Thursday, February 2, 2012

Tuesday we visited the Jewish Museum and had a personal tour by the Teen programs coordinator Jamie Auriemma exploring the galleries that hosed the most impressive Hanukkah lamp collection one could ever imagine. Like many art and cultural institutions the Jewish museum reminds one how beautiful religion, history and culture really is. Museum summit teens where even invited to explore their newest exhibition “Composed: Identity, Politics, Sex” a small gallery space featuring photographs that focuses on the constant battle we all encounter of self identity. In the sense of where are place is in history, present day society and the connections between the two. Noted as Jamie’s favorite pieces Debbie Grossman (American, b. 1977) series of Photoshopped photographs from Russell Lee in 1940 in Pie Town, New Mexico, where Debbie re-wrote history to be an ideal place for herself. After some time to digest this topic I feel this is a lot of what teens in museum education do. We set out to re-write preconceptions about adolescents. To some professionals teenager is viewed as a dirty word, same way as almost all minorities where at one point. By having this opportunity to be involved with museum in any way there is always a space where your opinion is valued, in my experiences this is one of the most rewording parts about being part of MTS. ☺