Program Description
A collaborative project of three major museums in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts—The Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute (The Clark), Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA), and Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA)—Kidspace and its partners organize programs that investigate a wide range of artistic themes, contemporary art-making methods and materials with the purpose of increasing participants’ understanding of contemporary art and strengthening their visual literacy skills. Kidspace organizes innovative exhibitions in partnership with six local elementary schools. The school outreach program reaches every Pre-K–5th-grader and all elementary school teachers through artist residencies, multiple gallery visits, interdisciplinary curriculum materials, and teacher workshops. The program also includes after-school art classes for teens; numerous family programs; public hours; and website resources.
In March 2009, Kidspace moved into a 3,200 square foot gallery on the second floor of MASS MoCA. Kidspace first opened its doors in January 2000, and since then, Kidspace has mounted 19 major thematic exhibitions, and over 13,000 student and general public visitors participate annually.
The Three Museum Collaboration
Kidspace is a collaborative project of The Clark, WCMA, and MASS MoCA—three museums with outstanding exhibitions, public programs, and deep commitments to the community. Kidspace is integral to all three organizations’ educational programming and access strategy, helping to build bridges between the local community and professional artists and their artwork. As a partnership, Kidspace is overseen by a consortium consisting of the three museum directors, deputy directors, education directors, and Kidspace staff, who formulate a collective vision and strategic direction for Kidspace. The program draws on the expertise of the staff at the three museums to plan fundraising, communications, exhibitions, and education. Each semester,Kidspace and three museum education staff collaborate with area teachers to plan the specifics of Kidspace exhibitions and education programs, the Three-Museum Semester, and outreach strategies. Moreover, building upon their experience in Kidspace, North Adams and North Berkshire students participate in the Kidspace Three-Museum Semester, making field trips to the three museums that complement their visits to Kidspace.
Audience Goals
Kidspace programming is geared to children who have had little exposure to the arts and to schools that are eager to incorporate arts-based learning into their curriculum but lack the resources to do so. Kidspace serves a primarily rural, working-class, economically challenged community that is in the process of changing from an industrial to a service-based industry.
Kidspace was specifically designed by the three museums partnership to support the schools and communities of the North Berkshires, supporting student improvement in academic areas and also students’ emotional and social needs. Kidspace is part of the life of every elementary schoolchild and teacher in six schools. Since 2000, it has worked with the same 100 classes each year. It has become an integral part of the public schools’ annual curriculum plans and continues to challenge students and teachers with innovative exhibitions and collaborative programming with the three museums. By providing integrated arts experiences that are designed by educators at the three museums, Kidspace staff, and area teachers, the partnership ensures that the educational goals of the program meet the needs of a changing student body.
Continuity is key in Kidspace: each year’s programming builds on the previous year. Students who were in kindergarten when the gallery first opened, and now are in eighth grade, have experienced nine years of arts education. Through studying and responding to exhibitions at Kidspace and the three museums, they have built their visual literacy skills and a strong knowledge across the history of art. When designing Kidspace exhibitions and educational programming, the partnership ensures that a range of topics and methods are explored from interactive, technology-based art to interpretations of historic paintings made out of found objects. Artists are selected for their works’ educational and artistic merit, and exhibitions have featured renowned artists from around the world, including Long-Bin Chen, Devorah Sperber, and Tim Rollins and K.O.S.
Kidspace strives to bring about positive change in local schools through integrating the arts in the core curriculum. Kidspace’s pedagogy encourages students to exercise problem-solving; creative, critical, story-building; and analytical interpretation skills. Art thus becomes the catalyst by which students construct meaning about the world around them, allowing them to make connections to prior experiences and to synthesize new knowledge. With these visual literacy skills, students are comfortable encountering art in other settings, from other museums to sites within the community.
School Programs
Kidspace is part of the life of every elementary schoolchild and teacher in North Adams, Clarksburg, Florida, and Savoy, Massachusetts. Through its partnership with local public schools, Kidspace introduces children to contemporary art and integrates the study of art with the general curriculum. During class visits to the space, students work with Kidspace staff to interpret the art on view and respond to the exhibition themes through their own artistic production.
Students also work with their teachers in the classroom on projects outlined in a curriculum guide that accompanies each exhibition. Additional partnerships are formed with local organizations that help support learning in the schools and connect to themes being explored in Kidspace programs, including Williams College, Inkberry, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, the Center for Ecological Technology, and Greylock Arts.
With funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council Creative Schools grant, Kidspace organizes an extensive artist residency program with the professional artists who are featured in Kidspace exhibitions. These artists visit the six public schools to work with students on art projects using materials and artistic processes similar to their own. Additional visits with the artists often take place at Kidspace, where students can have a second opportunity to explore the Kidspace exhibition—this time with the artists who created the work on display. And when possible, Kidspace brings in local artists and writers to also conduct residency programs relating to themes in Kidspace exhibits.
Students also visit one or more of the three collaborating museums (WCMA, the Clark, or MASS MoCA) as part of the Kidspace Three-Museum Semester. These visits enable teachers and students to continue to hone their art-viewing and interpreting skills while examining the diverse collections and exhibitions in the different museums.
Students from other school districts—including Williamstown, Pittsfield, and Adams—have also participated in Kidspace. Though not part of the larger Kidspace program, individual classes can sign up for a tour of Kidspace and work on art projects in the gallery.
