What happens when you bring together student-athletes, artists, museum professionals, and community leaders to imagine a different kind of campus culture? You get Reframe, an ongoing partnership between The Block Museum of Art and Northwestern Athletics that is changing the game. Developed out of a multi-year commitment and launched in 2024 with a celebratory kick-off […]
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On a recent Monday afternoon, The Block Cinema team and a handful of scholars from across Northwestern gathered in the empty auditorium to screen the film Paydirt (1981), a little-seen film by director Penny Allen about Oregon winemakers who grow marijuana to ease financial strain. The event was part of a series of weekly research […]
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Each year, the Art Institute of Chicago hosts University PartnerFest, an open day of programming and networking opportunities for university students interested in museum careers. As part of PartnerFest programming, students are invited to give gallery talks about chosen works of art on view at the Art Institute. On February 15, 2025, Block Student Associates Roy Zhu […]
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Each year, the Art Institute of Chicago hosts University PartnerFest, an open day of programming and networking opportunities for university students interested in museum careers. As part of PartnerFest programming, students are invited to give gallery talks about chosen works of art on view at the Art Institute. On February 15, 2025, Block Student Associates […]
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One Book One Northwestern is an annual university-wide reading initiative that aims to generate a campus-wide conversation centered around a thought-provoking book. The 2024-2025 One Book selection is Louise Edrich’s 2020 novel The Night Watchman. Each year, The Block partners with One Book to select and compile works from the permanent collection that connect to […]
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The Block was honored to welcome photographer Bev Grant to campus in October 2024 to celebrate the exhibition Dissident Sisters: Bev Grant and Feminist Activism, 1968–72. Two members of the Block Museum Student Associates, Tori Montinola and Ann Gaither, share their reflections on their time with the artist-activist. Tori Montinola (English and History ’27) on […]
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A Spring 2024 Department of Art History course brought students into The Block to think about the evolving obligations of museums. Taught by Kathleen Bickford Berzock, Professor of Practice in Anthropology and Block Museum Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs, the class titled “Museums and Responsibility,” began with a conversation around the very definition of museum. […]
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Ordinarily, students in the McCormick School of Engineering’s Design Thinking and Communication course build functional projects for an external client with real-world applicability – a treadmill for wheelchair athletes, for example. But students in a Winter 2024 offering of the course built something a little less ordinary: small-scale printing presses inspired by the mechanics of […]
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In late February, Block Museum Student Associates were again invited to take part in the Art Institute’s annual University Partner Fest, a daylong event where students from the museum’s partner institutions are invited to explore the galleries, meet their peers, and learn from faculty and museum professionals across institutions. As part of the Fest, student […]
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“We’re all searching for a piece of home, or a piece of ourselves. We look for a taste of it in the food we order and the ingredients we buy. Then we separate. We bring the haul back to our dorm rooms or our suburban kitchens, and we re-create the dish that couldn’t be made […]
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