On Friday, June 27th, the Highland Street Foundation sponsored Free Fun Fridays! at MASS MoCA. 771 people came from all over the world–a fact evidenced by an interactive activity that took place in the museum’s main galleries. Upon entering the gallery dedicated to the work of Teresita Fernández–a conceptual artist focused on how changing individual perspectives affects landscapes–visitors were asked to respond to one simple question: “Where are you from?” Approaching the table, that question became more narrowly defined in the form of a quote from Fernández herself:
“Landscape is a cultural construction informed by our own subjective view of the world – not only the visible, natural world (sky, water, land) but also those imagined places that form how we think…”
Children and adults alike responded to this prompt in a variety of ways. Using metallic stickers that mirrored the color and luster of the graphite and gold used in Fernández’s work, many visitors marked their current hometowns. Others marked multiple places they’ve considered home over the years. Children’s responses ranged from a few words to elaborate drawings. Some very creative responses included: “My mom,” “Middle Earth,” “B-612: The Little Prince’s Planet” and “Outer space.” In creating this human landscape, it quickly became clear how diverse our backgrounds truly are–ranging in setting from North Adams to San Francisco to London, Bordeaux, Puerto Rico, and beyond.
In Kidspace, things quickly became creepily cool. As our famous ArtBar has recently been transformed into a laboratory, our “specials” for the day included fun concoctions of play-doh, slime and goo made by our talented lab technicians. Reactions ranged from “This is the best day ever!” to “What is that?” to “EWWWW.” That said, “Free FUN Friday” definitely lived up to its name.
Thank you to everyone who participated in Free Fun Fridays! here at MASS MoCA.
We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!
A special thank you to the Highland Street Foundation for your generous support.