This Summer: Stay in Touch!

You might have spotted this elsewhere (everywhere) in our work, but here at Museum Explorer, we are fond of the Head Heart Hands approach.  That is to say, we engage the visitor through their Head by targeting visitor interests, inviting exploration and inquiry, and giving them something to think about; we engage the visitor’s Heart by appealing to visitor awareness in ways that inspire personal connections, and giving them something to care about; and we engage the visitor’s Hands by stimulating curiosity with interactive learning techniques that encourage discovery and sharing, by giving them something to do.  But it’s fun to be on the other side of the exhibit as well, so you can imagine our delight at getting to experience this approach in museums as visitors.

We’ve stopped by a few museums already this summer (and more to come), and have had a few chances to go beyond the glass and experience museums first hand (!).  You read about our trip to the Peggy Notebart Nature Museum, but what we forgot to mention was our chance to get in touch with the nature!  In the Istock Family Look-in Lab, we got up close and personal with a snake from the museum’s “living collection,” which you can see up top.  Volunteers were there to explain how to properly pet the reptile, as well as to offer tips on the regions it lived in.  Unfortunately we got so wrapped up in getting to pet the animal that we forgot what kind of snake it is! 

At the Shedd Aquarium, it is time again for their “Stingray Touch” experience.  Note that the Shedd refers to it as an experience rather than an exhibit, because you pretty much get to dive right in.  The stingrays, housed outside of the museum on a beautiful patio, circle the shallow pool as visitors – like us! – get the chance to pet them.  It’s an odd thing, petting a tropical cownose ray while overlooking downtown Chicago, but it is certainly a great experience to be able to get close to an animal not encountered in everyday life.  This is the closest you will probably ever come to being the lucky scuba diver in the tank at the “Caribbean Reef”!  Beyond the stingrays, the Shedd offers visitors the chance to touch live Sturgeon “At Home on the Great Lakes,” and Starfish in the “Sea Star Touch” at the “Polar Play Zone.”  If you’re willing to submerge your hand in freezing water for a few minutes, it’s definitely worth reaching out for! 

But how can you really understand what we’re talking about if you don’t experience for yourself?  Get out there and take matters into your own hands!

Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum: A Museum with a Message

What do you think of when you see the word museum?  A stuffy, stale place where you can walk but not run, with old stuff behind the glass that you can look at but not touch?  Well, obviously… we hope not.  Clearly we are working to prove you wrong, and should have your mind changed very soon.  If you do still happen to share this unfortunate conception of museums, get thee to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and prepare to be surprised!

Museum has always had a positive connotation for me, I’ve frequent many of them in my day, and the Nature Museum was still able to surprise me.  First off, it looks different than the other major museums in Chicago, which are of the Neoclassical style of architecture.  The Nature Museum is that modern looking, angular and inviting white building you see peeking from the trees of Lincoln Park.  It’s a total sanctuary located in the middle of the park, offering beautiful views of the city, of the trees and plants around it, and even the lagoon!  I cannot speak highly enough of the Butterfly Haven there, which is easily one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. 

Hangin' around the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven

What surprised me more beyond the sheer visual delights the building has to offer, though, was the museum’s distinct style of presentation.  The exhibits are clearly fashioned to engage the visitor—at any age—with touch, understanding, and the ability to take that experience home with you.  The “Extreme Green House” exhibit, for instance, offers people a closer look at their own homes by touring a very familiar-looking house of the Green family.  Panels explain where the water in your kitchen sink comes from and where it goes, how much energy is used by your washing machine, even what kind of insects are typically found in a house and what they do!  To this point, the Nature Museum even has panels inside the stalls in their public restrooms, offering tips on how to conserve water in your toilet at home. Although offered in a beautiful setting, the Nature Museum does not soften their message: conservation.  While they make it purely accessible to the visitor by offering insight and tips, they also provide some not-so-nice images of what can happen when efforts to conserve and protect nature are not met. 

