Connections Gallery: Experiments in Community Curating

The mission of the Samek Art Museum states, in part, “The Museum is an academic art lab where experimental art, innovative curatorial practices, and co-curricular programming generate new ways to engage and inspire audiences.” It’s time to give those words some traction.

The Connections Gallery is a new program of the Samek Art Museum that presents one exhibition a month curated not from the usual “museum voice” of the gallery, but from the perspectives of invited partners ranging from faculty and student groups to campus centers to community organizations.

One partner may be invited to make selections from our permanent collection while another brings art that is new to us and to you. The Museum collaborates with these partners to produce a professional art exhibition in our newly remodeled corridor gallery re-dedicated and renamed the Connections Gallery.

At best, art presents new perspectives, invites reflection, and occasions discussion and debate. Opening up the curatorial process is one way in which the Samek Art Museum hopes to broaden the dialogue around art and expand the community of those engaged with art. Each month, look for our next Connections exhibition with a new partner presenting a fresh perspective on art.

Space: (…!) Presented by the Intermediate and Advanced Drawing students of Bloomsburg University, Oct. 2012. Connections Gallery: Experiments in Community Curating from Lisa Corine von Koch on Vimeo.