Mixing Parties and Education

Community Education Parties

Under Daryl Gerber Stokols, the New Group, once devoted to partying, shifts its focus to education and learning.

One of the first things I did here besides running the store was then after that, I was in charge of a group called the New Group at the museum, which, when I came and I participated in different activities, was just a lot of fun. But then they asked me to be in charge of it, and I said to them when they asked me to be in charge of it, I said to actually the individual who was handing me off the reins at that point, I said, "Well, what do you want me to do?" And he said, "Just be inclusive and have activities and so on." And we got very big during the time that I was involved in it. But then it became a little bit more cumbersome and a little too "party" and we really wanted to educate people towards more collecting and more understanding of what they were being invested in and so on. So that's really what happened. But we did street parties in the art gallery district, we did all kinds of things like that, tent parties and stuff.

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Video still, Behind the Scenes at an Art Museum. © MCA Chicago.

Behind the Scenes

MCA staff members are interviewed in 1997 about their work. Interviews include Torri Johnson, security officer; Margaret Farr, assistant director of education; Pablo Helguera, coordinator of public programs; Dominic Molon,. . . more
1990s Community Education Staff