#weareallcurators

[weareallcurators]

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WE ARE ALL CURATORS PILOT YEAR COMPLETE!

In May, we wrapped up the pilot year of Cool Culture’s We Are All Curators initiative, which included a four-part professional development workshop series for over 180 early education partners. Workshops took place at the Noguchi, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the  Museum of the City of New York, and The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), providing educators with an opportunity to become familiar with family friendly exhibitions and programming across the city. We Are All Curators also created space for educators to question and expand their notions of who makes art, where art and culture exist, and why the stories of their school communities’ cultures and histories need to be heard.

Our educators used art and storytelling to activate these concepts at their school in inspiring ways.

At ACE Integration Head Start, families and staff collaborated on a museum exhibit in their school to highlight Black History Month and Dominican Republic’s Independence Day. The community brought in personal objects from their home and created beautiful displays. Ms. Santos, a parent at the preschool, led an exhibit tour to share stories with the children about her native country, The Dominican Republic. The school Director led a story circle in their exhibit space about African American history. Families were proud to work together on a school museum that represented their cultures and histories to their children. Educators also gained a deeper appreciation for the importance of art and culture in the liberation of our younger generation.

“The workshops further solidified for me how the arts are an integral part of children’s positive socio-emotional development, and definitely need to be a valued part of their everyday lives - in and out of school. It’s an outlet that they all need and deserve.” – Jessica Diaz, education partner  

Click here for an inside look at our workshops this year!