Museums have long been both my workplace and my studio.
Many of these projects were developed through my work leading audience engagement, public programs, and creative initiatives at museums. Others began as independent artworks and performances. Together, they reflect my belief that museums are not simply places where art is shown, but can themselves become a medium for artistic exploration.
Across these projects, I explore questions about participation, authority, learning, performance, and the often invisible work that shapes the museum experience. Some take the form of performances, others become public programs or participatory installations, but all begin with a simple question: What happens if we look at museums a little differently?
Below is a selection of museum-based artworks and projects.
MEOW (2016)
What happens when an entire art museum is curated around a single idea?
While serving as Director of Audience Engagement at the Worcester Art Museum, I curated and led MEOW, a museum-wide celebration of cats that transformed nearly every corner of the museum into part of a playful, interdisciplinary exhibition.
The project was anchored by Cats-in-Residence, a live cat installation guest curated by artist and critic Rhonda Lieberman and presented in partnership with the Worcester Animal Rescue League, where adoptable cats lived inside the museum. Around that exhibition, I developed a museum-wide experience that included The Captivating Cat, an exhibition of more than 70 cat-inspired works from the museum's collection spanning thousands of years; a self-guided Cat Walk highlighting feline-themed works throughout the galleries; a community cat art exhibition; artist Rob Reger's original Emily the Strange paintings; studio art classes; curator talks; family programs; and an opening celebration unlike any other.
Rather than presenting a single exhibition, MEOW invited visitors to experience the museum itself as one cohesive artwork. By blending exhibitions, live animals, education, community participation, and humor, the project challenged expectations of what an art museum could be while welcoming thousands of first-time visitors through its doors.
Museum Map: An Alternative Museum Conference (2016–2017)
With Scott Stulen
Each year, thousands of museum professionals gather for the American Alliance of Museums Annual Meeting.
Scott Stulen and I wondered what would happen if the conference itself became an artwork.
Museum Map was a free, artist-inspired alternative conference that unfolded across the host city through lightning talks, scavenger hunts, live music, walking tours, bar meetups, and participatory experiences. Rather than sitting in meeting rooms, participants explored the city together.
The project celebrated curiosity, spontaneity, and the idea that some of the most meaningful conference moments happen between the official sessions.
Don't Touch the Art: A Conference Reading of Museum Signs (2016)
Instead of delivering a traditional conference presentation at the Communicating the Arts Conference in Quebec City, I wrote and performed a poem composed entirely from museum gallery instructions.
The piece borrowed the language visitors encounter every day: "Please do not touch," "No food or drink," "Photography prohibited," and "No selfie sticks."
By transforming familiar institutional language into poetry, the work asked audiences to hear museum voices differently and to consider the subtle ways museums communicate authority.
The project continues today through an ongoing collection of museum signs, with the hope of one day publishing a book devoted entirely to the language of museum rules.
Security (2013)
What makes someone look like they belong in a museum?
To explore that question, I created the persona of a museum security guard. After years of working in museums and earning a graduate degree in museum studies, I purchased a security uniform and began conducting unsanctioned "security shifts" at museums across San Francisco, including SFMOMA, the Asian Art Museum, the Legion of Honor, and even BART stations.
I bought admission like any visitor, selected a gallery, and quietly stood watch. Visitors assumed I worked there. They asked for directions, where the bathrooms were, and questions about the museum. I answered every question as though I belonged.
The project became an exploration of authority, uniforms, trust, and the largely invisible role that security staff play in shaping the museum experience.
The series was photographed by Chris Brennan and later exhibited in two San Francisco gallery exhibitions.
Nude Drawing in the Galleries (2013–2017)
At the Worcester Art Museum, I looked for ways to connect the museum's renowned studio school to the galleries.
Art museums have long offered studio classes with live models, yet those experiences are typically hidden away in classrooms. Nude Drawing in the Galleries brought live figure drawing into the museum's collection galleries.
Visitors were invited to participate in drop-in drawing sessions surrounded by works of art, reconnecting the act of making art with the experience of viewing it. The program blurred the boundaries between studio practice and gallery experience while creating new opportunities for community, observation, and creative participation.
One-Day Artist Residency (2013–2017)
One of the questions I explored while at the Worcester Art Museum was who gets to be an artist-in-residence.
The One-Day Artist Residency invited anyone visiting the museum to become an artist-in-residence for the day.
Participants were encouraged to sketch, paint, write poetry, create fiction, or respond to the museum's collections in whatever medium they chose. Many shared their work with the museum, creating an evolving archive of creative responses inspired by a single day in the galleries.
The project reframed residency not as something awarded to a select few, but as something anyone could experience.
Carassius Auratus Auratus Goldfish Society (2013)
Inspired by museum docents, the Carassius Auratus Auratus Goldfish Society explored how museums decide what deserves interpretation and public attention.
Presented during a one-night-only artist event at the California Academy of Sciences, the Society treated the common goldfish with the same seriousness museums often reserve for extraordinary objects.
Volunteers dressed in coordinated attire staffed an interpretation table complete with educational handouts, worksheets, a small reference library, magnifying glasses, and a live goldfish. Visitors encountered a fully realized museum experience centered around one of the world's most familiar animals.
The project playfully questioned expertise, interpretation, and how museums construct meaning.
Art on Art (2007–2012)
While working at the Oakland Museum of California, I created Art on Art to rethink how museums can support artists beyond traditional exhibitions.
For many artists, exhibiting in a museum can feel impossibly out of reach. Art on Art explored another model by recognizing that meaningful engagement doesn't always require a gallery show. Sometimes it simply requires an invitation.
The initiative ranged from artist visits and sketching sessions to conversations, collaborations, and behind-the-scenes opportunities. Artists were welcomed as active participants in the museum rather than simply future exhibitors, creating new relationships between artists and the institution.