Building Museum Exhibits When There is No Museum Building
Today we didn’t visit a museum. It’s the second day of spring and we were in the middle of a blizzard. It was only fitting that we schlepped to an office building suite and heard from Amanda Nesci from The Climate Museum — A soon to be museum, that is very much already a museum, but has no museum building. With all of this talk of architecture it was quite exciting to be hearing about the beginnings of a new museum that is being incredibly creative in how they grow from foundation meetings to having pop-up museum exhibits. These pop-ups are what interested me the most. Amanda talked about some of the pop-up exhibits they have been having throughout NYC as a way to gain awareness of, and support for, the museum and the issues it will present once it its permanent structure/home. Because they are still in the process of raising money, the museum relies on organizations that are willing to donate spaces in/on which they can present content.
The example she gave was when Parsons School of Design offered them the use of one of their windows while the school was closed during the holidays. The Climate Museum staff found a way to activate that window and use it in the best way they could, by commissioning a painting by artist, Zaria Forman called Whale Bay, Antarctica, №4 and making it into a perf to cover the entire window surface. In the lower left-hand corner they installed a monitor with a time-lapse video of the artist creating the work. Wall text was above the screen. The museum took advantage of what they were given for that short period of time. Not long after, they were given access by the school to a small gallery just inside that window for less than a month where they displayed a striking tall screen with four hours of video stills of iceberg cores called 88 Cores by artist, Peggy Weill as part of the exhibit called In Human Time. While this gallery space was small, one wall was all windows that faced 5th Avenue. They knew they could draw attention to the work through the window with the bright blue screen and that maybe people would come in to see the additional images hanging on the other walls. It sounds like it was a success.
Amanda also mentioned that they want to hold panel exhibits or programs in parks, which have no walls at all. This museum with no building is engaging visitors with the architecture, the spaces, the shapes, and the number of walls they are given. And they are doing it in very creative and thoughtful ways.
