bard graduate center

Making Space: Museums and Craft in the Twenty-First Century

Streamed live on Feb 2, 2016

Link: Making Space - Lecture at Bard Graduate Center

Namita Gupta Wiggers will be presenting at The Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation Seminar in New York and American Material Culture on Tuesday, February 2, 2016, from 6 to 7:30pm, at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City. Her talk is entitled “Making Space: Museums and Craft in the Twenty-First Century.”

At Bard Graduate Center, Wiggers will speak on “Making Space: Museums and Craft in the Twenty-First Century.” In the past decade, we have witnessed significant shifts in how craft is examined, interpreted, documented, practiced, and exhibited. During this time, more craft-focused institutions in the United States opened or renewed their missions than in any decade since industrialization. Making space for craft can be more than simply adding exhibitions, collections, or programs to existing models, rather it is an opportunity to rethink the museum itself. Using examples from past exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Craft as well as current projects, Wiggers will discuss how exhibition-making operates as a research and development platform for rethinking craft, with a focus on the challenges and strengths of smaller museums located outside of major urban centers.