GUIDED TOURS AND HANDS-ON WORKSHOP THEMES
SPRING 2013
February 13-June 28, 2013
El Museo offers a variety of Guided Tours designed to encourage observations, spark curiosities, and create conversations around selected works of art and objects. All of the Guided Tours are inquiry-based to reflect the museum’s approach of engaging visitors in a dialogue. Visitors will participate in interactive discussions and activities facilitated by a Museum Educator to build upon their prior knowledge and experiences, making connections with what they see and developing a deeper understanding of the works of art discussed. Each Guided Tour is an hour long allowing groups to discuss 4-5 objects in depth while also participating in activities that may include movement, writing, or sketching in order to appeal to multiple ways of learning and interpreting.
Hands-on Workshops explore the themes and dialogues that emerge in the Guided Tour by fostering visitors’ observations, critical thinking, and creative skills. Museum Educators build upon the ideas discussed in the galleries to facilitate a unique art-making experience in El Museo’s Taller (art workshop). Art forms explored in the hour-long workshops may include printmaking, painting, collage, drawing, multi-media, and creative writing. In addition to creating art, visitors are encouraged to share their works and ideas to further deepen the connections made throughout their visit.
PROGRAM THEMES
CONSTRUCTING REALITY: Using photography and media to build our own stories:
Join our educators and consider stories of reality and the superreal found in the artwork of El Museo’s Permanent Collection and Temporary Exhibition. PRESENCIA is the fourth installment of our Permanent Collection exhibition series. It explores the ideas of presence/presencia and its counterpart, absence/ausencia through painting, sculpture, photography and drawing. superreal is a Temporary Exhibition that explores the layered meanings and multiple interpretations of the “real” as represented through photography and video. The photos and video works seen in superreal depict landscapes, the human figure, the world of architecture, objects, and natural phenomena, and examine the complex relationship between perception and story, between reality and its representation, between description and invention.
Looking at a selection of images and objects from these exhibitions, Museum Educators provoke meaningful conversations about various topics including identity, perception, the stories we construct about our lives, and how we make sense of the world around us. Visitors will engage in lively discussions and gallery activities to deepen their understanding of themselves, their peers, and the artwork in the galleries. Art-making activities offer an additional way to deepen our understanding of the stories, perceptions, and realities we face each day.
Around the Block from El Museo:
The Around the Block from El Museo (ATB) Program offers groups an opportunity to examine the relationship between El Museo and El Barrio. Museum Educators work with visitors to explore the diverse history and culture of El Barrio and its residents while considering what it means to have a museum that represents that place.
This program consists of a sensory-rich walking tour of El Barrio, allowing visitors to take in the sights and sounds of a variety of locations throughout the neighborhood including local businesses, murals, community gardens, and cultural institutions. At each location, visitors will engage in hands-on activities and discussions about the ways in which the both El Museo and the neighborhood have been shaped by the cultural and social practices of the residents of El Barrio. The hands-on activities will deepen learning about the relationship between El Barrio and El Museo, and encourage visitors to reflect upon the role each person has in shaping their own neighborhood.