museum@Home.

Read the exhibition catalog online.
 

From its inception the Peace Corps has offered an alternative path for advancing peace and promoting friendship among nations. This exhibition brings home and showcases objects and stories from 30 volunteers. They represent a sampling of the nearly 240,000 individuals who have served since the Peace Corps’ creation six decades ago.

Harry Birnholz with farmers outside Logozohe, Zou Province, Benin, 1977

Peace Corps volunteer Harry Birnholz (Benin 1974-77) and local farmers try a weed-management farming technique using animal traction.

Museum of the Peace Corps Experience
Museum of the Peace Corps Experience

National Peace Corps Association
National Peace Corps Association

Curated by Jack Rasmussen, Director & Curator, American University Museum, and Aly Schuman, CAS/MA ’21 art history and Alper Initiative for Washington Art Fellow.

Order the fully illustrated exhibition catalog with stories from returned Peace Corps Volunteers. $15, plus taxes and shipping.
Email museum@american.edu

 

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Collage of Peace Corps volunteers

Many Faces of Peace Corps, 60th Anniversary, is a production of Museum of the Peace Corps Experience and the Peace Corps Oral History Project. These stories broaden our understanding of the diversity of Peace Corps volunteers and their experiences. They were recorded through oral history interviews conducted by fellow returned volunteers.

Watch "Many Faces"

Panelist Yvette Betancourt with Peace Corps certificate

Watch Student Voices, where American University students discuss their experiences as Peace Corps volunteers and share their thoughts on the organization’s future.

Watch "Student Voices"

Virtual Exhibition Tour

Join Nicola Dino and Patricia A. Wand, co-chairs of the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience for a virtual tour of the exhibition.

Virtual Exhibit Opening - March 3, 2021

Peace Corps’ 60th Anniversary Celebration: Introducing Museum of the Peace Corps Experience

AU Museum Director and Curator Jack Rasmussen and Museum of the Peace Corps Experience co-chairs Nicola Dino and Patricia A. Wand discuss the development of the exhibition. The talk follows welcoming remarks by Sylvia Matthews Burwell, president of American University; Carol Spahn, acting director of Peace Corps; and Glenn Blumhorst, president of National Peace Corps Association—and a video tour of the installation.