This afternoon during the Speed English activity the WOA Dnipro patrons discussed the museums of Dnipro city, their first visit to a museum, the good and bad things about the museums.
Participants number – 24 persons.
#DniproWOA #MuseumDay
Have a look at more pictures, please
This afternoon the official topic of the Gabfest Club session in Dfnipro Window on America center was “International Museum Day”.
In 2017 this global event celebrated the theme: “Museums and contested histories: Saying the unspeakable in museums”.
History is a vital tool for defining a given people's identity, and each of us defines ourselves through important and fundamental historic events. Contested histories are unfortunately not isolated traumatic events. These histories, which are often little known or misunderstood, resonate universally, as they concern and affect us all.
Museum collections offer reflections of memories and representations of history. The International Museum Day provided an opportunity to show how museums display and depict traumatic memories to encourage visitors to think beyond their own individual experiences.
The group shared the stories about the visits to museums that were rather traumatic, gave the examples of things unspeakable in the Soviet time museums. The topic was illustrated with the video speech of a museum expert who explained why contested histories are important for the contemporary society.
The group red and translated the slide show about unusual museums in the USA – circus museum, funeral museum, spy museum, mustard museum, etc.
The topic was complicated, but educational.
Participants number – 24 persons.
The WOA staff started preparations for the second chapter of the "U.S. Art Residence" project, which will be devoted to American visual art. To increase the awareness of the visual arts WOA Center staff and the English Club activists visited the "Museum of Ukrainian art" in Dnipropetrovsk. The museum was created to display the private collection of the local art connoisseur Mr. Oleg Naumov.
We enjoyed the pictures of different periods, genres, painting techniques. Our guide was a respected Dnipropetrovsk art critic Vladimir Kulichihin. The WOA staff discussed with him the possibility of ties between Dnipropetrovsk painters and American art. We picked up some valuable techniques of presenting art works to the public and will use this skill and knowledge soon in our US Art project.
Participants number – 8 persons.
Today’s session of the Gabfest speaking club (at Window on America center Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine) was dedicated to the anniversary of the Smithsonian Institution. It turned out that none of the Club members have heard about this organization before. When Smithsonian logo was presented to the group only the tenth guess was correct - that it was the logo of a museum.
To introduce the museum we have used several YouTube videos. The most enjoyable was a video hosted by Ben Stiller. This actor is known to those club members who watched the movie “The night at the museum”.
The comprehension of the content was checked by offering a list of questions about the museum and its history. The strange facts fascinated the group- a late English scientist James Smithson left his estate to his nephew, with a curious clause stating that if his nephew died without heirs, the estate would go to the people of the United States - to found a museum in the City of Washington under the name of Smithsonian Institution. We have discussed the mission of the museum and its role in the American society. The club members were encouraged to examine the facility’s book display dedicated to the Smithsonian Institution.
The second part of the session was used to discuss the latest news in American-Ukrainian relations. The highlight of the discussion was introduction of the new US Ambassador in Ukraine Mr. Geoff Pyatt. We have listened to his video introduction on the official site and started to prepare video questions for the Ambassador.
Introduction ritual for new comers was a good conclusion for this educational session.
