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MSU Broad calling on community to transform downtown Art Lab

February 7, 2019
The MSU Broad Art Lab is located across the street from the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. Photo courtesy of the MSU Broad Art Museum.
The MSU Broad Art Lab is located across the street from the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. Photo courtesy of the MSU Broad Art Museum. —

The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University is holding a “Community Open Call” Friday to find creative thinkers to transform the MSU Broad Art Lab, located in Downtown East Lansing. 

The Lab's aim is to invite the community to initiate art projects and programming in that space.  Friday's event is only one part of the "Community Open Call initiative," the full program of community-led events within the Art Lab, Director Of Communications at Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum Morgan Butts said. 

"'The Community Open Call' exemplifies engagement by challenging traditional notions of the relationship between a museum and its community," Director of Education at the MSU Broad Michelle Word said in a press release. "It transforms engagement into an active partnership, giving agency to the audience and fostering a community of participants who co-create museum programming." 

Located across the street from the museum, the MSU Broad Art Lab plays a role in the museum's commitment to present "engaging arts and cultural experiences for a diverse audience."

For the open call, the Lab invites members of the community to propose creative ideas that would transform the Art Lab into a studio, performance space, gallery and more. Applications are being taken online at the Broad Art Museum's official website

“We think it is a fantastic opportunity for students to really initiate their creativity and to really participate in the programming that is happening," Butts said. "The Art Lab is really the unique space because it gives students opportunity to propose their own programming, and really play a hand in that planning process." 

A diverse committee composed of community representatives and Broad Art Museum staff will accept and review Open Call applications on a rolling basis, Butts said. 

"We are happy with anything," Butts said. "We really encourage you to give us your most creative, out-of-box ideas." 

Editor's note: This article was updated at 3:42 p.m. on Feb. 7 to clarify this is not the first Community Open Call event.  

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