A New Vision

Accessibility Community Directors Education

Cari Sacks discusses the Vision Campaign and the role of the museum in the city.

I think that Madeleine's vision for what this museum could be and the need for the museum to change and evolve in 2017 was spot on. And the museum was beautiful and was built at a time that's very different then where we are today, and museums need to do different things today then when this museum was built. And so in order to really engage the city—and that's really something that museums I don't think thought about back when this museum was built. Museums were a little bit of an ivory tower thing, and now it's really important to have the city, the kids in the city, to have education and to have places for families.

And those are the changes that Madeleine saw needed to be made to this museum, and it was really sort of hard to argue with that point. There needed to be more space to bring in more public school kids. There needed to be more education space. There needed to be more ways to connect many people with this museum, and the museum was not sort of set up for that. And in this campaign, and in this new vision of the museum, it has changed it completely. And it is now—it's very welcoming, and there's a place for everyone, and it is exactly what museums should look like at this time in this country.

Family Day, Jan 12, 2013. Photo: Joshua Longbrake, © MCA Chicago.

Family Day, Jan 12, 2013. Photo: Joshua Longbrake, © MCA Chicago.

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