House Life Project
One of the first courses I took in IUPUI's Museum Studies program was Exhibit Planning and Design. As a lover of exhibit planning, I really enjoyed this course. The big project for this course was creating an exhibit in partnership with House Life Project. House Life Project was a grassroots, arts-focused initiative based in the St Clair Place neighborhood on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis. We created a layout for the objects, color scheme, a budget, labels, and much more for the project. My responsibilities were creating the floor plan and layout on SketchUp Design. I designed this and added objects, labels, wooden floors, windows, etc. We all worked together to create the budget.
Fall Creek Photography Exhibit
I created a companion exhibit for the traveling exhibit Humanities Action Lab: Climates of Inequality along with other group members for our Interpreting Environmental Justice course. Our companion exhibit featured photographer Tim Faris. His photography focuses on the Fall Creek waterway. This exhibit was called "Fall Creek: A Look at Art and the Environment." We also had Stefan Petranek, professor at Herron School of Art and Design, speak at our reception and opening night. The exhibit was displayed at the Indianapolis Downtown Library's "Yellow Room" from December 9th, 2019 - January 25th, 2020. We had been working on this exhibit for three months and had such a great turn out. This was a first time curating an exhibit outside of an internship for me.
Climates of Inequality
I had the pleasure of being a part of the Humanities Action Lab: Climates of Inequality project. I had the opportunities to attend the Association of Midwest Museums Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan and present a research poster with my program director representing IUPUI and IUPUI's MSTD program. I also attended the Humanities Action Lab: Climates of Inequality Launch Convening in Newark, New Jersey with my cohort.
Indianapolis Contemporary: Exhibitions Internship
In Summer 2019, I was the Exhibitions Intern for Indianapolis Contemporary. Indianapolis Contemporary is a nomadic museum in Indianapolis. Its mission is to connect people to inspiring and innovative art of our time, with an emphasis on work that is aesthetically compelling, conceptually rigorous, and socially impactful. They focus on exhibitions, programs, abstract, and network. As their Exhibitions Intern, I assisted Mike Barclay, Director of Exhibitions, with a few exhibitions. I researched artists for future exhibitions, prepared exhibits and organized receptions for Jennifer Zwick's "Optical Bouquet" and Victoria Manganiello, Julian Goldman, and Lauren Zoll “Synthesis,” dismantled “On Soft Ground” featuring Samuel Levi Jones and “Synthesis” exhibits, organized Excel sheets of artist exhibitions and donors, wrote content (artist biographies, labels, descrptions,) for "Optical Bouquet" exhibit, researched locations to exhibit objects for future Jono Vaughn exhibition. I was really able to enhance my writing skills and researching abilities through this position. I really loved working with artists and Mike was a great mentor.
Parachuting Into Environmental Justice
With the collaboration of one of my classmates, Sarah Shorter, we launched a public programming activity “Parachuting into Environmental Justice.” This was held in three difference locations - Tube Factory ArtSpace, Kheprw Institute, and IMCPL Downtown Indy. The images displayed are from Tube Factory ArtSpace in collaboration with Big Car Collaborative. Our other partners were Kheprw Institute and IMCPL. Andrea Jandernoa helped facilitate our program with IMCPL. This program entailed a large parachute where people were welcomed to draw and write about Environmental Justice based on what it might mean to them, what it should look like in their communities, etc. We wanted to incorporate art, combine community, educate, and learn what everyone’s idea of environmental justice looked like through this project. The parachute will be traveling through Central Indiana schools for the remainder of the year - with more drawings and writings being added to before it will be exhibited Fall 2020 with Big Car Collaborative.
KVML Strategic Plan
My Spring 2020 Museum Administration course entailed a challenging project where a strategic plan was created for our museum partner, Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library. Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library is dedicated to Kurt Vonnegut, well-known late writer, artist, teacher, and Indianapolis native. The museum moved into a new building recently and museum staff is working hard to establish KVML. They have many new plans and programs in store. We created a strategic plan for KVML to follow which is linked above. For the strategic plan, we began this project by noting the strengths and weaknesses of the institution. We formed our strategic and primary goals, collected benchmark data, researched KVML history, and created a timeline for the institution to follow. Along with three other groups in our Museum Administration course, my group and I pitched our plan to KVML in May 2020.