ASPIRA Charter – Haugan Campus

Idea Box Integrated Arts/Emily C. Leonard

Grant Amount: 10,000

Working with Emily Leonard of Idea Box Integrated Arts, students will explore the history of performance and installation art, look at examples of contemporary “pop-up museums,” and either take a field trip to a pop-up museum or be visited by 2-3 professionals working in the field of interactive installation/performance art.
After using a guided process to share their initial responses to several pop up museums, students will read the New York Times article “The Existential Void of the Pop-Up “Experience” by Amanda Hess and reflect on whether they agree or disagree with her critique of the pop-up museum experience.
Finally, students will create their own pop-up museum experience in their (very large!) classroom space with the goal of creating a meaningful interactive experience for their audience of peers, educators, and family/community.
The class will first work as a group to create an overall vision for their museum and its primary attractions, then students will break in to 6 “production teams,” each of which will be given a set of “stock” supplies (movable walls, lighting instruments, etc) and an additional budget of $100 per team to purchase additional supplies (through Idea Box) to execute their vision.
Throughout the process, students will also participate in daily ensemble-building, dance/movement, and/or performance activities designed to give them a greater toolbox of performance skills for use in the execution of their vision.