Experiencenter

The Museum's Interactive Gallery for Children and Adults

The Experiencenter provides formal and informal learning activities for children and their caregivers, in a relaxed museum setting, by encouraging visitors to engage in active participation at hands-on stations located throughout the space. Connecting activities provide opportunities for families to explore the museum and its collections together, enhancing the visitor’s learning and social experience.

On View in the Experiencenter:

Inside the Box

Discover how the simple box can be changed from something ordinary into something EXTRAordinary when you explore INSIDE THE BOX, the Experiencenter’s newest exhibition.

INSIDE THE BOX demonstrates the beauty of the box as seen through the eyes of artists from various cultures as represented in the museum’s permanent collection. The exhibition also includes the creative work of area artists who took a simple box and responded to the question: What would you do with an empty box to change it from ordinary to extraordinary?

Part of the exhibition space is devoted to River’s Edge Montessori PreK-8, a Dayton Public School that has partnered with the museum in the development of this exhibition. After coming to the museum for a specialized tour and art-making workshop, students created their own “extraordinary boxes” that are included in the exhibition.

Read more at DaytonCityPaper.com 

To continue our focus on visitor participation, the exhibition includes numerous box-related activity stations that make connections to the art on display. And be sure to stop in The Art Place for Young Learners, a space where 3 to 6 year olds and their caregivers can engage in fun learning activities with a circus theme.

The Art Place for Young Learners

Permanently on view

The Art Place for Young Learners is a permanent space in the Experiencenter that focuses on early learners, ages 3 - 6, supporting the growth and development of young minds through creative play and problem-solving activities. As new exhibitions are installed in the Experiencenter, the activities and design of this space reflect the new exhibition theme.

Shimmering Madness

A permanent installation by Sandy Skoglund

Created by artist/photographer Sandy Skoglund in 1998, Shimmering Madness is an installation of two jellybean-covered mannequins assembled in dance-like poses on a jellybean-covered floor. Small kinetic, hand-painted butterflies cover the surrounding walls. By incorporating multiples of everyday objects, such as food, into her installations (seen here in the form of thousands of jellybeans), Skoglund redefines the concept of what is precious and beautiful in art.

"I like to work with food because it is a familiar material," Skoglund explains. "The value of art, the educational value of art, the sort of life affirming value of art has to do with bringing our awareness of the everyday miracle that's around us, that everything is, in its own way, if you look at it, quite strange and quite marvelous. For me, food is an icon of familiarity, which is so natural to us on a daily basis that it's almost invisible." Skoglund has achieved international recognition as a photographer, and her installations have been
commissioned and acquired by museums and universities around the world.

Sponsors

The Experiencenter is supported in part by The Frank M. Tait Foundation, PNC, the Rotary Club of Dayton, the Harry S. Price, Jr. Family Fund, and LexisNexis.