This year marks the 100^th anniversary of the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon—a species that at one point was abundant enough to reach the billions.  Human fault, specifically overhunting and deforestation, led to this demise—a point the Nature Museum does not make light of.  Passing through the “Birds of Chicago” and “Wilderness Walk” exhibits, you see many taxidermied animals in recreations of their natural habitats-be it forest, savannah, or desert.  This is fairly standard practice, to have taxidermists pose animals to look as they would as they were living, and then place them in real-looking natural settings to even further liven things up.  But the Passenger Pigeon is given no such display at the museum; no florid background surrounding it, no accompanying animals to distract you from it.  As you can see pictured here, the Passenger Pigeon is not gussied up whatsoever.  It was jarring to see in person, as a museum-goer is accustomed to the still life displays of taxidermy.  The Passenger Pigeon was not that experience.  The specimen is displayed in the most stark and sterile way possible: laid down on its back with its belly to the air, eyes white, tag on its toe.  And it is here that the Nature Museum makes the best use of reaching out to people from behind the glass.  This, the accompanying panel offers, is what “can happen when we don’t take care of our planet…share it with your friends”!  This creature is behind the glass because we put it here, it’s long gone and this is all we have left to show.

A Call to Action

As a visitor, you do not have a flat line experience here.  From the highs of beauty and the liveliness amid the butterflies and birds in the Butterfly Haven, to the useful tips for preservation and prevention at home, to the dangers of being trapped behind the glass, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum has a distinct mission for the conservation of nature in all forms. Point taken. What a powerful message indeed.

Jessica

Visiting the Bard

A few weeks ago, I paid a visit to the Newberry Library’s recent exhibition, “The Bard is Born.”  Having never been to the Newberry before, I was excited to finally get a peek inside of this beautiful building, and even more eager to do so for something Shakespeare-related (bear in mind I was an English major in college and has been an avid fan of Shakespeare since high school)! 

Given the name, I was expecting and desperately hoping for biographical information about Shakespeare, but the title was given due to the timing of the exhibition—opened on April 23^rd to mark the 450^th birthday of the Bard.  Newberry interpreted “birth” as the rise of the star, the icon, not so much the actual birth of the person, so Shakespeare’s upbringing remains mysterious as ever.  There were a few items lending a brief idea of what life was like at the time Shakespeare was born and growing up, others from during his lifetime that might have influenced his writing, but that’s as much biography as I got. 

From that point, the exhibit jumped to the afterlife for old Shakes, after he had become an icon, via 18^th-century pamphlets and posters of early commemorations of his birthday. Most interesting to me were the depictions of Shakespeare as a national treasure, not only for England (obviously), but as a treasure for the United States as well.  There were a few featured published works including claims by Americans that Shakespeare was just as dear to Americans as to England because his works were widely studied and regarded there as well.  This particular inclusion amused me most: a reprint of a painting I had never seen before, The Infant Shakespeare Attended by Nature and the Muses by British painter George Romney. As you can see below, it depicts Shakespeare’s birth much like that of a saint or even a Greek god.  Indeed, even the muses of classical Greek myth are present for his nativity!  It is a little much, but I have always cherished Shakespeare as something of a godsend myself.  I can relate!

A reprint of The Infant Shakespeare Attended by Nature and the Muses by British painter George Romney, 1803

Newberry had said that it was using “Henry V” as a lens through which to focus the exhibit.  Indeed, many of the items on display were dedicated to the play, including both a Third Quarto and a First Folio edition of “Henry V,” which is a powerful thing to see if you have never had the opportunity to before (I had, but they are still awesome to behold in person).  Above all other foci, though, the takeaway point of the exhibit was Chicago’s own connection to the play, and to Shakespeare.  It was the first production the Chicago Shakespeare Theater had ever put on (although CST was not known by that name at the time).  The marked up manuscripts from the director of the second production in 1997 were interesting to see.  People can always benefit from looking at someone else’s perspective when it comes to Shakespeare, if only because there is so much to be gleaned from his writing that you might not have noticed on your own.  It was very cool to learn how Chicago has grown with “Henry V” over time, even going back as far as the mid-19^th-century with “Henry V” being staged in theaters as well as in early Shakespeare in the Park-type programming.  And of course, they even had a poster of the CST’s current, ongoing production of Henry V (through June 15)! 

