How might the Weatherspoon better engage with museum participants to share fuller and more inclusive stories of American art? This question sparked an eighteen-month-long curatorial and programming project starting in January 2022. We’ve been listening to people as they share what matters to them in the museum, and we’ve created this installation of the museum’s art collection based on what we learned.
Making Room: Familiar Art, New Stories presents 43 artworks (see cover for a few selections) from the Weatherspoon’s collection of more than 6,500. Each was chosen in response to what more than 4,000 community members told us they care about. These visitor responses—which ranged from poems to doodles to personal statements—were gathered in multiple ways. Within the Inquiry Hubs, for example, the visitor engagement team coordinated pop-up gallery performances and facilitated collection-based inquiry and play. One thing we heard repeatedly: caring requires doing. As one museum visitor wrote, “I show my family I am there for them through actions.” We chose to organize this installation around the broad theme of caring—of being there—using four spaces dedicated to what we heard people care about: FAMILY, COMMUNITY, PLACE, and MEMORY.
June 3, 2023 - April 6, 2024
Weatherspoon Art Museum, UNC Greensboro
500 Tate Street, Greensboro, NC 27402
Tuesday - Saturday: 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Thursday : 10am-8pm
Closed Sundays, Mondays + holidays
