Welcome to Your Museum Time
Thank you for being part of the Your Museum Time program. Each week, you’ll receive a prompt that you can use during your next visit to the Museum. The prompts will vary—a question, a looking technique, an insight related to new scholarship, a mindfulness exercise, a poetry form, or a sketching idea. You might even be asked some of the same questions the Museum staff is asking of themselves, as we work on action steps related to our commitment to action on racial justice.
My hope is that you visit the Museum often and see it as a place where you can bring your whole self. Spending time with works of art can do so many things for each of us—offer new ways to see the world, pose difficult questions, activate feelings and emotions, challenge us with new ideas, and sometimes delight us with beauty.
All the best,
Kris Bergquist
Mirken Curator of Education and Engagement
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Prompt #2
“The good news is that racist and antiracist are not fixed identities. We can be a racist one minute and an antiracist the next. What we say about race, what we do about race, in each moment, determines what—not who—we are.” – Ibram X. Kendi
Like museum workers all around the country, the Colby College Museum of Art staff has been undergoing intentional reflection about who we are, who we want to be, and what steps we need to take to become an antiracist organization.
This week, as the Colby campus hosted a virtual talk by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, it felt like a good time to reflect on two works of art created by artists who are questioning the ways Black, Indigenous and People of Color have been portrayed in works of art and written about in museum labels.
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LOOK
During your next visit to the Museum, grab a stool and spend some time with the two works of art pictured below, a print by Wendy Red Star and a mixed media work by Meleko Mokgosi.
As you look and reflect, keep in mind that art has multiple meanings. Everyone will bring their own knowledge, values, and beliefs into their interpretation, and that allows each person to experience it in a new way.
With all that in mind, consider these looking suggestions to reflect on in your journal:
Spend a full minute just looking at the work of art. Write down at least three details you noticed.
Ask yourself why these particular details made an impression on you.
What do you think the artist was interested in saying with this work?
How is this work of art relevant to your own life at this moment in time?
What are you still curious about and want to investigate further?
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Lunder Wing (ground floor)
Wendy Red Star, Peelatchiwaaxpáash/Medicine Crow (Raven) (from the "1880 Crow Peace Delegation" Series), 2014. Pigment print on archival photo paper. 25 x 17 in. (64 x 43 cm). Purchase from the Art Department with funds from the Jere Abbott Acquisitions Fund. Accession number: 2019.035.
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Sally and Michael Gordon Gallery (first floor)
Meleko Mokgosi, Modern Art: The Root of African Savages, 2013. Inkjet printing and charcoal on linen, six panels.36 x 24 in. each (91.44 x 60.96 cm). Gift of the Acorn Foundation, Barbara and Theodore Alfond in honor of Sharon Corwin. Accession number: 2013.538.A-F.
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Sept. 22: National Voter Registration Day |
The Colby College Museum of Art, as a member of the American Alliance for Museums, joins museums around the country as active community partners for 2020 National Voter Registration Day next Tuesday, September 22.
We also are supporters of the Colby Votes initiative, and encourage everyone to attend the campus registration events to learn more about this work. On September 22, there will be Colby Votes tabling from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. outside the Testing Tent and from 5 to 7 p.m. outside of Dana Hall.
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BANNER: Colby College Museum of Art; photo © trentbellphotography.
Copyright © 2020 Colby College Museum of Art, All rights reserved.
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Colby College Museum of Art
5600 Mayflower Hill
Waterville, ME 04901
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