Thursday, March 28, 2024

MSU Museum hosts free, themed celebrations

October 11, 2022
Photographed on Feb. 20, 2020.
Photographed on Feb. 20, 2020. —
Photo by Alyte Katilius | The State News

The MSU Museum will be hosting special events ranging from silent discos, holiday festivities and game nights on the first Friday of every month from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. These events offer free food and games and tickets are free for students.

“Our First Fridays program provides students with unique and just outright fun ways to explore the museum outside of our normal hours,” MSU Museum Graduate Assistant Berkley Sorrells said in a press release. “From dancing with the dinosaurs to carnival games, it has been very exciting to help develop engaging events to welcome MSU students into the museum.”

The first event of this series kicked off on Friday, Oct. 7 with a silent disco and DJ where students who registered for the event online walked in, grabbed a pair of headphones and danced around a dazzling disco ball. When students needed a break from dancing, they could refuel with free pizza from Bell’s or explore all three floors of the museum. 

MSU Museum organized the event by working with contractors, reaching out to the community and collaborating with staff and students to develop themes that could make the exhibitions more exciting to learn about.

Behind the advertisement veil of students dancing to pop music is an underlying theme centered around climate change. Every piece on the dance floor represented present and future issues and effects of climate change, even the disco ball students danced around.

MSU Museum Mediator Lynne Swanson showed students around the gallery with the intent to communicate and express what the artists wanted to express in their pieces. 

“It’s all centered around this theme of climate change and issues presented by that,” Swanson said. “So our globe out there is turned into a disco ball. It’s kind of to bring in more people into this gallery tonight.”

One piece that stood out to Swanson was a piece hidden in the back corner: three TVs posted along the wall, each showing a nude person with various skin reactions to climate change. 

“This is a representation of human adaptation and dystopian society for climate change,” Swanson said. “So what you’re seeing is an artist’s interpretation of what oxygenated adaptations humans would need to take on in order to continue to thrive and survive in the Earth’s climate with low oxygen available.”

All First Fridays take place at the MSU Museum. On Nov. 4, students are invited to post-Halloween scaries with a spooky November carnival with costumes and fun-filled games throughout the museum. Dec. 2 is a wellness winter day that will feature crafts, donuts and guided meditation sessions. On Jan. 13, students can take a blast to the past with retro arcade games.

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