UNMAM Birthday Bash

^{Image of the 1970 exhibition Constructivist Tendencies at the UNM Art Museum.  From the UNMAM Archives.}

You’re invited to join The University of New Mexico Art Museum in celebration of over sixty years of exhibits, events, and dedication to UNM’s student community.  

On Saturday, October 5, we will be celebrating all day with free art activities centered around our current exhibits and will offer a guided tour of Hindsight Insight 5.0 with UNMAM staff and artists featured in the exhibition! Read below about the programs we are offering during our birthday celebration. (Please note that tickets to the public tour of Hindsight Insight 5.0 are required, but free. You can reserve tickets at the bottom of this page.)

Response, Art Activity (10:00 – 12:00 PM) 

Response is a timeless tool used by artists to learn new skills, understand other artists’ work, and develop their own practices. UNMAM has various examples of this process currently on display — Hindsight/Insight 5.0 features artist responses to a piece from our collection, a nineteenth century album of microscopic photographs. These artistic responses take the forms of sculpture, biomaterials, installation, digital rendering, and more.  

Join us inside Hindsight/Insight 5.0 for a brief talk about response, its history, and its potential. Afterward, guests will be free to take a closer look at all our exhibits, then form their own artistic response to the work we currently have on display through the forms of writing, drawing, and sketching.  

All skill levels are welcome, whether you create a sketch, pitch, or something else entirely during this activity. Guests will reconvene at the end of the program for a casual discussion of ideas and what was noticed or learned throughout this activity. 

Craft a Microscopic Image, Art Activity (12:00 – 2:00 PM) 

Inspired by Hindsight Insight 5.0, this hands-on workshop invites guests to view microscopic specimens with our in-gallery microscope and explore images inside Microphotographs Presented to the Royal Institute of Chemistry by Henry Droop Richmond — a bound volume of microphotographs created between 1877-1883.   

In the CFA Lobby, guests are invited to create their own version of a microscopic image with a variety of arts and craft supplies ranging from hot glue and glitter to feathers, paints, construction paper, and more! Recreate the microscopic images you’ve seen in Hindsight Insight 5.0, draw inspiration from them, or let your imagination run wild to create something new.  

Whether you’re inspired by the microscopic world or wish to create a fictional masterpiece, this session will encourage you to think and design creatively in a fun, hands-on environment. 

Tour of Hindsight Insight 5.0 (3:00 – 4:00 PM) 

The celebration of our Birthday Bash ends with a free public tour of Hindsight Insight 5.0 led by UNMAM staff and exhibition artists: Fiona Bell, Kaitlin Bryson, Amy Pilling, and Andrea Polli.  Guests will hear the artists speak on their artistic practice and the creation of the artworks inside Hindsight Insight 5.0, and learn about the vast field of BioArt. 

Hindsight Insight 5.0 is the final installment of the UNM Art Museum’s hybrid project and exhibition space devoted to complicating existing narratives about racism, colonialism, and gender stereotypes while de-centering curatorial authority and institutional voice. 

Created and curated by museum staff and collaborators, the exhibition features new artwork by five contemporary artists affiliated with the University of New Mexico and one object from the museum’s permanent collection: a nineteenth century album of microscopic photographs of the natural world. 

Tickets are required for the public tour of Hindsight Insight 5.0 – but are free. You can reserve tickets below.