Our physical bodies are the vessels in which we experience and move through life, but how often do we take the time to consider their significance beyond getting us from point A to point B?

“The Body Construct: Between Flesh and Thought,” an exhibit at the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, explores these questions and puts them in conversation with our identities and interactions. The displayed works, which range from sculptures to paintings from all time periods, depict a variety of individuals’ artistic representations of their own and other’s bodies.

The exhibit was curated by Colorado State University students Aspen Crawford, Madrigal Frederick-Law and Marissa Goldin. These students previously interned for the GAMA’s “Full Circle: Celebrating Colorado Women Artists” exhibit. Through this experience, they curated “The Body Construct.”

“With all of these different cultures that we’re representing, it’s kind of asking you to step outside of your physical self and place yourself in these other bodies and these other shoes.” -Aspen Crawford, CSU senior sculpture student

For this exhibit, the students wanted to open up the time period and geographic origins to encompass a diverse group of voices as well as share pieces from the museum’s collection that have yet to be displayed.

“You’ll see things from, like, 200 years ago, from Africa to the U.S. and across the world,” said Crawford, a senior sculpture student at CSU. “So it’s really important to us to have some different perspectives from cultures of what the body is for them.”

The exhibit contains an array of different art forms depicting the body — even similar pieces are vastly different. Specifically, one part of the exhibit displays two masks: John Collins’ Tattoo Mask from New Zealand and Gillian Wearing’s Sleeping Mask from London. Set side by side, Collins’ use of vibrant red coloring and abstract line work contrasts the hyperrealistic soft flesh tones of Wearing’s mask, highlighting the differences between the artists’ subjective images of the face.

Another sculpture piece by artist Fang Lijun from China captures 11 male figures at various ages, displaying the progression and influence of time on the human body.

Other iconic artists, such as Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol, have pieces displayed in the exhibit, but they don’t overshadow the other voices. Two pieces are displayed next to Warhol’s work: an unknown Japanese artist’s watercolor piece of a woman combing her hair while watching herself in a handheld mirror and an unidentified Atauro Island artist’s wooden figure of a standing man.

With works from artists from nearly every continent, the exhibit captures visions from several cultures and backgrounds, and audience members are able to examine their own relationship with their body and identity.

Walking through the exhibit, one may witness different interpretations of the self and the body, opening up “an avenue for empathy,” as Crawford described it.

“With all of these different cultures that we’re representing, it’s kind of asking you to step outside of your physical self and place yourself in these other bodies and these other shoes,” Crawford said.

The intention of the exhibit was not to tell viewers how to feel or what to experience within their own body but rather to encourage them to embrace their personal interpretations as they arose, free from any prescribed meaning.

Frederick-Law said she had the intention of making it an interactive experience.

“(Connections can be made) between the artist or between the artwork and the audience, as interacting with each other and these depictions of body and their bodies and our bodies (is how this exhibit was designed),” Frederick-Law said.

Within the exhibit, “The Body Construct” statement was displayed, offering questions to explore while analyzing the displayed pieces.

“How do bodies act as both containers and thresholds for experience?” the statement for the exhibit reads. “How do they transform over time, and how does this change how we view ourselves? How might the physical limitations of our biological bodies restrict our identities? How might our identities transcend these limitations? How are our identities shaped by those around us?

The exhibit challenges viewers to recognize the body beyond its physical form and, instead, as the foundation from which our identities are created and interpreted.

“We wanted (it) to be something that the audience could take what they wanted from this exhibition,” Frederick-Law said.

Regardless of someone’s decision to explore this experience, the exhibit’s student curators encourage other students to utilize the art museum.

“It’s a really great resource for students on campus,” Frederick-Law said. “I would love to see more art students utilizing it as a space for inspiration and a space to experiment with curation. … We have a lot of great, amazing work in collections that studio majors could utilize in their own practices.”

Crawford corroborated Frederick-Law sentiment about the art museum’s benefits.

“I’ve certainly gained a lot of inspiration from the pieces that we’ve had in the collection in my own work,” Crawford said.

Reach Annamarie Burford at entertainment@collegian.com or on Twitter @CSUCollegian.