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Museum Prepares to Launch Inaugural Pop-Up Museum

The McClung Museum’s Academic Programs has embarked on an exciting new collaboration with UT’ s College of Architecture + Design. This spring semester, students led by faculty member Brian Ambroziak will develop and pitch designs for the McClung’s first ever Pop-Up Museum.

A pop-up museum is a mobile, defined space that exists outside of a traditional museum. They allow for makeshift exhibitions, exploration, and dialogue anywhere, anytime. Pop-up museums serve to reimagine the ways in which a museum can become a vital, participatory place. They do so, in part, by going against expectations and preconceived notions about what a museum might be. UT’s architecture students are conceptualizing such a mobile museum for the McClung. The result will be physically inviting and engaging, drawing inspiration from inflatables and word clouds. The malleability of the design will allow it to go anywhere in Knoxville, inspiring interaction by bringing the open spirit of the McClung out into the community, beyond our traditional walls.

While the McClung’s Pop-Up Museum will change topics and themes to suit the McClung’s many diverse exhibitions, the debut will draw inspiration from Many Visions, Many Versions as chosen the UT Indian Student Association, Manthan and the Lambda Thea Alpha Sorority. They have elected to celebrate global journeys since many international students venture to the United States for school. The Pop-up Museum is scheduled to launch on campus on April 17, 2019.