rEvolve

Look what came across my desk(top) this morning: a delightful piece in the Lowell Sun about the fabulous Revolving Museum, moving to a new and improved location. Ok, so it's another art museum, but this is an art museum that was born 26 years ago inside twelve abandoned railroad cars, then shipped up to Lowell -- the very cradle of the American Industrial Revolution! -- eight years ago. It lived in the old Lowell Gas & Light Building, moved into the Massachusetts Mohair Plush Co. factory space, and has now found a new home in the former Appleton Mills. This art museum thrives on imagining creative adaptations in spaces built for a the more regimented world of traditional industry. It rEvolves.

Their (pretty cool) mission:

The Revolving Museum is an evolving laboratory of creative expression for people of all backgrounds, ages, and abilities who seek to experience the transformative power of art [emphasis mine]. Through public art, exhibitions, and educational programs we promote artistic exploration and appreciation, encourage community participation and growth, and provide opportunities for individual empowerment and collective change.

As the museum continues to transform itself, it in turn transforms these old industrial environments, as well as the perspectives of its artists and visitors alike.

In May I had the pleasure of seeing one of the Revolving Museum's public art project, a collection of "Immigrant Murals" created by a high-school aged student artists group in residence at the museum. Working with oral histories collected by the UMass Lowell Regional Economic and Social Development Department, the artists created visual interpretations of immigrant experiences -- past, present, and personal -- in a series of stunning panels. For example:




Revolving Museum. [detail]

Lowell is a city with an rich and ongoing immigration history, a history tied to the work and industry ever since the first group of thirty Irish canal workers arrived from Boston to the banks of the Merrimack River in 1821. These murals expressed a spectrum of celebration, pain, dislocation, and community in a way that was at once artistic and historically insightful. And by engaging local students in the investigation and creative process, the project forged connections between historical and contemporary communities -- and I bet they had fun doing it.


I highly recommend checking out the rest of the murals, and scenes from the process, here.

Back to the present: The Revolving is moving its operations over to the first floor of the massive Appleton (Cotton) Mills in downtown Lowell. The Appleton went belly-up about 75 years ago, and has since sat largely vacant. Today, several of the factory buildings house newly renovated condos, and others are currently undergoing construction. There's something irresistibly appealing about transforming these huge early-20th century factories from spaces of incredibly regimented, dangerous, impersonal mass-production to places where people live and -- in the case of the Revolving -- experiment, sling paint, perform, and create art with abandon.

But there's also the specter of 1,500 jobs lost when the Appleton shut down. People spent entire lifetimes working in those mills, only to eventually hear the machinery go silent and see it sold for scrap. I'd love to see the Revolving Museum take on a creative interpretation of the sometimes painful working history of their new location (300 Jackson St.)

I can't wait to visit, and wish them the best! And finally, a preview of the new space:

Revolving Museum.