Museums and Culture

I must have mentioned before that my favorite museum of all time is the Brooklyn Museum, right?  Yesterday’s visit definitely lived up to all that I imagine every time I step through its doors.  Museums nowadays have the struggle to engage audiences more than ever.  In an age of technology and instant gratification, it’s difficult to grab the attention of visitors, especially younger ones!  The Brooklyn Museum, in the two exhibits I visited, did a superb job of combining art and text on the wall with video, audio, and tactile activities, to ensure that museum visitors were well engaged.  In the El Anatsui exhibition space (three large rooms), iPads with 30 second videos were strategically placed on benches.  Curators and art experts spoke about a specific element of Anatsui’s art, and then asked the museum visitor a question.  When the video ended, the iPad would take you to an interactive page of comments, where you can add to the conversation!  There was even a station where visitors can make their own “wall hangings” with scrap paper and twist-ties.  You might think this activity sounds juvenile, but many of the adult visitors enjoyed the arts and crafts!  In the Sargent watercolor exhibition, videos were displayed on the walls, depicting different watercolor techniques he may have used in his paintings.  There was also a section of the room dedicated to explaining the science behind art analysis – infrared, carbon detection, x-rays, and more!

Just the other day, my friend invited me to her a cappella performance at a Queens College open mic located in the amphitheatre.  I’ve walked through that deserted space a million times, always hoping that I would one day be able to go to a performance there!  I had been told, though, that due to constant airplane noise above, the school – mainly the drama and music departments – neglected the space.  So, what was my response to my friend when she asked for my presence?  Hell yeah!

Tuesday, May 7 @ 4:45 PM – I am pretty confident that all will go well at my 6:30 PM event.

Tuesday, May 7 @ 5:45 PM – I start to get worried about my event.

Tuesday, May 7 @ 6:30 PM – Uh oh… what’s going to happen?

Break down.

As my frequent readers know, though I am a freshman here at Queens College, I have become extremely active on campus – especially in Hillel, the Jewish organization for students.  I am also the intern for Koach on Campus, a Conservative Jewish program for college students.  As an intern, I am held responsible to create monthly events that foster Jewish experiences.  As a perfectionist and an anxiety-prone individual, I tend to get nervous when planning and executing said events or programs.  Often times I only end up hosting about five students, and sometimes my goals aren’t even reached.  It really is a learning process!

There is no lack of fascinating, moving, and awe-inspiring Holocaust survival stories. But when one watches a documentary film based on the survival of one’s extended family, the story is all the more touching. No Place on Earth is based on the story of the Stermer family survival in the Ukraine during World War II. A cave explorer, Chris Nicola, went to the Ukraine in order to uncover his own family history. Instead, he stumbled upon a cave that had relics of past human dwelling. These humans were not “cavemen” or Neanderthals, but people in the last century! Nicola went on a quest to figure out who these people were, but believed the trail would run dry.

The following is a formal analysis paper I wrote for my Introduction to Western Art II course at Queens College.  The assignment was to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and pick a work of art to describe visually using terms we learned in class.  The art piece I decided to focus on was the Chitarrino (titled Mandora on the Met Museum website), a 15^th century stringed instrument that was made in Italy, perhaps specifically in Milan.  This instrument is made from boxwood and rosewood and is located in Gallery 684 of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The following blog post is about my experience at the Becoming Global: The Renaissance and the World conference.  Organized by Clare Carroll (my Renaissance Comparative Literature professor, as well as my Arts in NYC Professor), James Saslow (the Art History advisor and professor at Queens College), and Quiñones Keber, the conference was meant to enlighten those who attended about what was happening in other areas of the globe during the time of the European Renaissance.  How did the Europeans, affected by their own rebirth of culture, interact with the different communities that shared the globe with them?  In the class taught by Professor Carroll, we are studying just this.

I am not sure how many people in the United States know about the significance of the date “March 11.”  I know I wasn’t aware of its association for quite some time – until this year to be exact.  On March 11, 2004, 191 innocent civilians were killed in the train bombings in Madrid.  There is never any rational reason for terrorism, but there may have been a desire to foil the upcoming general elections in Spain.  Though the terrible act of violence succeeded in switching the political parties in Spain, what we must take from the events is not the politics – but the people.

To understand the following blog post about my Jewish weekend at the University of Pennsylvania, there are some basic things I must first define:

• KOACH
  Within Judaism, there are many different denominations. These separations go from Re-Constructionist Judaism to ultra-Orthodox. KOACH is the college outreach program of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.  In a way, it is an extension of Camp Ramah and USY programs designed for elementary through high school aged students.  Problems with funding and organization make it hard to truly define what KOACH is as compared to Ramah and USY both of which are known and well established. As of now, KOACH has only eight college-campus interns throughout the U.S. (I am one of them), and KOACH hosts one yearly convention…
• KALLAH
  It came to my attention that kallah is not specifically related to KOACH in general, but is a term that has been used since the Babylonian captivity (thank you Wikipedia!).  Though traditionally referring to a convention of teachers, the word kallah is thought to be derived from the Aramaic word meaning “totality.”  My interpretation of this translation means that a kallah is a convention bringing an entirety of a community, of people, together for some higher purpose. In the case of KOACH Kallah, we were all brought together to strengthen the present and future foundations of Conservative Judaism.

  Click here to read more

On this extremely frigid evening, January 24th, I made my way from Queens to the Gerald Lynch Theatre on the far west side of Manhattan to attend a Macaulay Honors College common event.  Last semester, there were two events held based around the topic of our Arts in NYC course.  We went to the Brooklyn Museum and we had our own gallery opening at the Macaulay building, featuring our photos from Snapshot Day.  This semester, our Macaulay seminar is entitled “Peopling of New York City,” and for this reason, I had to venture out in the cold.  For this event, we had the honor of listening to a lecture given by Joseph Salvo, the director of the Population Division of the NYC Department of City Planning.  Hearing about all of the different people that make up New York City reminded me about my English 110 Honors course from last semester.  So much goes into this city that we are almost unaware or take it for granted.  One of the secret ingredients in our melting-pot is our diverse population.

It is extremely hilarious how unmotivated I am while at home, but when I’m at college, I hop right onto my computer and type up a blog.  Well, here’s my first post of the new year!!!  Hope it meets your expectations.

I have neglected up until now to mention Inisfada or the St. Ignatius Jesuit Retreat House located in Manhasset.  But before this, I would just like to thank Father Damian Halligan, the onsite historian at St. Ignatius, for being so welcoming to me, taking me around, and informing me of all its intricate details.