After two years without student events, the Hood Museum Club returned Hood After 5 to campus this year. The termly party seeks to bring students into the museum to enjoy food, music, and above all, art. Much has changed about the party’s planning and execution since its beginning in 2019. For one, rather than planning the event collectively, the club breaks into subcommittees to work on a range of projects per term. Students in the Hood After 5 subcommittee spend a full term to planning their ideal party for their peers.
Kicking off the 2021-2022 academic year, Hood After 5’s fall term party offered Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and an in-gallery riddle hunt. Excitement to be back in the galleries was palpable with over 200 of students in attendance.
With live jazz music from the Barbaloot Suits (a spinoff of the student-band Moon Unit) and several art-making activities based on the Hood’s collection, students were busy as they enjoyed their ice cream. The planning committee also designed a riddle hunt with prize incentives to steer students toward the galleries to view the exhibitions.
Even in the midst of midterms, students from across campus took a break from academics to experience some of what the museum has to offer.
“When Covid started I didn’t see myself missing museums. But by the end, that was very much the case. Mainly it was just good to see people back in the museum after Covid.”
–Maclean Hadden, Class of 2025
When Covid restrictions prevented food and drinks at campus events last winter the subcommittee needed to get creative. Inspired by the winter/spring exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, the subcommittee filled the space with various art-making activities and live music. One activity asked students to respond to the question: “What land holds special meaning for you?” using collage.
Another activity station featured origami for students to make origami shapes inspired by works on view in This Land, such as the frog in Isabella Kirkland’s Gone (2004), butterflies inspired by Charles Ethan Porter’s Butterflies and Flowers (about 1878), and lotus flowers after Joseph Stella’s Dying Lotus (about 1930–32).
This year club members took on a greater role in the event, offering short “gallery chats” to accompany their favorite works of art throughout the museum. The subcommittee found that providing student “experts” to discuss the objects made the galleries more accessible to students who had not yet visited the exhibitions.
The final Hood After 5 event of the 2021–2022 school year took place in late April. For this event the subcommittee decided to try something new and structured the entire event around the exhibition Photographs from Hollywood’s Golden Era: The John Kobal Foundation Collection. The Hollywood-themed event included a photo-booth, red-carpet, and a “Stars of the Museum” scavenger hunt.
Students were invited to collage a star with recycled Hood Quarterlies as they sipped on wine and cheese. It was an exciting end to a year of great parties made possible by the hard work of the Museum Club.
This post was authored by: Alice Crow ‘22, 2021-22 Levinson Intern for Campus Engagement
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alice Crow was the 2021–22 Levinson intern for campus engagement. Her A Space for Dialogue installation Transcendent Landscapes: Abstracting Nature was on view March 5 through April 23, 2022. Originally from Canterbury, New Hampshire, and a member of the class of 2022, Alice was a dual history and studio art major. Since graduating from Dartmouth, she has and continues to pursue a career in fine arts.
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