From the day its doors opened, Hood Downtown has been a magnet on Main Street for campus, community, and regional schools. Hood Downtown’s rotating schedule of contemporary art exhibitions and robust programming helped us maintain our strong connections with Dartmouth and the public. Like most good ideas, the experiment yielded some unanticipated wins that will inform our practice moving forward.
With a shaded bench and flower beds out front and its wall of windows, the exhibition space had curb appeal, making it easy to capitalize on the visibility of being on Main Street. Visitor services staff regularly remarked on the many unplanned visitors who, strolling by en route to somewhere else, peered through the window, walked in, and lingered with the art.
We also heard from schoolteachers who reported
that—after class visits to Hood Downtown—their
students returned regularly with their parents,
because “it’s easy and fun to be on Main Street.
There’s ice cream next door.”
Teaching in a light-filled space, steps away
from the street, also allowed us to make our
teaching practice visible. Anyone who ventured
inside when students were present saw active
engagement: Dartmouth professors looking
closely at the work and in dialogue with their
students, other learners talking to each other
quietly in groups, sprawled out on the floor, or
drawing from works of art. Indeed, Hood
Downtown has been critically important to
maintaining our relationship with Dartmouth
faculty and students during the museum’s
closure. While some classes have visited
consistently throughout the two years—including
those in the Writing and Rhetoric, Studio Art,
and French and Italian Departments—the
diversity of exhibitions has attracted a wide
range of classes from different disciplines. Laetitia
Soulier: The Fractal Architectures appealed to
architecture and photography students, while
Ingo Günther: World Processor was relevant to a math
class in introductory statistics, and we worked
closely with the Music Department during
Resonant Spaces: Sound Art at Dartmouth. The show
that reached most deeply into the curriculum
was Kader Attia: Reason’s Oxymorons. Students from