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The Somerville Museum is pleased to announce the second bi-annual competition for community curators, two of whom will be selected to install their proposed exhibits in the museum’s gallery spaces at 1 Westwood Road, Somerville, MA. Those selected will also receive seed grants of $2,500 for exhibition costs.
The Museum welcomes proposals from those with extensive resumes as well as those with little experience yet with dynamic and imaginative visions. We encourage applicants to visit both the museum and its website at www.somervillemuseum.org in order to learn more about the museum’s wide-ranging exhibition history. Strong proposals should be clear and concise, presenting innovative and engaging ideas, along with an active programming agenda that will attract a diverse group of participants and visitors.
For further details about the application process, including selection criteria, funding, and resources, please visit www.somervillemuseum.org/curatorial.html
INFORMATION SESSION
Thursday, September 27, 2018 at 6 pm
Somerville Museum, 1 Westwood Road, Somerville, MA
RSVP to alison@somervillemuseum.org
DEADLINE
Friday, November 2, 2018 (by 11pm EST)
All applications are to be submitted digitally to alison@somervillemuseum.org
Application forms can be found at www.somervillemuseum.org/curator-application.pdf
Current Community Curator Exhibits
In 2016, the program’s first two Community Curators were selected from a large pool of applicants with projects that incorporated history, art and culture in dynamic, new ways. They also reflected the core mission of the Museum, reaffirming our commitment to engage the local community and honor the history of Somerville and its residents. Details of these upcoming exhibits can be found on the Museum’s website.
Triple Decker Ecology: Somerville’s Urban Landscape
Triple Decker Ecology: Somerville’s Urban Landscape
Curated by Pennie Taylor, with David Buckley Borden
October – December, 2018
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 11, 2018
Triple Decker Ecology includes selected objects from the Somerville Museum collection, and new
works that consider site-specific environmental issues, made by artist David Buckley Borden and
collaborators. Project research uses the museum’s historic collection and knowledge from
community stakeholders on topics including urban wilds, waterways, and species.
Borden will create a dozen “proposals” for a trail of sculptures that communicate science stories to
passers-by. The exhibit team will realize several of the proposals and collection items will be
installed with works highlighting local ecological history. The artworks are meant to raise
awareness by spurring direct action through programming with scientists, local organizations and
the community.
If you’d like to be involved as a volunteer, please email alison@somervillemuseum.org.
Our Stories, Our Stuff, Our Somerville
Curated by Bess Paupeck
February – April, 2019
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 14, 2019
This exhibition will bring people together by bringing their stuff together in a large-scale exhibition. The convergence of these things, and the stories that go with them, will offer a renewed sense of community and connection at a time when our city is rapidly changing. In addition to objects, programming will include several storytelling events and performances.
There is a call out to community members, stakeholders and organizations in the community seeking participants who would like to lend a meaningful, everyday object of significance for the exhibition.
If you have something you’d like to lend to this exhibition or if you’d like to be involved as a volunteer, please email curator, Bess Paupeck, at ourstuffsomerville@gmail.com
Museums hours during special exhibitions are:
Thursdays, 2-7pm
Fridays, 2-5pm
Saturdays, 12-5pm
For more information please contact alison@somervillemuseum.org
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This is one amazing place. At least thats what I hear. I use a wheelchair so can never visit. My efforts to get through to museum people on this issue were never even acknowledged, never mind attended to. Yet another place I am not welcome. The list? Som.Rec, DPW, youth program/teen center/teen empowerment. Nave gallery, Kennedy Pool, Brown school, Trum field, I’m exhausted. irony? Special Olympics at Trum, inaccessible. But then, who cares?
I could have sworn we had a Disabilities Commission in the city. Where are they? They never weigh in on anything, including trees pulling up the sidewalks, no viable walking path when the Ball Square Bridge closes, etc., etc.
Amazing Place…If you’re not a yuppie tech bro or a wannabe socialist, you’re pretty much invisible in Somerville.
This is not a reflection on the work of Evelyn Battinelli, a lovely woman who has done an amazing job with the Museum and this is not something she is able to fix. It is amazing however, that in a city that worries about black lives, LGBTQ lives, provides tot lots for kids, festivals for hipsters, etc. it seems odd that the disabled community has been totally left behind. How much money has been spent on revamping playgrounds that were not that old? How many have accessible playground equipment included? I agree, where is the Disabilities Commission?
Sorry, it’s a reflection on anyone involved who has never cared. Theyve been given inormation over many years on grant funding, and groups willing to help. Also ideas on simple, FREE things they can do to make things a bit more open to us. Cue the crickets. I cringe when they talk about hearing our stories, when they exclude a large group. Imagine a sign saying; no minorities allowed. Same. Thing, but our lives just don’t matter
I’m pretty sure that the museum is not owned by the city, rather the city contributes to it through donations. If you want to see changes at the museum I think you should take it up with the museum leadership rather than the city. (based on what i can find on the museums website)
At one point, a group (whose name escapes me) did push the lack of accessibility, but backed off for reasons that were never made public. Their intensity on ADA compliance issues at the Armory, public buildings/spaces and local businesses was well documented in the media, but the group seemed somewhat selective as to which locations they would focus on and how sharp that focus would be. For example, in 2017, B’Nai Brith received CPA funds to rectify their inaccessibility (https://goo.gl/GVY7NF). This was the first I had ever heard that the facility wasn’t accessible and would have expected said group to highlight this and demand it be fixed. Maybe I missed it?
It is not fair to say the museum is not trying to address this issue. They have funds and a plan and a neighbor that appealed their efforts. This is worth reading. http://masscases.com/cases/land/2018/2018-16-00528-FINDINGS%20OF%20FACT.html
To the rocket scientists above who couldn’t be bothered to pick up a phone before whining: A:The Somerville Museum is not a city property and must rely on grants / memberships / donations / groveling for the pittance it has available to do what it does. The exhorbitant cost to install an elevator has rather surprisingly kept the project from happening. B: the museum finally got the money it needed to make the building accessible a couple years ago, but the project has been stalled because of a lawsuit from a neighbor who feels his/her desire to park on the museum’s land “trumps” the project.