The Art of Being: Feelings, Memories and Imagination

Abstract

The purpose of this project was to create a participatory exhibition for Museum of Glass in Tacoma that leveraged the narrative potential of studio art glass to engage visitors in thinking about meaning-making and empathy. The exhibition was inspired by research stating that empathy, with its many benefits to society, could be increased through repeated practice. Rather than use a specific narrative or experience to try to inspire empathy, the exhibition focused on building the skills of empathy: emotional connection and perspective-taking. Visitors were invited to connect to and interpret art objects through four elements of meaning-making: feelings, identities, memories and imagination. Visitors' feelings and stories were then displayed next to the art, creating additional objects through which to experience empathy. Covid-19 limited on-site evaluation of visitor responses, so visitor inputs were archived by the museum for analysis. The empathy framework created enabled latitude in art selection, seemed popular with visitors, and was adaptable to many different objects and settings.