Making Room: Museum as Space for Self-Expression
On View: June 26 – August 18, 2024
The Bronx Museum has become a site of creative making and self-expression for multiple audiences. This exhibition documents, celebrates, and extends that role, combining work from participants across Museum programs, work from the Museum’s permanent collection, interpretative materials created collaboratively by program participants and staff, and finally activated by the attention and creative engagement of visitors.
Specifically highlighted are works by Lifelong Studio, a program founded in 2023 for adults 55 and older that teaches a variety of artmaking skills, and Teen Council, a paid after-school program for high schoolers that has, since 2005, offered opportunities for young people to engage deeply with contemporary art and the museum space. The works presented by participants in both programs demonstrate a variety of experiences exploring personal narrative, memory, and self-expression. Works from the permanent collection are shown in conversation with these pieces, speaking to personal and collective identity, multigenerational artmaking, and in some cases a direct connection to the Museum’s education programs. Together, these artists co-construct the ongoing story of a generative creative space.
The exhibition takes form in three fluid and overlapping categories: “ME,” in which artists depict their personal identities through expressions and explorations of self; “US,” works that explore and document the creation of artistic and cultural communities in both organic and intentional ways; and “HERE,” showing in a variety of forms how The Bronx Museum functions as a site for creative making.
Visitors are encouraged to interact with materials in the lobby, including our zine library and interactive artmaking activities presented throughout the duration of the exhibition. We invite you to consider in what ways the Museum could be or already represents a useful and connective space for you.
Making Room is curated by Patrick Rowe, Director of Education and Public Engagement, and Nell Klugman, Associate Director of Education and Public Engagement.
Top Image: Lifelong Studio Photography Workshop, spring 2023
Exhibition Images
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'Making Room' Exhibition Opening Party at The Bronx Museum, 2024. Photo by Argenis Apolinario. -
'Making Room' installation view at The Bronx Museum, 2024. Photo by Argenis Apolinario. -
'Making Room' installation view at The Bronx Museum, 2024. Photo by Argenis Apolinario. -
'Making Room' Exhibition Opening Party at The Bronx Museum, 2024. Photo by Argenis Apolinario. -
'Making Room' installation view at The Bronx Museum, 2024. Photo by Argenis Apolinario. -
'Making Room' installation view at The Bronx Museum, 2024. Photo by Argenis Apolinario. -
'Making Room' installation view at The Bronx Museum, 2024. Photo by Argenis Apolinario. -
'Making Room' installation view at The Bronx Museum, 2024. Photo by Argenis Apolinario. -
'Making Room' Exhibition Opening Party at The Bronx Museum, 2024. Photo by Argenis Apolinario. -
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'Making Room' Co-Curators Patrick Rowe, Director of Education at The Bronx Museum and Associate Director of Education at The Bronx Museum, Nell Klugman at the 'Making Room' Exhibition Opening Party at The Bronx Museum, 2024. Photo by Argenis Apolinario. -
Education Programs
About Lifelong Studio
Lifelong Studio is a series of sequential, hands-on artmaking workshops at The Bronx Museum for adults ages 55 and over. Each 8-week program is free of charge and culminates in an artmaking project and final celebration.
Created in 2023 with funding from E.A. Michelson Philanthropy, Lifelong Studio offers older adults opportunities to express their creativity, learn new artistic techniques, and hone existing skills while engaging deeply with the museum space.
About Teen Council
Teen Council is a four-month paid internship for New York City high school students (ages 14-19), offered in both the fall and the spring.
Created in 2005, Teen Council offers opportunities for young people to engage deeply with contemporary art and the museum space. In this intensive after-school program, teens discuss and express ideas and create art relating to issues affecting young people today. Participants also gain experience in collaboration, communication, and curation. Teens may participate in one or both sessions each year.
Support
Making Room: Museum as Space for Self-Expression is made possible, in part, by The Keith Haring Foundation, Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation, Pinkerton Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Con Edison, Deutsche Bank, The William Randolph Hearst Foundation, The Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, The New Yankee Stadium Community Benefit Fund, William Talbott Hillman Foundation,E. A. Michelson Philanthropy, The Institute of Museum and Library Services, and The Fan Fox & Leslie R Samuels Foundation. Education and Community Programs are made possible, in part by New York City Council Member Althea Stevens. Sustaining support is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.