I did it! I submitted the examen doctoral, my PhD program’s comprehensive exam. I wrote and wrote for 80 pages about research on museums and experience and innovation and storytelling and interdisciplinary collaboration and money and imagination, and how digital fits into all of that. This was something that felt impossible. It’s been […]
Read MoreImposter syndrome is raging fiercely in me. I am coming up against three academic writing deadlines. And as I gaze up at these huge mountains looming ahead of me, I find that I'm having a hard time lifting my feet to take the next steps forward. It feels like each individual step has the power to make or break my entire journey up the […]
“Excuse me,” demanded a tourist armed with an open Louvre map and a huge camera, “where is the art?” I had been standing with my nose in an intricately sculpted wooden frame that was, in fact, empty. Indeed, all the frames surrounding us in the gallery were missing their paintings, their raisons d’être. The resulting room was quite eerie at first [...]
Read MoreWhen I lived in Paris, I kept hearing about a woman who ran treasure hunts in the Musée du Louvre. I was intrigued by the concept and impressed by the creative business idea. The woman behind the hunts is Daisy de Plume, founder and Creative Director of THATMuse (Treasure Hunt at the Museum). An [...]
Read MoreLooking for a way to take the Christmas story with you wherever you go? The 15th century German world had a solution: mobile personal chapels. Take the “Chapelle Cardon” in the Musée du Louvre: this small mobile chapel would have been used for private devotion when it was made in the early 1400s. It includes [...]
Read MoreElisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun was a celebrated 18th century French portraitist and one of the most important women artists of all time. I had the pleasure of seeing the exhibition dedicated to her life and work at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa (the exhibition also took place at the Grand Palais and the Met). This is the first retrospective and only the second exhibition devoted to Vigée Le Brun in [...]
Read MoreIt all started off innocently enough. I was newly engaged, and it was time to design ‘Save the Date’ announcements for our upcoming wedding. I wanted a beautiful image to go behind the text. Luckily, I had just spent an afternoon in the Musée du Louvre’s Department of Islamic Art and my memory was saturated with colorful [...]
Read MoreI've been in Montreal for only four months, but my life in Paris already feels like another lifetime. I recently traveled to New York City (to visit the lovely Sara, another 'Expat American-Expat-in-Paris'), which obviously meant dedicating a significant amount of time in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [...]
Read MoreMerry Christmas! One December, when I was living in Paris, I got the idea into my head to make a Christmas-themed audio tour of the Louvre. I recorded commentaries on artworks in the Richelieu wing that featured scenes of the Nativity, the Visitation of the Magi, etc. While the final product was less than [...]
Read MoreA Brief History of the Future is unlike any exhibition I’ve ever seen in the Louvre. Based on Jacques Attali’s book of the same name, this musée imaginaire faces off ancient objects with contemporary commissions, creating a commentary on the nature of society and a reflection on the [...]
Read MoreThis is an installment of Creative September on the theme of Beginnings (if you missed it, check out a description of the project here!). I wanted to find the oldest object in the Musée du Louvre. For a museum with the aim of being "universal" and showing humanity's heritage, where did they [...]
Read More"Niobides suppliantes". "Niobides en fuite". As I made my way through the Louvre one evening, it felt like every artwork that intrigued me was some version of a Niobid. I would be pulled to one Ancient Greek statuette, and then another, and each time the label would say “Niobid”. But what [...]
Read MoreThere is a fresh coat of paint this month at the Musée du Louvre! The Musée du Louvre recently renovated its galleries dedicated to 19th century French painting, complete with new colors on the walls and a reshuffling of the artworks. The paintings underwent acts of preventative [...]
Read MoreI love being in on a secret. And when I learn about the meaning behind a symbol or a visual convention in art, I feel like I am in on a secret with the artist. A stroll through the artworks in the Louvre brings me face-to-face with a plethora of secrets, some more legible than others. Some [...]
Read MoreThis is an installment of Creative July on the theme of Love (f you missed it, check out a description of the project here!) One of the most beautiful expressions of love is touch. So, I went on a photo safari in the Louvre's Ancient Egypt galleries, on the hunt for touch. A photo safari is a visit to a museum focusing on details found [...]
Read MoreIt's the last day of June, and the end of this month's creativity series on the theme of the Outdoors. All month, Garlands in Paris has been looking at art and museums through the lens of this theme: representations of the outdoors in art, objects that were created to be outdoors, the relationship between interior [...]
Read MoreThe Cour Marly in the Musée du Louvre is grand. Filled with natural light and a forest of ficus trees, the courtyard houses an army of grand marble statuary. These stone figures display movement despite their insistent stillness, with rearing horses, racing gods and goddesses, harmonious allegories of rivers and [...]
Read MoreThe quantity of visitors in the Louvre can be impressive, if overwhelming. In 2011, I shot footage of the flow of visitors in some of the busiest galleries of the Louvre, and I finally got around to editing it now. Inspired by the mesmerizing 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi, I used music by Philip Glass and played with the speed and distance of the [ ... ]
Read MoreStill lives are incredibly sensual beings. But not only do they exemplify virtuosity, their aim is to sneakily make you think about the very nature of life itself. Given this, why are they so easy to just skim by in museums? Filmed partially in the Louvre in 2011, this little video aims to explore both the sensual and moral aspects of this subtle genre [ ... ]
Read MoreThis is part of Louvre Photo Safaris, a series that focuses on details found in Louvre artworks around various themes, with the aim of looking at everything differently. I know very little about Ancient Egyptian art. So during a recent stroll through the Louvre's Egyptian Antiquities galleries, I needed help looking at the objects. One of the first artifacts [ ... ]
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This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.
IMAGINIBUS is a blog about playing in museums, with a focus on imagination and creativity.
This blog is a place to be inspired to use your imagination around artworks—and to see the art of your daily life.
When we engage creatively with art, museums can become playgrounds and laboratories to experiment with attention, mindfulness, and imagination. Interesting things happen when we use that museum gaze to look at our daily lives like a work of art.
Find more inspiration for playing with new ways of paying attention to your daily life here.
Hello! I'm Marina Gross-Hoy, a writer, Museum Studies PhD candidate, and mother currently living in Quebec. I take playing in museums very seriously.
Read more about the blog here.
Check out my newsletter on Substack to be inspired to see the art in your daily life.
