Students milling about in the Beaux Arts
Pavillion of the Brooklyn Museum
Tonight was our inimitable Macaulay Night at the Brooklyn Museum. The event went smoothly after a tremendous amount of preparation. About 550 Macaulay first-year students descended on the Brooklyn Museum for a private event where, armed with recorders, the students documented their conversations about the works of art they viewed (we had previously trained them in the SmartHistory methods of how to look at and discuss a work of art they are unfamiliar with – more details can be found on my Events and Other Projects page). To the left I included a snapshot I took of a large group the students convening in the corridors that surround the Beaux Arts Pavillion, and below is the Brochure we distribute to them (that I helped to design) that includes a background of the museum, guidelines for the project, as well as tear-out pages to keep track of group members and recorder numbers, in addition to room for notes. Later, the students will reconvene at Macaulay for a series of Media Arts workshops where they will create SmartHistory style videos based on the work they did this evening. In all, it was a huge success and I cannot wait to see and hear the students’ projects!
