A Site For Social Action:
2018: Better World Museum serves the community in many ways on-site, online, and into streets, libraries, and neighborhoods to foster growing better together. Using creative technology, Virtual Reality, Public Art, Participatory Painting, a MakerSpace, programs, and exhibitions a diverse, inclusive, empathetic environment is the ultimate goal. We only show art about Diversity, Inclusion, Empathy, Climate Justice, and Wellness. We are more than 90% Women, BIPOC, LGBTAQ+, Disabled, and Youth. 10-100% of all revenue is donated to the community. Visitors create artwork and are welcome to participate in the museum every day. We collect friends, relationships, stories, and trust.
Our big project is Garden One, an indoor edible garden that invites the public and visitors to participate by watering or picking with an LED light color-coded menu. Garden One helps bridge the gap between the traditional tech and corporate communities with our nearby homeless shelter a block away and is a Smart-City infrastructure to address urban hunger and sustainability. In our first year, we're honored to recognize the local historic change of restoring the Dakota names, Bde Maka Ska and Bde Umna for our local lakes. Participatory Mural Walls offer opportunities for Visitors to paint water while creating new neural networks. This helps to better learn to say the indigenous names properly, while actively partaking in community restorative justice and placemaking. We're initiating projects with the nearby banks, government centers, and corporations -- as well as the nearby homeless shelters and youth centers because we practice acting as a "rainbow bridge" in the community.
Using Virtual Reality sets in the museum, and off-site is possible with Oculus Go headsets. They are easy to bring to Outreach Centers for Domestic Abuse and to share with classrooms, and at the library. Recently, a group of Mothers and Daughters drew a Community Garden together in VR. They supported each other and were able to see each other blossom provide strength as a tree, or shine like the sun in new ways. Members of the Best Buy Teen Tech Center drew indigionous, plants in containers, and weeds popping up between the sidewalk cracks along Hennepin Ave. in VR with Tilt Brush. The flowers were inspired by women and un-named 17-20th C. Botanical Artists in the Minneapolis Athenaeum. We projected videos of our VR drawings 5 stories up onto the ceiling of the downtown library for the Northern Spark Art Festival. Each teen was compensated with a gift card, an AR T-shirt, and a party with donuts. The teens also are part of the exhibitions at Better World Museum, but at that event, the library became not only their safe space but also their place of empowerment.
Yarrow, Bleeding Hearts, and Raspberries. Raquel Wins. Raqui contributed to "Urban Edible Plants" at the Northern Spark Art Festival, and Better World Museum's exhibiton "Support Structures". The Artist used Tilt Brush with Oculus Rift and PaintVR in Oculus Go.
Today we all want/need love, emapthy, a sence of belonging or place, safety, inclusion and a better future for all people. Better World Museum is striving to be a human-centered diverse space to grow better together from the center of our city. We hope to create positive impact that changes lives, and our world, better together. It is my hope that as Better World Museum grows, it impacts more people around the globe, and act as a model for healthy community making.
Museum Community Photos
Photos of some events this year, including "Facts Not Feelings" panel on the lack of diversity with Google Dev for International Womens Day, moderated by Brianna McCullough, Target Engenier. Images of children designing murals with LAPD, while Artist-in-Residence with Arts Bridging the Gap and Girls Make VR in Los Angeles, and the recent visit by the Sacred Leaders and Golden Eagles of the Minneapolis Native Indian Center vist to Better World Museum.
Photos of some events this year, including "Facts Not Feelings" panel on the lack of diversity with Google Dev for International Womens Day, moderated by Brianna McCullough, Target Engenier. Images of children designing murals with LAPD, while Artist-in-Residence with Arts Bridging the Gap and Girls Make VR in Los Angeles, and the recent visit by the Sacred Leaders and Golden Eagles of the Minneapolis Native Indian Center vist to Better World Museum.
Building Community Relationships
August 23, 2018
We are dedicated to building community relationships. First, we honor the land and indigenous people that the museum is on, by beginning a new relationship with the Sacred Leaders and Ginew/Golden Eagles from the Minneapolis American Indian Center. I met G, the group organizer at 5 to 10 on Hennipin's street event. I liked G and his group's mission and invited his group to visit. Knowing they are 2 miles away and parking is a hassle, I donate for each visit to cover transportation and parking costs. I want it to be easy to visit! While here, I try to enforce that this space and the tools here are for them. At the last visit, we created a VR drawing to be used for a poster to hang in the museum for #HonorNativeLand.
November 2018: Invited to the event at Minneapolis American Indian Center. I brought the previous drawings in VR to the project, cardboard to watch in 360, and the Oculus Go to draw a new VR Garden.
NEW SPACE!
May 22, 2018
So excited to have moved into a new 7654 square foot space on the Skyway level inside of the City Center building!!! Here are some photos from the first few events, and process of installing a new museum. It has been incredible - and along the way our community and Leadership roles have expanded, become more inclusive, and are creating new ways to engage audiences and our community.
20min TechLab
August 2, 2016
Participants will watch custom MakeART videos on iPads mounted to a giant work table to learn simple creative tech projects. All the materials needed to experience creating these self-guided projects will be available in bins at the table to: solder LEDs, create LED Throwies, create a #wearabletech patch with LEDs & conductive thread, experiment with conductive ink, and more rotating projects! Pose at the #SelfieWall and take a photo with your finished works for Instagram. Fun - Quick - Cool... 20 min ArtLab!
White square table with red Ikea wooden chairs. The table has piles of sensors, LEDs, Google Cardboard VR Viewers, Rubik's cube. A box of mostly Star Wars Legos sits at the base of the table.