I went to a book club. (That sentence would once have been the preamble to a story, but in these pandemic times, it is the whole story. I went to a book club!) I could not get enough of all the new faces. In art, there’s the concept of the real thing, where reproductions or photographs cannot capture the essence of an original artwork […]
Read MoreI visited the Montreal Botanical Garden on a beautiful May day. I brought my camera with the intention of going on a photo safari: an activity where I pick a theme and focus on artworks (or in this case, plants) around that theme, with the aim of looking at everything differently. At first, I thought I [...]
Read MoreThe Montreal Museum of Fine Arts offers a musical audioguide, which pairs different artworks with various musical selections. One of my favorite combinations is that of a Polish princess and a Chopin Polonaise. Paul Delaroche, the Romantic French painter, was a big deal in the 19th century, as famous as his contemporary Delacroix. When he wasn't traveling, he [...]
Read MoreI went to the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition looking for calm. It’s been an intense week; the semester is halfway over, which means the projects for my seminars need to be at a certain point of completion. When I saw that I had an hour-long pocket in my schedule on Tuesday, I decided to fill it with some Toulouse-Lautrec [...]
Read MoreI recently had the pleasure of visiting the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts with its musical audioguide. The first stop on the audio tour was a French statue of the Virgin and Child from the 14th century. The cult of the Virgin Mary was very common in both the visual and musical cultures of that time. This [...]
Read MoreWhen I learned last year that the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts offered a musical audioguide, I believe I actually scoffed. A musical audioguide seemed like taking what can be a stereotypically unsexy museum offering and making it even more unattractive. I don’t know exactly what was expecting, perhaps being subjected to fuzzy elevator [...]
Read MoreMontreal’s Château Ramezay has a fuzzy past. The grand house was originally built for Claude de Ramezay, the governor of Montreal from 1703 to 1724. But Ramezay went a little overboard, spending way too much of his own money on the building project. After his widow’s death in 1745, the heirs sold the property to the West Indies Company, which had a monopoly on the export of beaver [...]
Read MoreMy Montreal museum cocktail for the week led me to the small museum in Saint Joseph's Oratory, the grand basilica located on one of Mount Royal's peaks. I had already passed the Oratory and its enormous dome several times, and I was excited to learn what it was exactly. On a sunny May day, I arrived at the base of the Oratory's hill and was faced with seemingly never-ending outdoor stairs winding their [...]
Read MoreMontreal - Points of View, a permanent exhibition at the McCord Museum, gives the visitor an overview of Montreal's history. It takes 10 different facets of the story, presenting the historic districts and people through objects, video interviews, and texts. There was a lot of history to process, especially for someone [...]
Read MoreThere is a museum that has intrigued me since I moved to Montreal. Each time I go to my favorite microbrewery Dieu du Ciel in Mile End, I pass a palatial fire station with a sign advertising the Musée des Pompiers (Firefighter Museum). I hadn't visited it yet, as it has the smallest window of opening hours imaginable [...]
Read MoreHands down, The Library at Night is one of the coolest exhibitions I've been to lately, maybe ever. It explores ten great libraries of the world using virtual reality. It's more than an exhibition: the virtual reality makes it a personal experience. I cannot recommend it highly enough. In a nutshell, The Library at Night (La bibliothèque, la nuit) is a "virtual exploration" of [...]
Read MoreClaude de Ramezay was the governor of Montreal from 1703 to 1724. He decided that, as governor, he needed to have a grand home that befit the importance of the office. Ramezay went a little overboard, spending way too much of his own money. But the Château earned him bragging rights [...]
Read MoreI have lived in Montreal for six months, and I have visited six museums. The shame! There are over forty museums on the island, so a grand total of six museums (albeit visited multiple times) is not a great batting average. I've had a lot on my plate with adjusting to life in Montreal: finding and fluffing a nest, dealing with Canadian immigration, and figuring out what my [...]
Read MoreMarch can be a really awkward month. Before the scent of springtime comes wafting in on April breezes, the last snowfalls of March must be endured. When I feel like I can't take one more minute of slush and ice, my mind wanders to far-off places. I dream of beaches in Bali or the mild grey of Paris. Even [...]
Read MoreValentine's Day is upon us again. Commercial though it may be, I have always liked this holiday. I'll take any excuse to celebrate love! This year, I am organizing a Valentine's Day get together at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. I've crafted some love-themed activities and mapped out the paintings that depict love in various forms [...]
Read MoreThe Montreal Museum of Fine Arts just opened a large exhibition on Pompeii, with over 220 archeological artifacts. I was blown away (yikes, pun not intended). The objects were exceptional, from the colorful wall frescoes to the almost 2000-year-old bowl of olives. And the scenography was gorgeous; I [...]
Read MoreI am (still) in the midst of furnishing my new Montréal apartment. I have spent hours searching for fun and functional furniture and decorations to make this nest feel like home. After spending a recent morning assembling furniture, I decided to treat myself with a visit to the Montreal Museum of [...]
Read MoreI've been thinking a lot about the concept of home lately. In the five years I spent in Paris, being an American Expat in Paris became a huge part of my identity. I agreed with Gertrude Stein that America was my country and Paris was my home town. So, what becomes of that after my recent move [...]
Read More2015 brought many changes to this blog, including a name change, and a move from Paris to Montreal. I've had so much fun this year playing in museums! In 2015, I wrote about 20 museums and 16 exhibitions, with a quarter of the posts about the Musée du Louvre. I also started monthly Creativity [...]
Read MoreThis painting, this fête galante, full of lovers in a garden, is a celebration of flirtation and love. While the young lovers are the focal point of the painting, a full half of the painting is dedicated to the landscape, to the architecture, to the physicality of the scene. As I looked at this painting by Nicolas Lancret, newly [...]
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This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.
IMAGINIBUS is a blog about playing in museums, with a focus on imagination and creativity.
This blog is a place to be inspired to use your imagination around artworks—and to see the art of your daily life.
When we engage creatively with art, museums can become playgrounds and laboratories to experiment with attention, mindfulness, and imagination. Interesting things happen when we use that museum gaze to look at our daily lives like a work of art.
Find more inspiration for playing with new ways of paying attention to your daily life here.
Hello! I'm Marina Gross-Hoy, a writer, Museum Studies PhD candidate, and mother currently living in Quebec. I take playing in museums very seriously.
Read more about the blog here.
Check out my newsletter on Substack to be inspired to see the art in your daily life.
