BRUNSWICK — A roundtable discussion on “A River Lost & Found: The Androscoggin in Time and Place” will take place at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in Kresge Auditorium at Bowdoin College. The program is open to the public and free of charge.

Anne Whiston Spirn, professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Martha A. Sandweiss, professor of History, Princeton University; Matthew Klingle, associate professor of History and Environmental Studies, Bowdoin College; and Michael Kolster, associate professor of Art, Bowdoin College, will discuss complexities of the river’s legacy and its potential.

A news release describes the discussion as follows:

The Androscoggin River, once devastated by industrial contamination and labeled one of the 10 most polluted rivers in the country, is now partially restored. In their cross-disciplinary research, Bowdoin professors Matthew Klingle, an environmental historian, and Michael Kolster, a photographer, pose important questions about its shifting cultural and economic status in their exhibition.

“A River Lost & Found” is on view at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art through Sept.16. At the center of the exhibition are photographs of the present-day river and its environs produced through a variety of techniques, including 19th-century wet-plate processes that emerged roughly contemporaneous with the Androscoggin’s industrialization. Oral histories and testimonies by local residents revisit the history of the waterway.

The exhibition and Bowdoin Museum of Art will be open until 8:30 p.m. following the roundtable discussion.