About this project
How can a museum make anyone feel welcome?
Some of my favorite memories from college are of evenings spent in our local art museum.
Every Tuesday at 6 PM, 12 classmates and I would gather outside the doors of the Middlebury College Museum of Art, our teeth chattering in the Vermont cold, and wait for John the security guard to buzz us in.
We were the student guides. We had the privilege of scampering around the museum after hours, writing labels, planning events, and, at our luckiest, leading visitors through the collections.
The work enchanted me. It taught me that museums can be magnificent, but also silly; reverent, but also critical. It taught me that any object, if treated with the right dose of curiosity, can be worthy of our wonder.
Scarabs, scabbards, and scallops all hum with invisible stories. Pay close attention, and the mundane becomes magical, old bones sparkle, rusty flutes are heard again.
We were the student guides. We had the privilege of scampering around the museum after hours, writing labels, planning events, and, at our luckiest, leading visitors through the collections.
The work enchanted me. It taught me that museums can be magnificent, but also silly; reverent, but also critical. It taught me that any object, if treated with the right dose of curiosity, can be worthy of our wonder.
Scarabs, scabbards, and scallops all hum with invisible stories. Pay close attention, and the mundane becomes magical, old bones sparkle, rusty flutes are heard again.
Om Gokhale
AdvisorJason Vrooman, Chief Curator
Michelle Leftheris, Assistant Professor of Studio Art