The Niche / El Nicho
What you’re seeing is an experiment. A 105-square-foot testing ground for ideas. In The Niche you will encounter projects that blur the boundaries of traditional gallery spaces, experiment with educational methods, take behind-the-scenes looks into the museum’s past and future, and provide unique experiences that defy categorization. We humbly welcome you to the small, the quirky, The Niche.
This was the introduction for a tiny room that existed in the first gallery a guest would enter at Crystal Bridges. While reimagining the Early American galleries, Jessi considered the small space that we had previously used, sometimes awkwardly, for new acquisitions. As she was working through possible layouts, we came up with the idea to lean into the awkward space, and create an area that wouldn’t make art feel stashed away from the other grand gallery areas. The Niche / El Nicho was born, and we successfully championed the idea, creating a committee of our peers that, while it always had a 3D and 2D designer involved, was open to any staff within the museum to join on a rotating basis.
We worked with the registration and education team to safely hold live painting by local artists, responding to a work of art hanging on the wall in front of them.
The space held a panel that explained the overall purpose, along with an ipad to collect feedback on how the visitor felt about the current incarnation. Turnover was quick, and duration was anywhere from three days to three weeks. If an important question came up in the museum, this space was utilized to gather feedback. We also had fun interacting with our visitors. The committee came up with many engaging ideas, a selection of which are displayed here.
We may be biased, but one of the more important installations for The Niche / El Nicho happened every 3-4 months. Anna, with the Communications team, previously held in-person community gatherings at the museum to gather local data on upcoming exhibitions. Identifying diverse groups and scheduling meetings was very time consuming, and The Niche / El Nicho became an ideal solution. It was integral to our temporary exhibitions, as it allowed us to get feedback directly from our guests on imagery and text that would inform both our marketing campaigns and exhibition sight lines.
To educate on how a non-profit art museum functions, as well as provide an inclusive voice for staff, we created rotating department takeovers, where teams could decide how they wanted to use the space. This was a collection of stories from our protection services team.
A look into how art comes into a museum collection, this installation explained the life of an artwork.
Similar to provenance, we also offered an inside look at how artworks travel with a courier.
Guests would see The Niche / El Nicho down a narrow corridor, adjacent to a space that was used for temporary internal exhibitions.
Around Halloween we created a murder mystery based on artworks throughout the galleries. To solve the puzzle, you had to visit the artworks on the map to get clues.
A game of loteria, based on illustrations of artworks in the museum, along with an explanation of the history of the game.
This installation was a salon hang of works on paper that weren’t often on display, as an immersive way to experience art.
While we were revamping our Modern Art Galleries, we utilized The Niche / El Nicho to gather information from guests on how they viewed the time period, which then informed our didactics.
School Rules by William Holbrook Beard was a fan favorite. Since it was a relatively small painting, we wanted to blow it up so details were more visible and made it immersive.
