Q. What is your favorite object or gallery in the Museum, and why?
A. The Sculpture Gallery is my favorite space in the Museum. I love the way that the natural light animates the work on view, an effect that is especially transformative in our current exhibition, Gisela Colón: Radiant Earth. As the sun shifts in the sky throughout the day, the colors—and in fact, the entire sensory experience—of Colón’s sculptures changes; it’s truly as if, each time you encounter the works, you are seeing them anew.
Q. What is something about the Bruce no one knows?
A. A large chunk of the bedrock into which the Bruce Museum was built is visible in the building’s lower level. It always surprises me when I come around the corner, but I feel like it’s apropos of the Bruce’s scientific foundations.
Q. What exhibition or program are you most looking forward to at the Bruce?
A. I am really looking forward to an exhibition that has been a long time in the making: Odilon Redon and the Specter of Science. Opening next spring, this is the first exhibition that I proposed when I joined the Bruce in December 2023. Not only is it in my area of expertise—19th-century French prints—but it is also a great example of the ways in which science informs art, an intersection at the heart of the Bruce’s mission. Redon, whose first mentor was a botanist, was deeply engaged with the scientific advancements of his time, in disciplines as diverse as archeology, evolution, microbiology, and psychology. The hybrid creatures and fantastic imagery in Redon’s prints and drawings reveal the anxieties the artist felt about these new discoveries around life and death, fears I find highly relatable in the post-Covid age.