Chicago still has ties to Shakespeare, even all these years later.  In the end, “The Bard is Born” did well to prove that the regard for Shakespeare as a national, even a local icon is totally valid—wherever that feeling might be held.  From the 1769 Shakespeare Jubilee held at the birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon, to this very exhibit itself, we all still can and do feel roused and even included in that famous “band of brothers” when we read, see or hear it.  Chicago has no personal or biographical connections to Shakespeare himself, and yet his works are still so powerful and beloved here that we do in fact have a long history with the Bard.

A Proud Moment for Program Carts

Congratulations to Rich Faron and Jessica Banda! Recently, Rich and Jessica had an article published in the Exhibitionist, a highly esteemed journal among museum professionals published by the National Association for Museum Exhibition.  Following the theme of this Spring edition, the article, “Exhibition Carts: Intentionally Designed Spaces on the Move,” explores the program cart as an intentionally designed space.  As the program carts are a favorite here at Museum Explorer, you can bet we are excited about this publication. You can read the full article below, but click this link to view it in its entirety on the official NAME website (pictures included)!  

The Cover of the Issue, "Spring 2014: Intentionally Designed Spaces"

Exhibition Carts: Intentionally Designed Spaces on the Move

By Rich Faron and Jessica Banda

The intentionality behind all design work is problem-solving. While many forms of design process exist, history and tradition reveal that until recently, the typical exhibit developer-engaged in efforts defined by hours of talking, researching, coffee clutching, sketching, pencil sharpening, mouse pushing, ceiling staring and wishful thinking—hoping for that “a-ha!” moment. Recently, though (and especially over the last 10 years), conscious advancements have been made to sharpen the lens of the overall design process by refocusing attention on  meeting audience needs and expectations with conscious intent.

The biggest changes have come about in the area of upfront investigation: the collecting and collating of data regarding the end user.

• Who is the visitor?
• What are visitor interests?
• What do they care about?
• What are their needs? 
• What is the spatial context? 

This surge in audience research has transformed the once opaque process of exhibit design into something much more transparent, allowing designers to organize the entire process into four distinct steps - 1)Investigate & Analyze;  2)Concept & Test;  3)Revise & Design; and 4), Build & Implement.  In order to differentiate this approach from more traditional forms of design problem-solving, we now refer to the entire process as experience design.  And note that the word ‘experience’ replaces ‘exhibit’ here—not merely for buzz benefit, but because experience design indicates a greater possibility to approach design with some form of intent. Today, a more discriminating public is looking for both excitement and educational enrichment. The stakes are higher than ever for modern museums, zoos, and aquariums because every destination must be visitor-centered. The goal: be prepared to capture and hold the imagination of an always-evolving audience free to make choices: free to go elsewhere and free to do something different.

Carts as Intentionally Designed Spaces

Program carts are wonderful tools for responding to this increasing pressure facing exhibitors.  As a method of flexible program delivery, these carts provide activities that fulfill a variety of purposes, from conveying mission content, to serving as a changing marquee, to supporting local school curricula.  Because carts bring staff, objects, and an exhibit-like experience into direct contact with visitors, they provide an intimate and simple means for establishing and building a dialogue with the public.  As self-contained platforms, carts are spaces that are able to move throughout a facility in order to find people, deliver an experience, and start an open-ended face-to-face exchange.  Simply put, this new approach allows public programmers to intentionally develop, design and deliver customized experiences that are all at once interactive, compact, and mobile.

To realize intent, a simple set of three standard reference points or new tools have been developed that help keep the designer on track, offering a universal method for tinkering throughout the process no matter the museum, mission, or message. Our designers at Museum Explorer keep the following principles close at hand throughout the process of creating exhibition carts:

• HEAD Target visitor interest. Give the audience something to wonder about.

 Develop and design a content highlight, some nugget of information that ignites

interest and invites direct exploration and inquiry. (Give people something to

THINK about).

