COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 19 Welcoming the Community to the Galleries The Here and Now exhibition is an outgrowth of Lehigh University Art Galleries’ goal to welcome members of the surrounding communities to campus. As gallery leaders considered how to celebrate the centennial, they looked for ways to draw in community members. “We see LUAG as a connector from the campus to the community,” says Stacie Brennan ‘03, the museum’s curator of education. As a student, Brennan was much like the students who keep LUAG running now. She came to Lehigh as a marketing major who had been told that working in art would be too difficult. After a conversation with then-LUAG director Ricardo Viera, she became a dual major in art, worked as Viera’s teaching assistant, developed programming for the galleries, and dreamed of eventually returning to LUAG as a full-time staffer. That dream was realized in 2019. As the galleries’ inaugural curator of education, she identifies audiences on campus and in the community who can benefit from what the galleries have to offer. She makes sure programming draws them into LUAG or LUAG can bring its programming to them. Brennan works to make every exhibit in LUAG accessible to any group of any age or ability. When she started in 2019 the galleries had about 2,000 visitors a year. That has grown to about 9,000 visitors a year now, and more than 80 percent of those visitors come through programs. (The rest are walk-in visitors.) Everything LUAG offers is free and open to the public. “We’re really trying to build strategic partnerships that help us reach people where they are and make sure community members truly feel seen and represented within our collection and programs,” Brennan says. LUAG has partnerships with all kinds of local groups. Bethlehem Area School District brings third graders from across the district for visual literacy programs every year, and this year high school art classes are coming to explore the collection, too. Educators at BASD and other nearby districts come to LUAG for in-service days. Among the social service groups partnering with the galleries are Arc of PA, which serves adults with developmental and cognitive disabilities; Sights for Hope, which serves adults and children with visual impairment; and United Way, which partners with LUAG for its healthy aging initiatives. LUAG also sends teaching artists and museum educators out into the community. As part of the mobile art lab, teaching artists bring reproductions of works in the collection or the current exhibit to classes or community events through handson experiences and marketing. The Here and Now exhibit has offered Brennan a couple of exciting opportunities. First, she gets a whole year to teach from it; most exhibits in the galleries are displayed for a semester. Second, because artists whose works are displayed in the galleries are all local, they can be more involved in events and programming on campus and in the community throughout the year. “We’ve had really great opportunities for deeper engagement with the artists—to have personal reflections from the artists to teach from, inviting them to lead workshops, and learning more about their role in shaping our community and responding to the world around them,” she says. “I think it’s a meaningful way for people to reflect and appreciate what an amazing community Bethlehem and the greater Lehigh Valley are part of.” ● Left to right: LUAG hosts Community Day Workshops including student tours, connect and create events, craftmaking, and campus sculpture walking tours. Their student-led program and selfguided activities are geared towards children of all ages.
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