The IMA MAP employs high school sophomores and juniors during the spring and summer to explore what’s happening behind the scenes of the IMA, while working on projects alongside Museum staff. This year, the MAP teens are learning about 100 Acres, its inaugural artists and planning creative experiences that will encourage Park visitors to engage with nature, art and with one another.

Hi, my name is Kazeerat, I’m 15 years old and a junior at Northwest High School. I work at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the job is very awesome. I get to work with great people and I have fun everyday. I love the art.

The art [in 100 Acres] is so huge and beautiful. Anyone who sees it is going to love it. We also have some famous artists coming to the Museum [for the 100 Acres Opening] so it’s your time to see them. I urge you to come.

You have no idea how fun all this is because as soon as you see [the art] you just fall in live with it. I think the Museum is like no other one.

Filed under: Education, Guest Bloggers

Class Pictures: Photographs by Dawoud Bey opens tomorrow night at the IMA with a conversation with artist Dawoud Bey followed by an opening party. For the exhibition, Bey photographed young people from all parts of the economic, racial and ethnic spectrum in both public and private high schools. I had the pleasure of asking Bey about his work earlier this year:

Interview with artist Dawoud Bey
As published in the fall issue of the IMA’s Previews membership magazine

Q. Can you tell us when you became interested in portraiture?
As I began to figure out what I wanted to do as an artist, I was spending a lot of time going to museums and galleries looking at work by other photographers. The pictures that resonated for me most strongly were those that were of human subjects. There seemed to me something quite powerful about a person confronting the camera, returning the attention of the photographer. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Art, Current Events, Exhibitions