• HEART Appeal to visitor awareness. Define an intimate environment. Design

clear conduits that allow the audience to make a personal connection with the program

narrative. Discover a way to incorporate a center of awareness in every cart design. (Help

 people find something to CARE about).

• HANDS Engage visitor curiosity. Welcome the audience to put their hands on things.

Merge visitor interactivity with the overall flow and story arch of the program. Create simple

and comfortable physical connections that stimulate natural human curiosity and encourage

discovery through sharing and conversation. (Give people something to DO).

As varied examples of how  intentionally designed program carts are created for various settings (an art museum, a history museum, and zoo), this article will discuss the following carts: “Art à la Cart,” “History à la Cart,” and

 “Animals Like Us,”

Carts Build Visitor Collaboration and Engagement: Smithsonian American Art Museum

The design process for program carts at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, was primarily a matter of shifting a perception about the nature of these carts. Jennifer Brundage, National Outreach Manager at the Smithsonian Institution, spoke to the concept of mobile learning centers in 2011.  In an entry for the Smithsonian’s Affiliate blog, Brundage confessed that she had “come to think of educational carts in the galleries as the Clydesdales of the field – the workhorses that are low-tech, straightforward” (2011).  Fortunately though, Brundage went on to admit that she was “wrong” about her initial notion of program carts, changing her mind after a 2011 brown bag lunch session where educators at the Smithsonian gathered for a presentation by guest speakers Rich Faron of Museum Explorer and Heidi Moisan from the Chicago History Museum regarding program carts—at the behest of Susan Nichols.  Brundage reflected afterward that, “through a slideshow of case studies and prototypes it became clear that their examples did not reflect the cart [she] had come to stereotype.”  Rather, “they presented carts as an appealing, active launch pad for visitor team-building, collaboration and a deeper engagement with exhibitions” (Brundage, March 22, 2011). 

As visitor collaboration is not something that often occurs in quiet art museums, bringing this object into the Smithsonian American Art Museum of all places was something of a novel idea.  The simple intent of moving a program cart (a box) into a gallery (four walls covered in expensive art), can be a challenge in such a conservative setting.  But the SAAM wanted direct and active visitor engagement, so Museum Explorer created “Art à la Cart”: five mobile carts for use throughout the Museum that further engage visitors with artwork by providing interactive hands-on activities for them.  Though all white in design with simple stark flags, these Art à la carts are still a colorful idea in such a prestigious setting. 

Carts Empower Visitors to Interact with History: Chicago History Museum

At the Chicago History Museum, program carts address a need for a very specific audience.  Here, history is not locked away in vaults or even behind glass (with some exceptions), but rather is made accessible to visitors—especially young local students—through inviting dialogue, opportunities to touch, and descriptive but relatable museum labels to provide a full historical experience.  Exhibition carts naturally fit into an environment like this, providing a different platform for making history accessible through direct visitor engagement. 

           

As part of the “History à la Cart” program, we designed multiple mobile learning carts for the museum, including “Prairie Landscape” and “The Great Chicago Fire.”  When Chicago Public School children come to learn about these locally-important moments in history, they actively implement their learning.  For example, they can physically measure how tall prairie grass was in order to visualize early Chicago, and they can map the path of the Great Chicago fire to assess the vast scope of the damage. 

According to Lynn McRainey, Director of Education at the Chicago History Museum, carts such as these “define a place where collaboration, conversations and children’s curiosity are a priority” (personal communication, December 2013).  In an environment where so many young students come to enhance their learning at school, the “History à la Cart” program at CHM provide spaces (six exhibition carts, to be precise) complimenting school curriculum.  Here, carts “empower children to move out of their passive roles of being told history into active participants in the discovery process”  (personal communication, December 19, 2013). 

