Shining a Spotlight on the Community Amid COVID-19

PHILADELPHIA – Despite its temporary closure due to COVID-19, the Penn Museum has launched an initiative to develop a new kind of exhibition. Through the Community Spotlight series, the Museum invites its friends around the world to work together in creating a unique display that will highlight one special object in a 360-degree gallery space.

“The Community Spotlight connects our online community with our collections, research, and experts to create a display that illustrates what it means to be human,” says Kate Quinn, Director of Exhibitions and Special Projects for the Penn Museum. “The Penn Museum is a place for everyone, and this series is designed to bring the perspectives of our many communities ‘into’ the Museum’s spaces—even though most of us are at home right now.”

The Community Spotlight unfolds in five steps:

1. The public has chosen a universal theme for the exhibition: love. Other options to represent a shared human experience included: perseverance, joy, inner peace, security, envy, heartbreak, and unlisted ideas suggested by the online community.
2. Museum experts are now selecting objects from around the world, spanning thousands of years, that represent the idea of “love.”
3. In late May, the public will share their perspectives online again. After learning more about the objects selected by the experts, the Museum’s online community will rank their choices to determine which one best illustrates “love.”
4. In early June, after reviewing the responses, the Museum will announce which artifact was chosen by the public to reflect “love” as a theme that connects everyone.
5. Once the Museum reopens, the object will be installed in the 360-degree Spotlight Gallery (adjacent to the Sphinx Gallery, just inside the Main Entrance).

The Community Spotlight will become an ongoing series, providing the online public with opportunities to collaborate with the Museum in the coming years.

“Through the temporarily closure, we welcome everyone to get to know us through our Penn Museum at Home resource hub, our social media channels, or other interactive opportunities that we offer—and when the Museum reopens, visit in person to see the display that they worked with us to create,” Quinn says. “During these unsettling times, we look forward to celebrating love with our communities near and far.”

For additional information, visit: www.penn.museum/community-spotlight.