Category: McMullen Updates

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A Letter from the Editors

By: Publication Committee Co-chairs Arvin Mohapatra and Alex Hull

Welcome back to the Terrace and the McMullen Museum! As editors and co-chairs of the Publications Committee here at the McMullen, we wanted to welcome you back to your museum officially, whether that be in-person or remotely.  The last few months have been overwhelming and have taken some getting used to, but we are happy to be connected again.  We have welcomed both new and returning students to our Student Ambassador program for the 2020-2021 school year. Working both inside the museum and remotely, these students will continue to keep working within their committees and with the broader BC community to help facilitate bringing the museum to you during this strange and unprecedented moment in history.  

Even though many museum operations and events look different this year, the McMullen remains open to the BC community and will continue to host virtual events throughout the year.  The museum is open this semester, by appointment only, to the BC community.  Since the exhibition on display in the Spring was only available for about two months before the museum closed, the museum decided to keep the exhibition, Indian Ocean Current: Six Artistic Narratives, open for this semester. If you are interested in viewing the exhibit, the best way to schedule an appointment is by contacting Rachel Chamberlain at rachel.chamberlain@bc.edu.  The museum also remains a study space on campus.  If you are interested in using the museum study spaces, you can also email Rachel about setting up a time slot for studying.  

All of our programs for this semester will take place virtually.  Some of the upcoming events we have planned include weekly docent tours at 3:00 PM every Friday, an Art History and Film colloquium on September 21, and a publication highlight on Ming Era architecture on September 29, to name a few for the rest of September.  To find the complete events calendar, visit https://www.bc.edu/sites/artmuseum/about/events.html.  We hope to “see” many of you there!

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Harvard Art Exchange

By Kate Oksen

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On Friday, November 9, student guides and staff members from the Harvard Art Museums came to the McMullen Museum to complete the second component of our exchange program. Harvard students were greeted in the atrium by Professor Nancy Netzer before heading to our first floor conference room.

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Sophia Cocozza, co-chair of the Education Committee, had the opportunity to delve a little deeper into the specific roles and responsibilities of a McMullen student ambassador. The co-chairs of each of our six committees presented an overview of their main projects and goals for the semester while using visual aids to showcase components of our website, 3D-Vista tours of past exhibitions, an inside look at our database, and more.

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The Harvard students were split into two groups and brought on tours of the second and third floor galleries of the museum. The tours were facilitated by members of our Education Committee, who each conducted extra research on components of Strategies of Engagement to inform Harvard’s student guides about Carrie Mae Weems herself and pieces from her vast array of work. Interacting with other student workers, conversing about the exhibition and discussing the differences and similarities of our experiences working in art museums coupled with the actual trips to these unique spaces has been such a positive endeavor for all involved. We are so happy to have had this exchange and so grateful to have had the Harvard student guides participate!

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In Case You Missed It: Open Mic Night with SLAM! + The Laughing Medusa

By Katherine Oksen

On Thursday, October 11th, the McMullen Museum collaborated with SLAM! and The Laughing Medusa to host an open mic night.

With the room filled with the smell of hot coffee and tables laden with macarons, pastries, and baked delicacies, a gorgeous night of poetry and prose began. SLAM! (Soul, Love, and Music) is Boston College’s own spoken word group, and The Laughing Medusa is BC’s only women’s literary and arts journal (striving to bring feminism to a publication near you.)

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Members of each group performed at will, showering us with poems and pieces about love and life and hurt and hate. Despite the rainy weather, providing those darling melancholy vibes, the atrium of the museum was filled with students there to perform, support their friends, and listen to what their fellow peers had to say. The McMullen provided an open, safe space for students to share their words with a kind of fervor, intensity, and passion that cannot be replicated in the typed or written form. Snaps were heard all around in response to beautiful and powerful lines woven from experiences pulled from the full spectrum of human emotion, including abuse, racism, misogyny, ignorance, and heartache.

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Miya Coleman, president of SLAM!, and Taylor Puccini, editor-in-chief of The Laughing Medusa, did an incredible job both performing their own works while also facilitating the entire event and encouraging the audience to to speak their minds.

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The McMullen is hoping to continue hosting events like this, perhaps collaborating with these student groups again in the spring and even making this an annual event each fall. Thanks to everyone who came out to support all of our aspiring poets!