Carts Encourage Exploration and Enable Visitors to Control their Experience: Lincoln Park Zoo

Allison Price, Director of Education at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, at first questioned program carts’ abilities to hold on to visitors.  The intentional design process “proved its mettle” on their program cart “Animals Like Us,” a collaborative effort with Museum Explorer Inc.  Through a series of probing questions and trial and error, Price and her team discovered that their typical “show and tell” program delivery was not working with audiences.  “[My team at Lincoln Park Zoo] kept coming back to our guest experience.  What should a visit to a cart feel like? What should guests be able to do?,” Price asked.  The answer to these questions was simple.  They deduced that “guests should be able to explore the animal kingdom on their own terms,” and should “walk away not just with information, but with provocation.” As a result, the designers decided “ Animals Like Us” and its program would be designed “so that the guests control the program flow, and so that exploration is valued equal to or more than information”(personal communication, December 3,2013).

Designing a cart for a zoo setting proved to have its own challenges.  In this space, there are many stimuli competing for attention – sights, sounds, smells, flavors.  In order to become its own space in a place like this, a program cart has to be colorful and loud and inviting all on its own.  “Animals Like Us” was created for the Lincoln Park Zoo with these qualities in mind, offering colorful and large signs, real animal skulls for visitor engagement, and a life-size human model standing adjacent to it.  This cart has no problem maintaining its own space.

“What resulted from our probing questions [in the design process] is a cart that, since its unveling, has captivated everyone from the 5 year-old to the 95 year-old, first-time visitors and long-time trustees,” Price says (personal communication).  Indeed, data supported Price’s findings.  A 2013 study conducted by the Garibay Group on program carts at the Lincoln Park Zoo (including “Animals Like Us”),  reported that, “on a scale from 1 to 4 (1 being ‘disagree strongly’ and 4 being ‘agree strongly’), 149 of 150 respondents rated their agreement with the statement ‘We really enjoyed our experience at the station’ as a 3 or 4” (2013).  Research typically focuses on quantitative data about what visitors learned, but it is important to note that this particular study also takes enjoyment into account.  Enjoyment is not often cited as a reason for what people get out of a visit to a museum or zoo, but this evaluation strongly emphasized that “visitors enjoyed their experiences at the stations,” primarily because there was learning involved.  While visitors often cited “enjoying the hands-on or interactive nature of the stations,” the most common response “concerned enjoying information conveyed during the interaction” (Garibay Group, 2013). 

A big idea in a small package? That is exactly what an exhibit cart is. Load it up and cruise the halls and galleries of your museum until you find an audience. It’s a possibility worth imagining because intentional design can work! It’s not only a fix--refocusing a message or reengineering interactivity--it’s about setting out and intending to capture that ‘instant’ of initial human interest and managing that moment as it unfolds and grows into a genuine experience.  Further, that experience can generate a memory of a great museum visit.

The key to program carts’ success rests in remaining flexible making a commitment to anticipate change through audience research, and then adapting as needed to meet the visitor’s mind, senses and spirit. One measure of success is reflected in the higher numbers of participation and stay-time by visitors. Whether adults, families, or children in school groups, all audiences are showing an increasing willingness to draw on their own sense of wonder and curiosity as they investigate, analyze and interpret new museum content designed with them in mind. Carts are succeeding because they invite all visitors to participate equally in a process of direct exchange and discovery.  The result: carts are effective because they engage people via the combination of live programmers and the common interactive space of the cart. Carts aren’t just visitor-centered, they are people powered. In a nutshell, carts WHEEL VISITORS IN.

A Trip to the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art

The exterior of the UIMA

Walking to the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago, all you can see are Ukrainian flags--waving in the wind off the porches of homes, hanging in the windows of businesses, even oddly positioned out of apartment buildings just so that they can be seen.  As the UIMA is located in the heart of the city's Ukrainian Village, this would normally not be such an unusual thing (in the city of neighborhoods that is so prone to local pride)... Except that there are so many of them, everywhere.  Along with the flags in many of these windows, there are signs (also in the shape and design of the Ukrainian flag) that read 'United We Stand for Ukraine.'  Clearly going beyond simple neighborhood pride, these flags and signs present a powerful political message.  In wake of the political turmoil overseas, this local neighborhood is quietly and strongly offering support of the Ukrainian peoples.

