What is your relationship with the museum if you are also a museum?

Museum of Me is a participatory performance and guided visualization that enhances awareness in museum visitors. A group of participants is invited to sit with me, the artist and guide, for 12 minutes of visualization followed by 10 minutes of structured reflection.

The intention of this project is to empower citizens to be active co-creators of knowledge and meaning. Museum of Me encourages visitors to envision their own bodies as sites for the production of cultural narratives and knowledge. This intentional use of imagination taps into their own sensations, emotions and perspectives so that they can be fully conscious and present with the art they will encounter in the museum galleries.

Museum of Me primes museum-goers for dialogue by first placing them in conscious dialogue with themselves and their own imaginations. The Museum of Me performance draws on techniques of mindfulness that enhance awareness, consciousness and attention — building on the theory that enhanced awareness of one’s own sensations and emotions will result in a more meaningful and active encounter with the museum experience.

Museums have potential to become places to experience connection and practice empathy as well as to observe and analyze. In fact, observation and analysis are most available when people are also aware of their embodied and emotional presence. In order for museums to remain relevant, they must deepen their relationships with visitors and open new possibilities for what can be experienced at a museum.

Museum of Me staged at Mass MoCA Time of Now Festival, 2019