Art Adventures!

This summer, the Georgia Museum of Art holds host to groups of bite size detectives—art detectives that is. The theme of this summer’s Art Adventures, a program for larger groups such as day camps or day-care centers, is Museum Mysteries. In the interactive, educational program designed by previous intern Caroline Warner, local elementary-school-aged children learn how to answer questions about art and even create some of their own.

The young investigators begin their adventure with an interactive tour of objects in the museum’s permanent collection, where they will answer questions such as “who,” “what,” “when” and “where.” Docents, members of the education department and education interns lead the tours with an interrogative theme in attempts to engage the kids; props, signs and duplications of the art also help maintain interest. While collaborating on what seems like simple questions, the kids are essentially learning how to interpret and evaluate art.

After the tour, the group walks together to the classroom, where the education department has set up pieces of fabric and supplies for kids to create their own individual works of art based on the questions asked during the tour. After everyone completes their fabric art, the pieces are put together to create a collaborative object for the group’s classroom or community center.          

Watching the young sleuths apply what they learned—how to ask and answer questions about art—to their own crafts is evidence of their education. The program will run through June and July.