Gallery Interactive Game Encouraging Longer Looking and Use of Words

This is part of our Game On Series, a series of interactives throughout the museum spaces; this one is called Arts and Letters. The interactive consists of a colorful pouch, a few pencils, a few pads of paper, a 26-sided die, and timer, and of course a set of directions. The pouches hang from their zippers on the doors to the gallery using magnetic hooks, and the doors are left open during public hours. We glued a piece of 100 lb paper to the back of the magnets to mitigate chafing on the door. To help with reset, we put vinyl circles on the doors because inevitably visitors will get “creative” with the magnetic hooks and move them around. There is a station at either end of the space so you can pick up on one end and drop off at the other and won’t have to back track to return the pouch.  Often visitors take the bag into other galleries to continue the game and we don’t dissuade them from doing this.  They end up returning the bags at the front admissions desk. There is a certain amount of loss of course, unfortunately I don’t have an annual cost to replace missing bags and parts.

Now onto the game itself, it’s a pretty straightforward riff on the game Scategories, only for this version the works of art are the focus for each round. We purposefully chose a gallery that lent itself to this kind of analysis, works with discernible images that are accessible to young and old. Pictured below are some examples from the space, feel free to play a round with the person next to you.

Roland Petersen, TWO SEATED FIGURES, 1967

Barbara Spring, A LA CARTE, 1961

George Herms, PANDORA’S BOX, 1992

Irving Norman, MY WORLD AND YOURS (AND THE GODS CREATED THE WORLD IN THEIR OWN IMAGE), 1954

Irving Norman, CELEBRATION, 1953

John Emmett Gerrity, UNTITLED (STILL LIFE)

Roger Medearis, OLD SHOES, 1950

Charles Griffin Farr, STILL LIFE WITH CABBAGE, 1939 & 1974

Otis Oldfield, NATURE MORT AUX TOMATES, 1921

Helen Clark Oldfield, GREEN PEARS, 1941