Tunnel of Oppression Exhibit Seeks Volunteers

10/11/2019

Saint Louis University's annual Tunnel of Oppression, a collaborative effort between the Cross Cultural Center and Housing and the Division of Housing and Residence Life, is seeking student, faculty and staff volunteers to help with the interactive exhibition.

The exhibition will be open from Tuesday, Nov. 12 through Friday, Nov. 15.

The Tunnel of Oppression is a multisensory exhibition of some of the most difficult and complex issues we face today. The Tunnel experience will demonstrate the concepts of privilege, power and the reality of hate crimes and covert and open acts of oppression as the community experiences them.

Participants are guided through a series of scenes that aim to educate and challenge them to think more deeply about issues of oppression. Some examples of the topics included in the Tunnel's past are racism, sexism, homophobia, body image, classism, xenophobia, transphobia and ableism.

Tunnel of Oppression is an interactive experience. Participants walk through different scenes designed to display the many oppressions people are facing today. It started as a campus grassroots diversity program at Western Illinois University in 1994 and can now be found at many colleges and universities around the nation. Inspiration from the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. was used as a template for the first Tunnel of Oppression.

The Tunnel of Oppression at Saint Louis University is coordinated, written and designed by SLU students, faculty and staff.

Sign up to volunteer here.

For questions or more information, contact Keelah Washington.