Community Outreach

Museum as Sanctuary

In the fall of 2010, the Tucson Museum of Art and The Hopi Foundation’s Owl & Panther Project started the Museum as Sanctuary program – a unique community partnership focusing on the benefits of creative expression through art-making and in-gallery activities. Museum as Sanctuary has highlighted TMA as an open environment fostering creative expression, cultural sharing, and individual empowerment. Activities teach art concepts, nurture confidence, strengthen life skills, and stimulate personal growth and interpersonal communication. Museum as Sanctuary has expanded TMA’s audience, while connecting members of The Hopi Foundation’s Owl & Panther Project to a cultural institution they might not have encountered otherwise. Through this program participants have become more expressive as they become more comfortable in gallery spaces. Increased confidence in the galleries carries beyond the TMA’s walls, resulting in more comprehensive and nuanced discussion that would not have happened otherwise.

In July 2013 TMA will have an exhibition of works created by the Museum as Sanctuary participants entitled Museum as Sanctuary: Giving Voice to Tucson’s Refugee’s, this exhibition is an opportunity to display works of art—and stories—that highlight culture, community, and identity.

Hospital Outreach Program

Since 1996 docents bring art making projects to critically ill children at Tucson Medical Center and University Medical Center between October and May. While dealing with their illness or disability in an unknown environment, children explore creative capabilities; express their feelings; discover ways of seeing and working in the visual arts; and engage in therapeutic social interaction.

The quality of the hospital stay is greatly improved by art making. Children not only feel better being out of their hospital rooms, but they welcome the relief from the otherwise sterile routine.

Memories in the Making PLUS

Alzheimer’s Association Desert Southwest Chapter teams up with the Museum to offer individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or Dementia the opportunity to express themselves through discussing works of art on view in the galleries and art making projects in various media. For 16 sessions individuals visit the Museum and experience permanent collections, temporary exhibitions, and new ways of expression through a variety of art making techniques. By harnessing the process of viewing and creating visual art individuals will be able to draw new connections, relationships, and new ways to share their own stories.