I love getting up close and personal with a painting. At a distance, this painting of three cakes on display is simple, and quite satisfying in that simplicity. The artist Wayne Thiebaud came back over and over to this theme of commercially-produced Americana desserts over the course of his career (fun game: if you see […]
Read MoreThe autumn semester starts today. This past spring, I completed all of the seminars for my Museum Studies PhD. The next step in this process is the infamous examen doctoral, an exercise that involves diving deep into the theory in which my research will be grounded. I'll be investigating museum [...]
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 MoreWhen I lived in Paris, I kept hearing about a woman who ran treasure hunts in the Musée du Louvre. I was intrigued by the concept and impressed by the creative business idea. The woman behind the hunts is Daisy de Plume, founder and Creative Director of THATMuse (Treasure Hunt at the Museum). An [...]
Read MoreThe Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) recently launched Lumin, an augmented reality experience using Google’s Tango technology and GuidiGO’s augmented reality platform. It is the world’s first art museum to integrate this 3-D mapping and smartphone augmented reality technology into a public mobile tour. I had the opportunity to test Lumin with Andrea Montiel de Shuman, the DIA’s Digital [...]
Read More2016 brought some exciting developments to this blog, including the launch of a new product line of creative prompts for visiting museums: MusEmvelopes. The two available themes are Love and Voyages. I also started a newsletter, which you can subscribe to below! I've had so much fun this year exploring [...]
Read MoreLooking for a way to take the Christmas story with you wherever you go? The 15th century German world had a solution: mobile personal chapels. Take the “Chapelle Cardon” in the Musée du Louvre: this small mobile chapel would have been used for private devotion when it was made in the early 1400s. It includes [...]
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 MoreAs soon as I read about SFMOMA’s new app, I had an immediate audioguide crush. The app features exciting technology and innovative content. It reimagines what a relevant audio tour experience can be. The app proposes several Immersive Walks, which are 15-45 minute audio “journeys”. These tours are wonderfully creative. You can choose the mood you want for your visit, from the hilarious “I Don’t [...]
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 MoreThis is an installment of Creative September on the theme of Beginnings (if you missed it, check out a description of the project here!). I wanted to find the oldest object in the Musée du Louvre. For a museum with the aim of being "universal" and showing humanity's heritage, where did they [...]
Read More"Niobides suppliantes". "Niobides en fuite". As I made my way through the Louvre one evening, it felt like every artwork that intrigued me was some version of a Niobid. I would be pulled to one Ancient Greek statuette, and then another, and each time the label would say “Niobid”. But what [...]
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 MoreEvery summer, Paris installs sand and beach chairs along the Seine for a few weeks for an event called Paris Plages. And for the second year in a row, the Musée du Louvre is participating with an activity area, complete with reproductions of artworks from its collection [...]
Read MoreOne of my favorite parts of the day is opening new tabs in my Chrome web browser. Since I installed the Google Art Project extension for Chrome, navigating the internet has become much more cultural. This extension makes it so that an artwork from the Art Project is displayed [...]
Read MoreI love being in on a secret. And when I learn about the meaning behind a symbol or a visual convention in art, I feel like I am in on a secret with the artist. A stroll through the artworks in the Louvre brings me face-to-face with a plethora of secrets, some more legible than others. Some [...]
Read MoreIf you’ve been following along for the past few weeks, you know that Garlands in Paris in middle of a creativity series on the theme of the Outdoors. Today, I’m happy to introduce you to Nolwenn, a dear friend and fellow blogger. I asked her to reflect on this month's theme in a Parisian cultural institution. So, without [...]
Read MoreOne of the best rooms in the Musée de Cluny (the museum of the Middle Ages) is the Salle Notre-Dame de Paris. And the most intriguing part? The series of floating kings' heads from the façade of Notre-Dame. The story behind how they got into this room is fascinating. It was the French Revolution, and the people were disgusted by the [ ... ]
Read MoreStill lives are incredibly sensual beings. But not only do they exemplify virtuosity, their aim is to sneakily make you think about the very nature of life itself. Given this, why are they so easy to just skim by in museums? Filmed partially in the Louvre in 2011, this little video aims to explore both the sensual and moral aspects of this subtle genre [ ... ]
Read MoreThis is part of Make a Mask, a series where I make copies of masks in Parisian museums. This Halloween, I made my first papier-mâché mask. It was such an enjoyable process; a mix of sculpture, paper work and painting. Since then, every time I visit a museum, I am drawn magnetically to any and all masks on display. Naturally, the next step was [ ... ]
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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.
