MIT Museum Director John Durant speaks with Boston Globe reporter Mark Feeney about the significance of the new location of the MIT Museum and what makes the museum such a special place. Of the museum’s new home in the heart of Kendall Square, Durant says, “I think MIT is committing itself here to the importance of its museum as a kind of gateway institution, as a way of helping the wider community understand what MIT is about.”
The new MIT Museum includes an exhibition by kinetic sculptor Arthur Ganson called “Gestural Engineering,” which features a collection of table-top sized kinetic sculptures. Boston Globe reporter Murray Whyte notes that “Symbionts: Contemporary Artists and The Biosphere,” an exhibition highlighting the collision of art and science, will premiere at the List Visual Arts Center on October 21 and run through February 26.
The new MIT Museum, a “purpose-built exhibition and gathering space in the heart of Kendall Square,” writes Boston Globe reporter Malcom Gay, “seeks to demystify some of the school’s opaque inner workings, makes itself broadly approachable with expanded gallery space, forum areas, learning labs, and a maker hub where visitors can work on museum-led projects.” MIT Museum Director John Durant explains: “We want people to feel that this is their museum.”
The Engine has moved into a new building situated between Kendall and Central Square in Cambridge, reports Jon Chesto for The Boston Globe. “Katie Rae, chief executive and managing partner of The Engine, said having a physical place for startups to work was a crucial part of the original ‘tough tech’ concept,” writes Chesto.
The new MIT Museum opens to the public this weekend in its new location in Kendall Square, which is “quite significant because this is the heart of innovation,” notes GBH’s Jared Bowen. Museum visitors will not only get a sense of MIT’s long history of innovation, but also get a sense of the scientific process, with exhibits featuring “part of the machinery that was used to help sequence the human genome, [and] the star shade petal that allowed NASA to photograph exoplanets,” Bowen explains.
“Cosmic Cowboy,” a new sci-fi opera composed by lecturer Elena Ruehr, explores “the mysteries of space, time and love,” reports Llyod Schwartz for WBUR. Additionally, Schwartz spotlights how Collage New Music, a contemporary music series directed by David Hoose, will be held on October 16, 2022 at Killian Hall.
WBUR’s Pamela Reynolds spotlights “Symbionts: Contemporary Artists and the Biosphere,” an upcoming exhibit at the MIT List Visual Arts Center that explores “how organisms of different species live together and thrive because of it.” The exhibit highlights the work of over a dozen international artists and will be on display October 21 through February 26.
Lecturer Mikael Jakobsson, Rosa Colón Guerra (a resident at MIT’s Visiting Artists program), and graduate student Aziria Rodríguez Arce have created a new board game, called Promesa, that more accurately reflects the reality of Puerto Rico’s history and people, reports Maria Parazo Rose for Popular Science. “The game is based on the real-life PROMESA act, which was established by the US government in 2016 in response to the island’s debt crisis, putting American lawmakers in charge of the country’s finances,” explains Rose. “To win, you must settle Puerto Rico’s bills and build up the country’s infrastructure, education, and social services.”
A new exhibit by Azza El Siddique, a sculptor and mixed media artist, will be on display at the MIT List Visual Arts Center this summer, reports Pamela Reynolds for WBUR. Reynolds notes that in this show, “viewers are invited to contemplate the transitory nature of everything.”
Artist Matthew Angelo Harrison’s solo exhibition “Robota” is on display at the MIT List Visual Arts Center through July 24. The exhibition “positions organized labor and workers’ rights as entombed relics, victims of post-industrial economy,” writes Murray Whyte for The Boston Globe.
MIT celebrated the Classes of 2020 and 2021 during a special ceremony on May 28 that featured an address by Kealoha Wong ’99, Hawaii’s first poet laureate, reports Laura Crimaldi for The Boston Globe. “We may make some esoteric discovery or some small contribution to our industries, but most likely, our most significant impact will be in our communities and in our families,” Kealoha said. “Our impact will be felt in the way that we treat others and the way that we treat ourselves.”
Writing for The New York Times, Prof. Emily Richmond Pollock and University of Michigan Prof. Kira Thurman explore how the idea that performing or listening to classical music is an apolitical act flourished in the wake of World War II due to the process of denazification. “In moments of war and violence, it can be tempting to either downplay classical music’s involvement in global events or emphasize music’s power only when it is used as a force for what a given observer perceives as good,” they write.
Prof. Ekene Ijeoma speaks with KUER’s Ivana Martinez about his group’s art project, “A Counting,” which spotlights people counting to 100 in their native languages. “I think [this is] speaking to ideas of what it means to live in this diverse society,” said Ijeoma. “And whether or not we're able to live up to the dream of this society, which is — we're a multicultural place. Can we actually be that?”
With the announcement of the new MIT Morningside Academy for Design, MIT is looking to create “a hub of resources for the next generation of designers, integrating areas of study such as engineering and architecture in the process,” reports Dana Gerber for The Boston Globe. “This is really going to give us a platform to connect with the world around problems that communities are facing,” explained Prof. John Ochsendorf, who will serve as the academy’s founding director.
Prof. Emily Richmond Pollock speaks with Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker about how some Western institutions have cancelled performances by Russian artists following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Some of the discussion of these issues has fallen into some old patterns of thinking that we as musicologists are alert to,” says Pollock, “and want to warn against, which includes reacting to these kinds of bans by insisting that music is apolitical, or that there’s something fundamentally and inherently apolitical about music, which is a really problematic and untrue statement, and a knee-jerk response.”