Exhibits

New Collection: Patterns in Sound, Story, and Thought

We invite you to browse a collection display curated by Janelle Powell, a Junior who is majoring in Math with a coordinate major in Education and a minor in Cinema Studies. She is a lifelong Mainer and is currently studying abroad at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland (Spring Semester 2026).

Janelle’s display features books that really encompass her learning path and the core topics that are the most meaningful and interesting to her. She shares that, “from a young age, I have been very drawn to math and the patterns that lie behind it. This display includes some of my favorite math books which I think are all very accessible for the general reader. They simplify some of the more complex structures that make math so fascinating and, in doing so, highlight its beauty.” The display also highlights the connection between math and music and the ways that mathematical patterns construct the world around us. Janelle’s display will be on view through mid-April on the first floor of H-L—stop by and take a look!

Patterns in Sound, Story and Thought in the catalog

Curator’s Statement

Kanene Nwokeji ’26
Multiracialism

My initial goal for this exhibition was to celebrate the culture that multiracial people have made for themselves. Multiple racial identities often include intimate access to multiple traditions of cooking, clothing, and community. Often, mixed people exist at a unique intersection, able to build their own practices by merging existing traditions. Other times, mixed people are at risk of being rejected by one parent culture, the other, or both. In each of these cases, something new and very beautiful can be born. As I’ve worked on this curation, I’ve honed in on certain themes that are important to me. One is the multiracial childhood – I remember being six years old and my parents explaining to me what I was. I remember learning about interracial mixing in schools where I was the only version of me. The multiracial childhood is interesting to me because it is the beginning. The first moments where a child realizes they might be different. From here comes the academic writing on how nonsensical the idea of “pure” race is, the memoirs where mixed people navigate their parental relationships, the portraits and films attempting to tackle the expansive subject of ambiguous race, the constant and creative attempts at understanding. I’ve included such works in the collection, in addition to the children’s picture books that didn’t exist when I was in kindergarten. The simple gesture of drawing two parents of different colors on a page, and what that means for kids today. In reality, most people are mixed at some level of their ancestry. Race is a social construct and racial mixing is too, one that has tangible consequences. Sometimes these consequences are never on the same page with parents you try to emulate, or when trying to resolve in yourself the friction between your cultures of origin. Most of the time, though, it means unique forms of music, of storytelling, and of being. It’s the creation of a community greater than the sum of its parts. It’s me, Kanene Ellen Nwokeji, working on the present collection with the help of the friends I’ve found and the culture that we’ve built together. It’s the unstoppable flow of social change to make a moment like this possible, the sun gleaming through broken branches, and the new hope waiting for you in the morning.

Book List

Kanene’s collection, “Multiracialism”, launched on October 3rd, 2025, and will be on display in H-L Collection Highlights for the 2025-26 academic year, or can be browsed digitally here.

Bowdoin Orient Article