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Museum Events

Reflections on Queer Film Night: Queerness, Recouces, and Art in Dialogue

By H Edwards 26’

H is both a Student Ambassador for the McMullen Museum and the Policy Coordinator for the Queer Leadership Council (QLC) here at Boston College.

Creative minds in the Queer community are no secret. The Queer community has always worked to transgress norms and signal to others their queerness and their differentness. This beauty is precisely what the Queer Leadership Council hopes to celebrate and cherish in the Boston College community. The Queer Leadership Council, formerly known as the GLBTQ+ Leadership Council, started Pride Week with a re-naming of its council and ended Pride Week with a Queer film night at the McMullen Museum. 

Changing the name to include the word Queer was one of profound importance to the community at Boston College. As the primary student organization that exists for LGBTQ+ students, we have the responsibility of channeling a practice and environment that cherishes unity, acceptance, and care. QLC believes the name GLC represents an inequitable centering of cisgender male students who identify as gay and a neglect of women and gender non-conforming students. Through this name change, we recenter the experiences of people of all sexual practices and all gender performances as a unified community under the Queer label. With the integration of Queer resources into the Bowman AHANA+ Intercultural Center, Boston College has entered a new era that can impact the experiences of Queer students. Additionally, it allows us to take part in impactful change more broadly and reflects the commitment we have in QLC to cultivate community. 

Pride Week, a week surrounding National Coming Out Day, was the perfect day to release the re-naming news. We hoped to start our celebration of Queer lives, joys, and experiences with a reclaiming of who we are. The Pride Week events had a central theme of connecting Queer students to resources. We wanted to remind students that the school, its resources, spaces, and administrators exist for all of us. The McMullen Museum collaboration was one of the connections we hoped to bridge for Queer students during Pride Week. We wanted to introduce students to the museum and, by showing an explicitly queer film, prove to them the space is for them.

Boston College students on the terrace of the McMullen Museum to watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire for a Pride Week event. Taken by Sydney Brown.

Students came to the terrace of McMullen to watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire: a French film from 2019 with themes around forbidden queer love, memory, and the complexities of gender and sexuality in a patriarchal, hetero-normative society. Through the complicated relationship between an artist and her subject, this film beautifully connects the ways that being Queer, being a female artist, and taking up space all transgresses the norms drawn by society. The crowd was joyful, enjoying the film and giving commentary. The McMullen was a safe space that night and will continue to be for diverse identities across Boston College’s campus. As a student ambassador, I want to continue to hold space for all identities and work to connect students to the magical resources of our beautiful museum through its art, programming, and space.

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In Case You Missed It Museum Events

In Case You Missed It: STITCH DIY Embroidery Night

By Michaela Brant, class of ’23

Photographs by Caitlin Park, class of ’24

STITCH and the McMullen teamed up to host a Do-It-Yourself Embroidery Night on Tuesday, February 22. The McMullen provided the supplies and STITCH brought the expertise. Among Martin Parr’s photographs in the second floor gallery, participants gathered around tables strewn with embroidery hoops, fabric, needles, and thread of every imaginable color. Experience levels were all over the board, and many attendees were seen scrolling on Pinterest trying to find an attainable yet visually pleasing pattern for their beginner skills. By the end of the night, many were introduced to the art of embroidery and invited to future STITCH meetings, and everyone got to take home their beautiful embroidery projects.

Students gathered around tables in the second floor gallery and worked on their embroidery projects.
Participants followed instructions from the packet provided or went with their own designs.
STITCH members instructed and chatted with attendees throughout the gallery.

Keep an eye out for the next McMullen and STITCH collaboration, Crocheting on the Quad on May 3rd and 4th!

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In Case You Missed It Museum Events

In Case You Missed It: Spring 2022 Lunar New Year Celebration

Photographs and captions prepared by Sunny Lee, class of ’22

On Saturday, February 5th, 2022, the McMullen hosted a Lunar New Year event with Boston College’s Asian student organizations. This event was open to the public, and it was fabulous to see many students and members of the local community enjoying their time in the festive halls of the Museum. The Asian Caucus, Chinese Students Association, Korean Students Association, Taiwanese Cultural Organization, and the Vietnamese Student Association presented New Year’s food from various countries, games, and opportunities to make New Year’s decorations to celebrate Lunar New Year. The games played were Go, Mahjong, and Feilong. Additionally, attendees tried their hands at decorating red envelopes, fortune-telling, origami, and making Chinese lanterns and New Year’s knots. 

Board members of the Vietnamese Students Association (VSA) Gina Yoo and Vivienne Le smile for the camera while preparing to serve Vietnamese cuisine.

Left: The mouthwatering dumplings the Chinese Student Association (CSA) brought were a popular hit among the attendees. Right: The Taiwanese Culture Organization (TCO) brought delicious egg tarts and crackers that are popular staples at Asian supermarkets.

The button-making machines worked by McMullen Student Ambassadors allowed participants to create their own button pins.

Right: participants in the game room busied themselves with the various traditional Asian games provided, such as Mahjong and Go. Left: attendees used their artistry and dexterity in creating paper crafts such as a Chinese lantern ornament.

If you did not have the chance to catch our TikTok video on social media, you can watch it here!