Your Museum, Your Voice: Community Voices at the Cleveland Museum of Art

Tags for: Your Museum, Your Voice: Community Voices at the Cleveland Museum of Art
  • Blog Post
  • Events and Programs
Rachel Arzuaga, Interpretive Planner
Stephanie Foster, Lead Interpretive Planner
May 19, 2023
Headshot of Naazneen Diwan, PhD, poet, education, activist with a quote.

Naazneen Diwan spoke about Dinari/All Our Mothers by Aaron Gilbert in Picturing Motherhood Now.

A museum is nothing without its visitors. The stories of the artworks and the people who interact with them make museums come alive. At the Cleveland Museum of Art, we are committed to building an audience-centered culture. This idea is key to the work of the interpretation department.

Interpretation sits within the Division of Public and Academic Engagement, known as Education in many museums. Our guiding principle is that there is more than one way to engage with art. Through encounters with art in a museum, we can better understand and appreciate ourselves and others, acknowledging that multiple perspectives exist. With a collection that spans place and time, the CMA offers the opportunity to engage in essential conversations about all aspects of human existence, both positive and negative, through art.

Think of all the experiences you’ve had in your life. Which ones stand out the most to you? These important moments all inform how you look at and interpret a work of art; they are unique to each individual visitor. With this in mind, interpretation has spearheaded a Community Voice initiative across the permanent collection and for select special exhibitions.

We are prioritizing and highlighting the voices of community members alongside those of curators because we feel that everyone is an expert in their own lived experience. We first experimented with this initiative in the 2021 exhibition Picturing Motherhood Now, and again in 2022 with Derrick Adams: LOOKS and with Riemenschneider and Late Medieval Alabaster, which is on view through July 23, 2023, in the Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery. Each of these featured the voices of community members reflecting on personal experiences related to the themes of the exhibitions. By including multiple voices and perspectives in the galleries, we hoped visitors would recognize how individual experiences often inform how we engage with or interpret an artwork.

Headshot of Naazneen Diwan, PhD, poet, education, activist with the quote, "What drew me to this work was this sense of deep intimacy and seperation. With the bright colors, drawn curtain, there is a sense of being cocooned and safe but also the ankle monitor ramains as a threat of imminent loss, and intrusion by a racist system. Seperation is a theme that I resonate with being a child of immigrants. My mom was seperated from her entire family in India. Systems of opression and institutions, like immigration enforcement and the prison industrial complex, sperate families of color and make life unlivable by making certain resources inaccessible. With my mom working full-time while going to nursing school, our most connective times were when seh braided my hair. In many cultures of people of color, mother-daughter grooming is a special ritual. This image evoked getting my hair picked for lice in India by my aunties or my mom making two, waist-length French braids in my curly hair. It was part of our daily way of connecting and caring."
Naazneen Diwan spoke about Dinari/All Our Mothers by Aaron Gilbert in Picturing Motherhood Now.
Headshot of Evelyn Burnett, Co-Founder + CEO, ThirdSpace Action Lab and Board Chair, Birthing Beautiful Communities with the quote, "I'm assuming that the woman in the framed photo is the young man's mother. I immediately thought she was deceased. I see a very vibrant, beautiful debutante. It makes me think: what happened to her? I'm struck by what the young man's big, beautiful eyes are communicating. He troubled yet comforted by the fact that (his) mama is always watching. So many of our mothers are not with us physically or emotionally; they're deceased or absent in some way. This picture reminds me of a picture of my beloved grandmother that's similarly situated in my bedroom, almost like a shrine. She is a constant presence, living on through my mom and me though she has been deceased for close to 20 years. When people lose their parents, their biological parents, or metaphorical parents, that feeling of being orphaned is something I've dreaded my whole life. I weep at just the thought of losing my mother. Because their presence was so profound, they are a part of you."
Evelyn Burnett spoke about Mama’s Always Watching by D’Angelo Lovell Williams in Picturing Motherhood Now.
Headshot of Tameka Ellington, PhD, Entrepreneur, speaker, scholar, educator, author, and philanthropist with the quote, "The first thing that spoke to me in Adams's work are the the skin tones. Black people are blessed with a variety of skin tones. Adams used almost all of them as ways of adding definition, shading, and highlighting. It's beautiful, and I love that he expressed the variants, the wide differences in the skin color of Black people. I see my skin tone. These paintings are bold, unapologetically Black kinds of imagery. There's something striking about the skin tones, about the hair colors; it's very in your face, here I am, beauty in all, whatever the case might be. It's just a matter of me being exactly who I am without apologizing for who I am."
Tameka Ellington spoke about the work of Derrick Adams in Derrick Adams: LOOKS.

While we have found success with these labels in various exhibitions, they had yet to make their way into our collection galleries. When the CMA was approached by the Cleveland Orchestra to participate in the inaugural Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival, which takes the American dream as its theme, we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to feature community voices across the collection galleries. We collaborated with 22 Clevelanders to share their thoughts and reflections on what the American dream means to them. Our goal was to invite participants from a variety of backgrounds to be reflective of the Cleveland community, from high school students to the mayor of Cleveland; each perspective gives valuable insight into the American dream in 2023.

