Last winter it felt like my creativity was buried deep. A seed, I hoped, not a corpse. All my energy was going towards surviving, staying afloat, and there was nothing to spare to make anything new. My energy had to be used to keep what was already there alive. Last spring brought the itchiness that comes when creative energy is building […]
Read MoreIt was turning into a rainy evening in Rome. The downpour was steady: persistent enough to slowly seep through my raincoat, but not aggressive enough to convince me to stop meandering through the drizzly streets, past intriguing old churches and lazily flowing fountains. Eventually, I made my way to […]
Read MoreI just finished my first year as a Museum Studies PhD student at the Université du Québec à Montréal. I took all of the program's classes in this first year (!) and I've started research for my thesis on storytelling using digital media. It's been a very full year... Here are some of the lessons I learned [...]
Read MoreThe (currently defunct) musical audioguide at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts paired different artworks with various musical selections. I was a big fan of the experience, and I was particularly moved by the pairing of a painting and an aria inspired by the tragic fates of two women [...]
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 MoreA year ago, I was preparing to move from Paris to Montreal. A major strategy in emotionally processing this big change was to visit as many Parisian museums as possible. One of the museums I visited was the Musée Picasso, recently reopened after being closed for a five-year renovation project. After following the dramatic saga of the delays for the opening, there was no way I could leave town before [...]
Read MoreIs there anything more luxurious than slowly absorbing a sublime work of art? I can easily forget this. When I visit a new art museum, I can get in a manic state. I don’t want to miss anything, so I am tempted to methodically make my way through every gallery. And by seeing everything, I see nothing. So, when I gave myself three days to retreat in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I made a conscious effort to [...]
Read MoreElisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun was a celebrated 18th century French portraitist and one of the most important women artists of all time. I had the pleasure of seeing the exhibition dedicated to her life and work at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa (the exhibition also took place at the Grand Palais and the Met). This is the first retrospective and only the second exhibition devoted to Vigée Le Brun in [...]
Read MoreAlexander Hamilton played a major role in my three-day retreat in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As I wrote about here, I was nervous as I approached the Met on the morning of the retreat's first day. I literally started getting panicky as I crossed Central Park, feeling overwhelmed by the vast collection of the Met and worrying that I wouldn’t be able to structure my time well. That’s when [...]
Read MoreDo you ever find yourself in a museum, looking but not seeing? This happened to me recently on my three-day retreat in the Metropolitan Museum. On my second morning, I was wandering from gallery to gallery, and I couldn’t quite register what I was seeing. I was so inundated with beauty that it was all blurring together. That’s when I decided to go on a photo safari, a trick in my museum toolbox that [...]
Read MoreMy first ever museum was the glorious University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) in Ann Arbor. UMMA has always been a magical place for me. As my hometown museum, it was a cabinet of curiosities for my young self. I saw things there unlike anything I had ever seen: intriguing objects from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe. During a trip this month to see my family in Ann Arbor [...]
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 MoreThis month's Creativity Theme is CELEBRATION. So, with Christmas approaching, I gave myself a challenge for my visit to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts: find a way to celebrate Christmas inspired by artwork seen in the museum. I figured the most literal way to be inspired would be by [...]
Read MoreNapoléon et Paris at the Musée Carnavalet offers a glimpse at the steamy relationship between Napoleon and the city of Paris, presenting “Paris as seen by Napoleon and Napoleon as seen by Parisians”. I would describe the exhibition as jam-packed and elegant, not two words [...]
Read MoreThere is a fresh coat of paint this month at the Musée du Louvre! The Musée du Louvre recently renovated its galleries dedicated to 19th century French painting, complete with new colors on the walls and a reshuffling of the artworks. The paintings underwent acts of preventative [...]
Read MoreGarlands in Paris in the midst of a creativity series on the theme of Love. Today, I’m excited to introduce you to Sara, who reflected on this month's theme in New York City. Sara is one of the most creative and caring people I know, so I was excited to get her take on love in a museum. Here's Sara: Bonjour! I’m Sara of Simply Sara Travel, my [...]
Read MoreThis is the first installment of Creative June on the theme of the Outdoors. (If you missed it, check out a description of the project here!) When thinking about the outdoors, the first image that came to mind was the color green. And what better museum to scour for instances of green than the Musée d’Orsay? I first thought of the [...]
Read MoreFor its Velázquez exhibition, the Grand Palais in collaboration with GuidiGO is offering a guided visit using Google Glass. This was my first time using Google Glass, and I was impressed by how intuitive the glasses were. It didn’t take very long to feel like they were an extension of my own body. The glasses only offer 12 commentaries, far [ ... ]
Read MoreThis is part of Photo Safaris, a series that focuses on details found in artworks around various themes, with the aim of looking at everything differently. In honor of Mother's Day, I spent an afternoon in the Orsay on the hunt for representations of mothers. I did not have to look far. Moms surrounded me: from symbolic figures of maternity to [ ... ]
Read MoreThe Musée d'Orsay's current exhibition Pierre Bonnard: Peindre l'Arcadie is a delight. I walked out of this celebration of color feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. The (well-written and accessible) wall panels summed up Bonnard's style as possessing elegance, vitality, charm, deftness and humor. These words describe the exhibition as a whole. Pierre [ ... ]
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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.