It is odd, then, to arrive at the UIMA museum and find no such mention or display of the Revolution.  An institution for Ukrainian culture, modern art, and experience in Chicago since 1971, the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art Chicago is one place you might expect to see something, anything regarding the current political events.  Even though there were no flags hanging boldly, no "United We Stand" signs displayed, no message to the public, the museum quietly spoke volumes on the subject nevertheless.  

There are two galleries here--one side gallery housing the museum's Permanent Collection, and the main gallery housing the special Exhibits--the current one being "Survival, Spirits, Dreams, Nightmares" (at least until the end of the month).  The Permanent Collection is comprised of contemporary works made in Chicago or by artists with both ties to Chicago and the Ukraine.  Though small, this gallery had a strong lineup of items from the Permanent Collection (numbering over 900 objects in total), including "Luke 1:35" by Lialia Kuchma.  Referencing the Annunciation of the birth of Jesus to Mary, Kuchma's beautiful blue and yellow tapestry can be seen (kinda) pictured below, toward the left of the photo of the gallery.  Here's a better look at the work here: http://uima-chicago.org/artwork/luke-135/.  Given the color scheme, this work is the closest object in the museum resembling the Ukrainian flag, but was just one of many items representing the Ukrainian heritage.

The side gallery featuring works from the museum's Permanent Collection

In the main gallery, the special exhibit "Survival, Spirit, Dreams, Nightmares" seemed not to have any ties to that heritage--at first.  While all four artists Rene Hugo Arceo, Mark Nelson, Yohanon Petrovsky-Shtern and Peter Dallos have Chicago ties (or, had, as UIMA bills Dallos as an "ex-Chicagoan), this link was not made obvious in the museum (and was completely unbeknownst to the writer).  Each artist clearly speaks from a unique cultural background. Arceo's linocut prints of elements of traditional Mexican culture are vastly different from Dallos' struggle-themed sculptures.  Petrovsky-Shtern's "Nightmare"-ish acrylics on canvas depict worlds and places disparate from those in Nelson's acrylics.  But in a second trip around the gallery, looking at each work again with a "big picture" lens, the ties to Ukrainian heritage and current conflict became apparent.

"Family."  Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern. 2012.
The label posits: "Human beings secure their own freedom and independence by using the wreckage of the previous slavery as building blocks.  In doing so, are they protecting or enslaving themselves?"

The purpose of this exhibit, as per the UIMA, is to ultimately feature the "power of the human spirit in overcoming adversity" in these works.  Though from geographically and culturally different perspectives unrelated to Ukraine, these works offer glimpses of the Ukrainian experience of the current struggle in the face of unrest. While this is most likely a matter of the timing of the exhibit coinciding with the unrest overseas, "Survival, Spirit, Dreams, Nightmares" nevertheless feels extremely relevant to the Revolution, prompting questions into the influences and the emotions involved in the Ukrainian revolution.  Can Dallos' "Struggle" sculptures be used to depict the conflict between the Soviets and the Ukrainian people now?  Do the questions Petrovsky-Shtern raise in his "Family" painting apply to the Ukrainian Revolution?  

Sticking to its mission statement in presenting "contemporary art as a shared expression of the Ukrainian and American experience," the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art wisely uses these varied works to offer a quiet, powerful reflection on what the Ukrainian experience might currently feel like in the distress it now faces.  

Getting Back in the Swing of Things

Last week, winter finally got to me.  I was officially over the snow and the drab and the traffic and the hibernating, so I decided to take a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago for some inspiration.  I was losing brain cells from the consistent winter schedule of running home to sweatpants and Netflix binges, so I needed an intellectual change.  En route to turning this new leaf, I of course encountered more snow, traffic, and cold temperatures, again tempting me to be deterred from making it to AIC, or any place other than straight to my bed.  I suffered through the 1:45 minutes’ worth of traffic to finally arrive downtown, but unfortunately this epic poem of getting to the museum did not end there.

