Hi, friends!I hope you and yours are healthy and safe! It’s hard to believe we’re in our ninth week

Hi, friends!I hope you and yours are healthy and safe! It’s hard to believe we’re in our ninth week of social distancing and that it’s been over a month since my last update. So, I thought I’d share some recent progress at the Museum, although it’s hard to know where to begin, as everything is in flux every hour of every day. Nevertheless, there’s much to look forward to.While thinking about hope, perseverance, and our shared future, I was reminded of the beautiful Gee’s Bend quilts, a 2018 gift to our collection from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation featured as part of our exhibition Out of Place: A Feminist Look at the Collection. Gee’s Bend, a rural hamlet situated along the Alabama River, is home to an extraordinary community of women who, over decades, have transformed simple bed coverings into a uniquely celebrated American art form. This dynamic and inspiring tradition of vernacular quilt-making grew from acts of caretaking—piecing strips of cloth to make bed coverings for families. The quilters of Gee’s Bend have shared their knowledge and passed on their traditions across generations, their legacy enduring through the Civil War, Great Depression, and Civil Rights Movement. Recently, articles appeared showing some of the quilters sewing protective masks for elderly members of their community amid the coronavirus pandemic.The quilts by Lucy T. Pettway and Gloria Hoppins literally and poetically represent a network and a bond. This shared community of strong women, whose creative drive has persisted in the face of innumerable hardships, continue to transform and enrich one of the most beloved and enduring art-making traditions in this country. Personal experience and creative brilliance are often combined in these wonderful objects. At times, for example, quilts became objects of commemoration and healing when the clothing of a lost loved one was incorporated into a bed covering to keep the memory of that person close. Reflecting a remarkable creative perseverance, many worked at night after long days of hard farm labor, household chores, and child-rearing. When we look at a quilt from the makers of Gee’s Bend, we see the persistence of the creative spirit and the spiritual value of adding visual beauty to daily life. I’m struck by how fitting these themes are for us now, and I know that courage, love, and community support will be the guiding forces that bring us safely into the future.In thinking about building the Museum’s future, I know that one of our biggest priorities is supporting our local community. Central Brooklyn remains among the areas most affected by COVID-19, and the virus has made abundantly clear the disparities in healthcare, economic opportunity, and education caused by the systemic disinvestment of brown and Black neighborhoods. Those who have lived on the edge of financial stability are the hardest hit. And we know there will be lasting scars and widening opportunity gaps when this is over.To address how we can serve those needs, we created a Board and staff task force with beloved community leaders in order to expand our thinking, guide our learning, and generate ideas for our community response. Our education team has been critical to this effort, checking in with each of our constituencies—from teachers and school administrators to teens, interns, and families—to assess how we can best support them at this time. The stories we hear are often heartbreaking, from kids feeling lost in their virtual classes and difficulties faced by children whose first language is not English to people with disabilities struggling with severe isolation and the extreme anxiety some teens feel about the future. We’re learning a lot and are grateful to those who are taking the time to help us imagine how we might lessen the pain, both now and when we reopen.You have probably noticed we’ve also been busy growing virtual programming for our audiences to enjoy from home, and now we’re also pivoting to imagining our reopening program. We, like our museum colleagues around the city, are eager to welcome back our public and are dedicated to planning for health and safety when we do reopen our doors. Our leadership team and I are also addressing the serious financial impact of an uncertain future. With so many variables, financial planning is a challenge, but I’m proud that our diligence has helped us treat our staff with care, respect, and equity.I constantly think about the challenges ahead of us, and I know that we will rise to meet them as we have before. Despite being one of the oldest and largest encyclopedic museums in the nation, we have long struggled with a significant historical lack of investment. As a result, we have one of the smallest operating budgets, smallest staffs, and smallest endowments, even though we are the largest cultural institution in a borough with a population of more than 2.5 million. (If Brooklyn were an independent city, it would be the fourth largest in the nation.) It’s amazing that we accomplish so much with so little; it’s also maddening because Brooklyn deserves the best cultural institution. Not only is it a matter of pride, it’s a matter of social equity. Period.Throughout all of this, I am reminded that crises also bring opportunity for change and growth. While it’s hard to see so much great work over the past few years put on pause, we are rallying. We saw our audiences double and global praise for exhibitions that celebrate self-determination and resilience, shedding light on relevant and timely themes, from systemic racism to the Syrian refugee crisis. We served more students than ever thanks to the expansion of our education work, including the launch of new paid internships that build a pipeline to museum careers for low-income students, as well as Project Reset, which tackles criminal justice reform through art and learning. While COVID-19 presents some truly significant hurdles for our progress, we are motivated to adapt because our borough and city deserve our very best.We must all commit to supporting the Brooklyn Museum if we want to come back strong. This is a period that will call on all of us to channel the power of our imaginations and stand up for what is right. It will require us to rethink the role of museums. It will be a time to reimagine how we put our values into service. It will be a time to contribute to greater decency and positive social change. And it will require courage. Here’s the good news: we’ve always had a wealth of that!Wishing you much health, as ever,Anne PasternakShelby White and Leon Levy DirectorBrooklyn MuseumPS: If you have any really great ideas about how we can serve our communities in the future, please send them to me at director@brooklynmuseum.org. And, join us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and let us know how you’re doing.Please help us support our community, expand social equity, and come back stronger and better than ever!Installation view, Out of Place: A Feminist Look at the Collection (visible on wall, left to right: quilts by Lucy T. Pettway, unknown maker, and Gloria Hoppins). Brooklyn Museum, January 24–September 13, 2020. (Photo: Jonathon Dorado, Brooklyn Museum) -- source link
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