July 20 is Marina Day. In France, every day of the year has a saint's name associated with it. If you share the name of one of the saints, that is your name day. Every year since I started studying French and learned that this was a thing, I have treated July 20 (the fête of Sainte Marina) as a mini-birthday party, a gala of 'treat yo self', a celebration of my delightful self.
Read MoreThis is part of Happy Places, a series about making the time to have experiences that bring you joy, but can be hard to justify with a busy schedule. The Musée Delacroix is so small that it is hard for me to justify return visits. If I am a Delacroix mood, I’ll make my way to the Louvre’s collection. But [ ... ]
Read MoreThis is what my thesis is teaching me: Life is in this moment. I am so tempted to say that life will start again when I turn in this massive document. That I will literally never have a reason to be stressed ever again. But to think that this moment a waiting period for ‘real life’ is a dangerous [ ... ]
Read MoreI realize this might be my most controversial post to date, but here goes. There have been a lot of claims lately about the best burger in Paris, as the burger scene is exploding in the city. There are arguments for Blend, le Camion Qui Fume, Big Fernand, blah blah blah. The truth is, there is [ ... ]
Read MoreI am in the midst of finishing a 150 page thesis (in French) about mobile apps in temporary exhibitions in Parisian museums. It is eating me alive. Needless to say, stress is a constant presence in my life right now. I've been fighting back with an arsenal of calming techniques, including candlelight, [ ... ]
Read MoreI recently found myself in Abu Dhabi for a week. This was my first trip to the region, and I was excited to see the differences in culture, tastes, scents, the quality of light... On the plane, I was giddy when I saw on my seat's screen that we were flying over Mesopotamia and [ ... ]
Read MoreAfter spending a nocturne at the Louvre one Friday night, I stepped outside to find a lusciously full moon. I am a firm believer that a full moon brings out wildness and inhibition, and this night was no exception. I felt full of an almost manic energy in the moonlight [ ... ]
Read MoreA French friend came to visit my childhood home over the Christmas holidays this year. It was his first time visiting the great US of A, and I wanted to shock him with the cultural differences between our two countries. I took him to an enormous Costco, I made him drink a Root Beer Float, we almost got run over by [ ... ]
Read MoreThe Fourth of July of 2012 fell on a Wednesday. This meant that the official party would have to wait for July 6. But a friend and I decided to have a quiet pre-celebration in Place Saint-Sulpice on that Wednesday night, equipped with a 12-pack of sparklers. We each pinned on a cocarde tricolore (ignoring that they [ ... ]
Read MoreEvery morning as I descend the staircase of my apartment building, I am drawn to the windows at each landing that look out over the courtyard. My apartment building has a secret garden. I don’t know who is responsible for maintaining it, as I have never seen anyone gardening. In fact, the only time I’ve seen a neighbor in the [...]
Read MoreThis is part of Happy Places, a series about making the time to have experiences that bring you joy, but can be hard to justify with a busy schedule. I was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. The kind of day where you feel overwhelmed and trapped and stressed. Unfortunately for my misery, it was a beautiful [ ... ]
Read MoreThis is part of Happy Places, a series about making the time to have experiences that bring you joy, but can be hard to justify with a busy schedule. I love going to cemeteries to talk about life. I recently wandered around the Cimetière du Montparnasse with a friend, talking about major life decisions we were thinking of [ ... ]
Read MoreAs someone who used to think that cocktails were servings of alcohol with so much sugar as to be crunchy, it has taken the coaching of many knowledgeable and talented friends to convince me not only that cocktails are worth my time, but that they can be an art. I have gone through several deviations on [ ... ]
Read MoreApril in Paris has come in March. Daffodils and crocuses have popped up all around town. Cherry trees are in blossom (I’ve been cracking myself up by calling them the made-up word “neigiers”, or “snow trees”). Black down coats have been replaced by black light jackets. And the most exciting sign [ ... ]
Read MoreThis is part of Happy Places, a series about making the time to have experiences that bring you joy, but can be hard to justify with a busy schedule. The Bon Marché, founded in 1838, was Paris's first department store. Every detail of the display is meticulously thought out to maximize your experience of luxury. It is a sensory overload, a Vogue you can touch and smell [ ... ]
Read MoreI recently came down with tracheitis, a nasty bacterial inflammation of my trachea. While the majority of my time was spent in bed with a fever and death cough, I accidentally managed to have a lovely sick day. My doctor's appointment wasn't until the late afternoon, and it wasn't long before I was bored. I decided to [ ... ]
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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.
