Chimeras Collective Field Trip: Museum of Natural History
Join us in reinventing & reimagining museum-going, with a special field trip to the NYC Museum of Natural History! While there, we will facilitate a series of activities that help us:
animate the lives of once-living creatures
re-enchant ourselves with the nonhuman world
cultivate attention that reconnects us with childlike wonder
On this Chimeras Collective Field Trip, we will read a short text that troubles our relationship with museums. We invite you to slow down, and find that beyond glass cases and taxonomies lies a deeper truth: all of the beings in this Museum were once alive and in deep relationship with their context and environment.
What happens when we remember that every organism was once breathing, moving, wanting — embedded in complex ecological relationships now invisible behind glass? Can a practice of wonder serve as a portal to reanimate the rich lives of these beings from the past?
Before you arrive:
If you're a NYC resident, get Pay What You Wish tickets online here.
Plan to meet us at Theodore Roosevelt Park (GoogleMaps), which is outside the museum, by 3:00pm. If you are later than 3:15pm, text or call Olivia at 650-799-9174 with your ETA.
What will happen:
2:30-3:00: Meet up at Theodore Roosevelt Park; short reading before entering the museum
3:00-4:30: Wander museum together with observational prompts and practices
4:30-5:00: Closing discussion and group practice
5:00 onwards: Those who want to stay to hang out, we can wander the museum until 5:45 and afterwards have dinner nearby. All welcome!
About the Chimeras Collective:
Hi! We’re Olivia & Kyle. We are steering the Chimeras Collective. We teach, build community and orchestrate interspecies gatherings: immersive events designed to explore what human-nonhuman relations are and could be. We prioritize the fascinating, the disgusting, the whimsical. Our chimeric spaces ask: Can science be embodied? Can wonder be a practice? Can creatures be collaborators?
What are Field Trips?: This is the first session of our series of Field Trips, gatherings designed to reconnect us with the excitement and wonder of a school trip. Through embodiment exercises, attention practices, and intentional explorations, we'll deepen our relationship with the urban ecology of NYC. Follow along to find out about the next ones!
Find us: Website // Instagram // chimerascollective@gmail.com