Mona Lisa Project After-School Program
Kidspace’s new Mona Lisa Project, an after-school program for teenage girls, seeks to empower young women who lack consistent adult role models in their lives, have limited involvement in the community, and are without resources to take advantage of out-of-school activities, particularly in the arts. Funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council Youth Reach grant, the Mona Lisa Project offers weekly sessions in visual art and movement activities for girls to explore positive ways in which they can express themselves, build their sense of self, and make helpful contributions to their community.
Eleven eighth grade students participate in the program during the school year with two classroom teachers who act as mentors along with the Kidspace artist mentor (yoga instructor, artist, educator). These students attended a three-week intensive over the summer where they continued to engage in yoga, art-making and self-empowering activities, as well as learned how to mentor younger students. In the fall when the group moves to high school, they will continue to participate in the Mona Lisa Project, serving as mentors to 2nd grade students in an after-school program at Kidspace.
Public Hours
For the public, art-making opportunities are embedded in Kidspace exhibitions, making it possible for visitors to process their understanding of art by creating artistic responses while viewing the artwork—an experience that is rare in museums and galleries. Art projects relate to Kidspace exhibition themes and may involve similar art materials or artistic processes used by exhibiting artists. Children who participate in the Kidspace school program have become agents of change, championing the arts among their own families as they bring them to experience the Kidspace exhibitions during family programs and public hours. Last year, MASS MoCA had a free community day with over 3,100 visitors: a huge proportion—at least 1/3 of the visitors—were clearly brought to the museum and Kidspace by their children.
The public is invited to view and create art in Kidspace. Extensive school programming takes place during the week; public hours are offered on weekends and during school holidays, and every day over the summer. Kidspace also offers art classes for the public during school holidays and in the summer.
Future Exhibitions
Saturday, October 3, 2009–Sunday, February 28, 2010
You Art What You Eat: Food As Art Material
Featuring Chandra Bocci, Luisa Caldwell, Saxton Freymann, Liz Hickok, Joan Steiner
This exhibition will involve a group of artists who use candy, fruits, vegetables, JELL-O, and food-related paraphernalia as art material and to illustrate their ideas about the world.
Saturday, March 27, 2010–Monday, September 6, 2010
Beyond Myths: Native American Realities
Featuring Anna Tsouhlarakis, Will Wilson, Sarah Sense
For the spring exhibition, Kidspace will work with Native American contemporary artists to explore Native cultural identity and will use their experiences as a springboard for a larger discussion on multiculturalism in the 21st century.
Saturday, October 2, 2010–Sunday, February 27, 2011
Color Forms I
Featuring Portia Munson
Portia will create an installation focusing on pinks and blues and how these colors have become gender specific using a variety of toys, clothing, and other found objects along with photographs.
Saturday, March 26, 2011–September 5, 2011
Color Forms II
Featuring Soyeon Cho, Lisa Hoke
Soyeon and Lisa’s work illustrates innovative ways in which a rainbow of colors can be expressed in sculptures using found objects.
Kidspace at MASS MoCA has been selected to receive the prestigious 2009 Massachusetts Arts Education Collaborative Distinguished Community Arts Collaborative Award. Given by the Massachusetts Arts Education Collaborative division of the National Arts Learning Collaborative, this award recognizes programs and institutions that provide, support and advocate for quality arts education in the Commonwealth. The mission of the National Arts and Learning Collaborative is to promote active engagement of all pre-K through Grade 12 students in developing artistic and academic competence by advancing excellence in teaching practice and through innovative school models.
The Distinguished Community Arts Collaborative Award is given to arts educators who have developed a model art collaborative between school and community cultural resources. The qualities celebrated in these educators are interdisciplinary planning and cooperative programming between cultural institutions and schools, exemplary teaching and programming in the arts, professional involvement and leadership beyond the classroom, concentration on the cultural and arts education needs of the community, and the stimulation of community support.
“Since Kidspace opened in 2000, it has been an important part of our community and has been an integral part of arts education for our kids,” said North Adams Mayor John Barrett III. “The City of North Adams is deeply grateful to the Clark Art Institute and Williams College Museum of Art for their commitment to this important program which gives our students the opportunity to be engaged with the arts at a very young age. This recognition is a great honor.” Kidspace at MASS MoCA was honored among the other award recipients at the annual Massachusetts Arts Education Collaborative awards ceremony on Wednesday, May 27, 2009.
Kidspace Staff
Laura Thompson, Ed.D., Director of Exhibitions and Education
For seven years, Laura has been Kidspace’s director of exhibitions and education and has organized 14 exhibition and curricula projects. Laura oversees all aspects of the Kidspace project from grants to exhibition and program development, from staffing to budgets. She has over 19 years’ experience in the museum field, is a certified educator, and holds a doctorate in arts education from Columbia University Teachers College. Laura is also a visiting assistant professor of art history at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and when time allows she enjoys painting large-scale oil paintings. Laura is a mother of two sons and lives with her husband in Saratoga, New York.
Shannon Toye, Education Coordinator
Shannon began her tenure with Kidspace in 2004 when she interned as an education major at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. In 2007, she became a full-time member of the Kidspace staff, teaching in the gallery and schools, as well as coordinating many program aspects. Shannon is a certified educator and has 14 years’ experience working with children in educational settings. She also completed children’s yoga and creative movement certification at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Shannon is a mother of three and lives in her hometown of North Adams.
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