Experiential art at the Brooklyn Museum’s New Education Center

It could easily be an alien civilization. Its people have no gender, no organized religion, and no formal government. They live in an ecosystem filled with candy-colored plants that can grow infinitely tall. Residents travel on unmanned circular buses that float through the atmosphere. One year he lasts more than two centuries.

This environment sounds extraterrestrial, and you can easily encounter it in Brooklyn. The piece, called “Artland,” is an endless fantasy world designed by children, molded from clay models, and supervised by internationally renowned artist Do Ho Soo. This traveling museum exhibition was created by the two young daughters of . On Saturday from noon to 3 p.m., “Artland” welcomes the public to a free celebration of the newly renovated Toby Devan His Lewis Education Center at the Brooklyn Museum. There, visitors can sculpt imaginary flora and fauna to add to the show’s fantastical jungle.

In a way, this installation symbolizes a new center aimed at helping visitors find their way into art.

“It’s all about world-building, right?” Shamilia McBean Toklarei, the museum’s co-director of education, said in an interview. “It’s all about creating possibilities, and it’s really like the invitation we’re giving to the community, ‘Come here.’ What can we create together?”

The exhibition, titled “Artland: Installations by Do-Ho Suh and Children,” marks the opening of the Norman M. Feinberg Gallery, located just inside the entrance to the redesigned Education Center. The 9,500 square foot wing also includes his three art production studios with amenities such as: It includes audiovisual technology as well as an educational office that fosters collaboration.

“Essentially, this was a guts renovation,” Steven Yablon said. His firm, Stephen Yablon Architecture, designed the $9 million project, which he called the “Art Connector.”

“The concept was to build a space that would be a tool for people to learn about art, experience art, and connect with the museum,” Yablon said in an interview. “The way we did that was to create a very welcoming atmosphere when you walk in, so you’re not in a hallway, you’re immediately in a public space,” he added.

The education wing on the first floor previously housed a gallery, but it displayed only the work of participants in the museum’s programs. “Artland,” which runs until May 5, represents a new and additional commitment to annually host interactive exhibitions led by world-class artists.

Few shows are as interactive as this one. The show begins in 2016 at Sue’s dining table in her London home, where her eldest daughter begins building a world she calls Artland, inhabited by cat-shaped creatures called slimes. When her sister was old enough, she too joined in, and as they expanded the universe they had invented, Sue eventually moved it into his studio, and the girls wrote an entire mythology for it.

“I called myself my daughters’ art assistant,” Sue said in a video call. If you’re having trouble adding clay pieces to your artland, we’ve used recycled materials to build a simple framework that can extend from the table surface to the walls and floor.

Sue, whose work is in the collections of other institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum and New York’s Museum of Modern Art, was saddened when the girls, now ages 13 and 10, began to outgrow their own creations. He said he felt it. But when he was invited by the North Seoul Museum of Art in his native South Korea to organize an exhibition in a children’s gallery, he found a way to preserve it, where “Artland” became a participatory exhibition. .

“It was a big hit,” Sue said. “More than 100,000 kids came to the show and contributed something.”

In Brooklyn, “Artland” begins on a small scale, placing only three of the world’s existing islands on a small table. However, the gallery offers many more surfaces of different heights for children to extend their projects, as well as videos about the projects and a brochure explaining their classification.

As young New Yorkers discover “Artland,” Hsu said he expected “more bold” results.

“I hope they feel like this is their own,” he added. “And they feel like they’re artists.”

Museum executives said they expect visitors to respond that way to the entire renovation. Unlike the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new 81 Street Studio, which is aimed only at children, the Brooklyn Museum’s Education Center serves more than 50,000 visitors young and old who participate in its programs each year. These range from stroller tours for children 2 and under to an ART (Arts, Research, and Education) guided volunteer program that includes many retirees.

And while the Metropolitan Museum of Art attracts many tourists, visitors to the Brooklyn Museum “remain concentrated in the local Brooklyn community,” said Adjoa Jones, the museum’s associate director for learning and social impact.・Mr. Almeida said in an interview. However, the education building had never been renovated since his opening in 1980 and was dark, small, and closed off.

“There were always conversations like, ‘Is it a coincidence that the Brooklyn Museum serves the most BIPOC audiences and also has the shabbiest spaces in an encyclopedic institution?'” Jones de Almeida said, using the acronym for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. “That was always really hard to hear.”

As museum officials prepare for next fall’s 200th anniversary, they wanted renovations to reflect its legacy as a training ground for artists such as Linda Benglis, Robert Smithson and Richard Mayhew. In addition to designing his open plan with flexible seating, the architect also raised the ceilings and added glass doors to the education center. The installation of tall windows in two of the art studios allows for natural light for the first time.

“There was a lot of discussion about visibility, a lot of discussion about access,” said Kenneth Kurtz, the museum’s staff architect. In the first studio he has sinks lined up on two levels. The lower floor can also accommodate children and visitors in wheelchairs.

The redesign also includes rooms for the museum’s guides and youth programs. The space is “more of a hangout area,” Yablon said, with tables and workstations, as well as colorful sofas and snack food.

In conjunction with the center’s opening, the museum, which has no fixed admission price (suggested ticket price is $20 for adults, free for under 20s), is expanding its schedule to feature drop-in public programs every weekend. Visitors to this Saturday’s celebration can enjoy a photo booth, graffiti wall, zine project, and “Artland.”

“Maybe you’ve never been to a painting class or thought about sculpture in your life,” Jones de Almeida said. You can grow that skill set and develop that skill set. That’s very important to the vision of this renovation, the idea that we’re all creative. ”