Having reserved a parking spot online in a nearby garage, I made my way over to the Adams and Wabash area.  Not having fully read the instructions or directions that came with the parking reservation, however, I ended up in the wrong garage.  This mistake took all of 2 minutes for me to realize, and still cost me $12.00 to correct.  Aggravated and not feeling so well, I eventually--finally--walked the few blocks from the proper garage to AIC—and believe me, the cold temperature that day became more refreshing than annoying by this point in my trip.

Busts of Silenus (Busts Fashioned in the Shape of Silenoi)

The Art Institute looked a little light on exhibits that day.  “The Production Line of Happiness” seemed to be the only exhibit among the empty galleries in the Modern Wing, which I didn’t stick around for (there was a lot of reading involved and I wasn’t in the mood).  So back to the main building, I headed over to the Chagall America Windows, and just stood there basking for a bit in the blue glow. Then I walked through the hall of Greek and Roman art, admiring how these Silenus busts of ugly drunken spirits (pictured) do so closely resemble the drunks littering Clark street day in and day out.  And so on I went to one of the newer exhibitions, “When the Greeks Ruled Egypt.”  The history of Ancient Egypt has a special place in my heart, so I made sure to spend time here reading and learning.   Before going home, I decided to make a trip to my favorite spot in the entire museum, the Sculpture Court.  I enjoy the quiet and the lighting there, so it was good I got a calming fix in before my somewhat traumatic experience in the American Modern galleries upstairs.

I will reiterate that I was not feeling well this day, and was also a little out of it.  Eventually the AIC was able to turn my aggravation of the day into a sort of absorbent daze as I looked at the different works of art.  So, still in this daze, I happen upon my favorite Ivan Albright paintings (That Which I Should Have Done and Did Not Do and Picture of Dorian Gray), admiring the incredible detail and skill, and floating over to other interesting paintings.  At this point, mid-float, I noticed that my giant purse was touching the metal low rail protecting the painting, so I tried to avoid that happening and moved in a way that my knee instead made contact with the metal low rail, so much so that it knocked it to the ground (out of the floor it had been securely screwed into).  There was a clatter of metal banging, and I sort of stood there for a moment in disbelief before slyly looking around the gallery to see if anyone had noticed (one man did, and told me it would be better to leave the items where they fell).  Fortunately a security guard was not there to witness in person, although one did quickly come into the room surveying the situation.  Upon hoofing it the hell out of that gallery and heard the discrepancy being reported over a walkie-talkie, I noticed that a section of American Modern was empty and roped off for construction. 

The Hippodrome, London by Everett Shinn (aka the painting that lured me into defacing the low rail)

As I walked through the familiar-yet-favorite Indian and Himilayan art in Alsdorff Galleries, I realized that the emptiness and construction I saw in the Modern American and Modern Wings did not bother me so much after all.  Despite the bruise from my mishap upstairs and the headache I had been combating that day, I was still able get a fulfilling trip out of seeing my favorite spots and pieces in the museum.  Although I may have seen the Chagall Windows and Dorian Gray a hundred times already, they never cease to amaze me.  Their color and detail were more than I had seen in all the three months of being buried under the snow.  And I even found a new favorite painting--even though it may have led me to deface the museum.  Leaning in to watch that circus performer swing from the ceiling of The Hippodrome, knocking into the low rail, might have been just the kick I needed to get back on track.  I left AIC feeling satisfied, on to finish the epic poem of getting home and into those sweatpants.  

-Jessica

Feces Save Species

 

Last December (here) we introduced you to Amanda Berlinski and her 'Eureka' moment as she worked with Museum Explorer to develop the concept for the Lincoln Park Zoo POOP cart. Well that A-Ha moment has turned into a reality and to the delight of hundreds of visitors to the Zoo.

 

The cart, now called Feces Save Species, helps visitors learn why its so important for scientists working at the Zoo to roll up their sleeves and sink their hands into piles of crap every single day--dung of every size, shape and weight. By examining what comes out of the 'business end' of animals, Zoo scientists can monitor their health. They observe it, identify it, process it and analyze it!  WOW what a load of work!