Lange Family Experiencenter

This is Us: You, Me & Dayton

Our newest exhibition, This is Us: You, Me & Dayton, features hands-on learning activities that will engage visitors in themes of community, identity and togetherness through portraits. We’ve also added a new and exciting technology piece, Draw Alive technology! This technology allows visitors to color and create artworks that come to life.

From September through January, Draw Alive will feature an airport theme – giving a nod to our aviation history. Starting in February, the DAI will launch a custom-created Draw Alive featuring the city of Dayton and self-created animated portraits! Another activity for this exhibition is a wish station where visitors will have the chance to share their wishes or dreams for Dayton’s future. Join us as we celebrate all that is Dayton, including YOU, this is us!

An Interactive Art Gallery for All Ages!

Year-round, The Lange Family Experiencenter provides informal learning opportunities for children and their caregivers, encouraging families to engage with art and learn together. Exhibitions are designed to inspire exploration, collaboration, enhance family learning and provide a social experience in a relaxed museum setting.

Yeck Artist-in-Residence Fellowship

The Yeck Artist-in-Residence (AiR) fellowship engages a local artist with museum guests, particularly families and children in DAI’s nationally renowned Lange Family Experiencenter (LFE) gallery. The program provides a paid opportunity for greater Dayton area artists to create an original, participatory art project. By designing and offering an interactive and engaging hands-on creative arts experience, the AiR supports families’ and children’s connection to museum spaces. Length of residency varies. Please visit DAI’s YeckAIR page to learn more about the program. To apply for the program visit DAI’s employment page.

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.

Image: Sandy Skoglund (American, born 1946), Shimmering Madness, 1998, jelly beans, wood, plastic, metal, motors. Museum purchase, 2001.34