The story of the Center for Digital Art in Holon is a story of innovation in the face of adversity. At key points of escalation in the Middle East conflict, this small-scale arts center managed to rise above and beyond the larger and more traditional museums in Israel to create new models for arts engagement. This article will present the critical…

This article explores the role of play in an art museum. Reflecting upon a kindergarten field trip to the Warhol Museum in which children's play was the centerpiece of the museum experience, the author examines what early childhood theorists have written about the value of play in young children's lives. She shows how the Warhol's program for…

Often considered places of solemn contemplation, quiet inspiration and personal reflection, art museums seem among the most reluctant to embrace early childhood audiences. Melina Mallos discusses action research at the Queensland Art Gallery [vertical bar] Gallery of Modern Art, Australia, as a means of gaining new insight into children's learning…

When the levees broke during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, eighty percent of New Orleans flooded, and the citizens who returned to the evacuated city had to rebuild their homes, cultural institutions, and school system. This article records how The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, University of New Orleans, was able to collaborate with a charter school…

Learning occurs in myriad ways yet most art museums remain wedded to visual instruction. Adult visitors touring the galleries are offered audio guides or lecture style tours to complement the visual but are there other ways to enhance learning? This article reports on a case study that found that active, multi-sensory experiences in art museums…

The establishment of the Museum Education Roundtable (MER) in 1969, the formation of the Committee on Education of the American Association of Museums (AAM) in 1973, and the creation of the Museum Education Division of the National Art Education Association (NAEA) in 1981 all represent milestones in the professionalization of museum education…

"Bring Your Baby to the Danforth Museum of Art" is a program for mothers. Unlike other museum programs that focus on the needs of children, Bring Your Baby caters to the intellectual interests of the adult parent. Parents learn about artworks, play with babies in a beautiful environment, and socialize with other families. The program is a joyful…

The "You Are Here" digital drawing interactive is one of the most successful interpretive elements in the renovated Oakland Museum of California Gallery of California Art. This interactive grew from considering how visitors could see themselves in the gallery and how visitor awareness of the creative process could be increased. The renovation…

Three years after the Detroit Institute of Arts opened with all new, "visitor-centered" galleries, the museum's executive director of learning and interpretation shares the processes, successes, and lessons learned at an institution that embraced an array of hands-on learning models. The models are discussed as components of a comprehensive…

Cynthia Harnisch shares her unique perspective on the revered place that museums and community arts organizations occupy in the lives of the people they serve. She relates how, as vice president of the Autry National Center in 1994, she came to be introduced to Inner-City Arts and through that introduction discovered a new respect and recognition…

This paper looks at how two art museums are striving to create relevant, dialogic gallery spaces where broader audiences can make meaning. Using the writings of theorist bell hooks as the framework, it proposes museum educators' experiences working from the margins of their museums' hierarchical organizations is fundamental to their work in…

This article tells the story of the author's invitation to teach at the Barnes Foundation, and her transformative experience as a teacher in this extraordinary place. The author comes to realize that the Barnes is the physical realization of a philosophical dream, and progresses to an understanding of how Albert C. Barnes collected and assembled…