Highlights of the Collection
Capacity: 65 Students
On Highlights Tours, students participate in interactive, inquiry-based conversations that introduce them to the art and cultures represented in the galleries of the Carlos Museum. Highlights Tours offer an introduction to the museum, its exhibitions of Africa; ancient Egypt, Nubia, and the Near East; ancient Greece and Rome; the Indigenous Americas; and South Asia; as well as European and American Works on Paper.
Special Exhibitions
Call and Response
On view February 22 - June 22, 2025
(Visual Art, World History, Social Studies, ELA)
Capacity: 30 Students
Grades 3 - 12
**Please note that this exhibition is available for self-guided visits only**
Call and Response features five objects from five distinctive cultures— a Sowe mask from the Mende culture of Sierra Leone, Colima dogs from ancient west Mexico, a funerary relief from the ancient city of Palmyra in central Syria, an 18th-century map of a sacred Jain pilgrimage site in India, and an ancient Egyptian text known as a Letter to the Dead from north Africa. The objects are interpreted through a creative partnership between the museum and its communities, inviting collective consideration of how museum objects, invested with memory and meaning, “call” through time, inspiring subsequent generations who draw on them as sources of pride and communal affirmation—"responding,” reimagining and reinterpreting within a contemporary context.
A feature of the African American musical tradition, call and response is a participatory practice that engages the community in a melodic “conversation.” A musical phrase serves as a “call,” which is “answered” by a corresponding phrase—the repetitive process occurring at different intervals of the composition. This lyrical innovation, which traces its roots to Sub-Saharan Africa, serves as a creative reaffirmation of kinship and communal ties. Call and response is the organizing principle of this experimental exhibition that reconsiders the relationship between the museum and our communities.
Guiding Questions
How can museum objects connect the people of the past to those living today?
How do we see a continuation of traditions and ideas from the ancient world to contemporary communities?
How do objects tell stories?
Tour by Collection Area(s)
Capacity: Varies by Collection
Collection areas available for tours include Africa, the Art of the Americas, ancient Egypt and the ancient Near East, ancient Greece and Rome, and South Asia. If you would like to combine several areas of the collection, which is recommended for groups over 50 students, please make note in your online tour reservation or call 404-727-3187 for assistance in planning your field trip.
Animals in Art | Grades K-5
(Visual Art, ELA, STEAM)
Capacity: 65 Students
Explore the ways in which cultures around the globe have understood, interpreted, and depicted the animals in their environment. Students are encouraged to make observations and inferences that foster visual literacy. As they explore artistic interpretations of animals across the collections, students will learn that the ancients were keen observers of nature whose relationship with nature helped shape their perception of the world around them.
Guiding Questions
- How did the observation of animals in their natural habitats give form to the beliefs of different cultures?
- How can an animal represent certain characteristics (clever, lucky) in one culture and very different characteristics (evil, conniving) in another?
- What aspects of the animal’s appearance or behavior has the artist highlighted? What does that say about how the animal was viewed?
- What do these objects tell us about how these cultures interacted with, viewed, and revered animals? How is that different (or similar) from our relationship with animals?
AP Art History | Grades 9-12
(AP Art History, Visual Art, ELA)
Capacity: 50 Students
Prepare for the “250” at the Carlos Museum. From works of art on “the list” like Maria and Julian Martinez’s black-on-black pottery to other objects from cultures across the globe, time spent in the Carlos galleries offers students the opportunity to connect with the artistic process, strengthen their visual literacy skills through examination and analysis, and contextualize works of art they study in the classroom.
Guiding Questions
- What is art, and how is it made?
- How do artistic decisions about artmaking shape a work of art?
- What can you infer about a work of art by analyzing its form, function, content, and context?
- What variables can lead to multiple interpretations of a work of art?
Archaeology | All Grades
(STEAM, Social Studies, Visual Art)
Capacity: 65 Students
As they explore the galleries, students will hear about pioneering archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon and the development of stratigraphy at the ancient site of Jericho. They will learn about the methods archaeologists use to analyze objects once they have come out of the ground, including drawing, x-ray, chemical analysis, carbon-14 dating, and other scientific techniques that contribute to the understanding of material culture.
Guiding Questions
- How can archaeology help us interpret the past?
- What is the benefit of scientific techniques in archaeology? What methods are helpful? Why?
- How have scientific techniques helped us understand the values and behavior of cultures from the past?
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis: Latin | Grades 6-12
(Latin, Social Studies, Visual Art, ELA)
Capacity: 40 Students
Since “art is long and life, short,” seize the day and visit Ulysses, Menelaus, Europa, and the emperor Tiberius in the galleries of the Carlos Museum. Students will discover the importance of Roman portraiture and propaganda, reinforce your reading with scenes from Ovid and Virgil, explore Roman funeral rituals, and translate inscriptions on cinerary urns.
Guiding Questions
- How was Greco-Roman culture depicted through art?
- How were visual representations of myths and stories about gods and goddesses used to highlight Roman values?
- How did Roman politicians use visual culture to assert their power across an empire?
Belief, Behavior, and Belonging | Grades 6-12
(Social Studies, Religion, Visual Art, ELA)
Capacity: 65 Students
In a pluralistic society, religious literacy is essential. The collections of the Carlos Museum provide an opportunity for students to engage with the ways in which religion has shaped cultures since the beginning of civilization. Works of art can communicate a culture’s beliefs and behaviors and can spark conversations about ways in which ethics, values, and beliefs influence individual behavior and create a shared sense of belonging. Developed in conjunction with Georgia 3Rs Project, this interactive tour is designed to promote dialogue and understanding.
Guiding Questions
- What is religion?
- Why is it important to learn about religions other than your own?
- How do cultures develop shared values and beliefs? What factors shape these beliefs? How do works of art reflect a culture’s belief systems and ritual behaviors?
- How do beliefs, ethics, or values influence different people’s behavior?
Drawing in the Galleries | All Grades
(Visual Art, Art History, Social Studies, STEAM)
Capacity: 65 Students
Extending the long tradition of drawing in museums, close looking and drawing exercises of 3D objects in the galleries of the Carlos will introduce or reinforce the principles and elements of art and increase visual literacy and observation skills.
Guiding Questions
- How have artists and artisans from the past utilized the principles and elements of art and design?
- How can studying existing objects and works of art throughout history contribute to a young artist’s practice?
- How can students observe and form a greater understanding of materiality, depth, perspective, dimension, and construction through drawing?
The Science Behind Art Conservation | Grades 4-12
(STEAM, Visual Art and Design, Careers)
Capacity: 65 Students
Students learn to think like a conservator, understanding the real-world questions and problems that museums confront when working with material that can be thousands of years old. This interactive tour examines three major areas on which conservators focus: research, treatment, and prevention.
Guiding Questions
- What is art conservation?
- What do conservators do to prevent damage to works of art? How do they conduct research? How do conservators determine appropriate treatment strategies?
- How do chemistry, physics, and biology inform conservation?
- Why is conservation important in the care of museum objects?
- What scientific and ethical questions do conservators consider before treating an object?
Water: The Source of Civilization | All Grades
(STEAM, Social Studies, Visual Art and Design, ELA)
Capacity: 65 Students
Students are invited to explore the ways in which different cultures have approached the excess and scarcity of water and how this natural resource has influenced civilization throughout history, particularly through art, design, ritual, and religion.
Guiding Questions
- What can works of art tell us about the environment in which they were created?
- How do cultures respond to the excess or scarcity of water?
- How does water help to shape the social structure of a culture?
- How is control of water related to power?
- What role does water play in religious belief and ritual?
- What materials have artists associated with water?