Community partners chose a work of art on view that encapsulated their feelings on this topic. The interpretation team crafted labels from recorded interviews with the participants to honor their unique voices and accurately reflect their lived experiences. From A Hare and a Leg of Lamb by Jean-Baptiste Oudry to Merging Emerging by Audra Skuodas, the variety of objects chosen made it apparent that the American dream means something different for everyone. Common themes that emerged were safety and security, fame and fortune, and hopefulness. Most people felt that the American dream is not equally available to everyone. Below you can read a few examples of the labels as they appear in the galleries.

Headshot of James Schaffer, college student, Cleveland Institute of Art, the photo by Amber N. Ford, with a quote by Schaffer saying, "As somebody who is queer, the American dream to me is the ability to live as visibly queer and be accepted by society. Legistlation has oppressed LGBTQ+ people, but I think we are getting closer to the dream of equal opportunity. For me, this painting is the most literal representation of being proudly and visiby queer. Both subjects display aspects of gender nonconformity, existing in that space between male and female. These people are proud to be themselves in a way we don't see in a lot of traditional portraiture. Through the actions and lives of individuals like those in the portrait, queer Americans are getting closer to achieving the ability to be open and proud of our identities." Below reads, "This label is part of The American Dream: Community Voices project, in collaboration with The Cleveland Orchestra's 2023 Mendel Opera & Humanities Festival."
James Schaffer, a CIA student, talked about being proudly and visibly queer using Jackie Curtis and Ritta Redd by Alice Neel as a visual representation of his thoughts and feelings.
Headshot of Raja Belle Freeman, poet, artist, creative arts teacher with the quote "The American dream means a lot of things for me. The keyword is freedom. It's about being able to choose what freedom looks like for you, because it looks different for everyone. Early in this country's history the idea of Manifest Destiny—to expand the nation across the continent—become an American dream. Then the dream morphed into fame and fortune. Many people want their face to be recognizable. Marilyn Monroe is such an icon. In this painting, she almost looks like an emoji. I think a lot of American want to be that level of iconic. In our capitalist system, people dream of fame and fortune because that guarantees security. Many of us will never see anything like what Marilyn had, but it's what people aspire to. Below reads, "This label is part of The American Dream: Community Voices project, in collaboration with The Cleveland Orchestra's 2023 Mendel Opera & Humanities Festival."
Raja Belle Freeman, who is a local poet, artist, and creative arts teacher, reflected on her experiences with Marilyn x 100 by Andy Warhol.
Headshot of Justin M. Bibb, Mayor of Cleveland, the photo by Photographic Bureau, City of Cleveland, with a quote by Bibb saying, "Growing up as a working-class Black kid in southeast Cleveland, the American dream was about getting out of the inner city and making something of yourself. Now, it's about making an impact. Being a mayor gives mwe the ability and tools to disrupt systems that have failed people of color. I don't take the task lightly. I bear a lot of responsibility, but disruption required the collective. This painting is classic Americana—The WOnder Years, but the Black version. It makes me think about the first barbecue we held after my mom bought her first home. We felt like we made it—living the American dreams and Black family traditions. The words in the painting look like they're in human brains, supporting this idea indoctrinated upon us of what we should be. We are on nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justic for all. Below reads, "This label is part of The American Dream: Community Voices project, in collaboration with The Cleveland Orchestra's 2023 Mendel Opera & Humanities Festival."
Justin M. Bibb shared what it means to be both a Black resident of Cleveland and the mayor of the city, making connections with Bang by Kerry James Marshall.

These excerpts are just a portion of what you can find throughout the museum. The complete list of participants includes a cross section of the community:

James Schaffer, college student, Cleveland Institute of Art

Anne Harrill, owner, Océanne Studio and Boutique

Héctor Castellanos Lara, lead artist, Parade the Circle 2023

Justin M. Bibb, Mayor of Cleveland

Raja Belle Freeman, poet, artist, and creative arts teacher

Tomislav Mihaljevic, MD, CEO and President, Morten L. Mandel CEO Chair, Cleveland Clinic

Lori Ashyk, executive director, The Cleveland Cultural Gardens Federation

Sean Watterson, co-owner, Happy Dog, Cleveland

Annie Zaleski, music journalist, editor, and author

Raymond Bobgan, executive artistic director, Cleveland Public Theatre

Felton Thomas, executive director and CEO, Cleveland Public Library

Dexter Davis, artist

Christa Adams, faculty in history, Bard High School Early College Cleveland

Dr. Raquel M. Ortiz, cultural anthropologist, author, educator, activist, songwriter, and storyteller

Phyllis Harris, executive director, LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland

Randall Harrod, combat veteran, United States Army

Marlys Rambeau, enrolled member, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe

Isabel Trautwein, first violin, The Cleveland Orchestra, Trevor and Jennie Jones Chair

Shawna Polster, high school student, Currently Under Curation

Logan Fribley, high school student, Currently Under Curation

Rebecca Kimble, OnBase file clerk, Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities

Brandon Edwin Chrostowski, founder, president, and CEO, EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute

The Mandel Opera & Humanities Festival: The American Dream runs through May 20, 2023. However, these labels will be in the galleries until August 31, 2023. As you encounter them across the museum, we invite you to consider what the American dream represents to you. Feel free to share your own reflections with us in the comments! For other opportunities to share, visit the CMA on June 17, 2023, from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. for the Artist in the Atrium program featuring performances by Dr. Raquel M. Ortiz and Raja Belle Freeman.