When I first heard we had a “Night at the Museum” trip, I immediately thought it was going to be like the movie where a T-Rex skeleton comes to life, but then I realized that stuff is impossible to be a reality. There may not have been any talking statues or Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt, but I still had an interesting time at the Brooklyn Museum.

For starters, I was excited to go because I didn’t have any classes that day and a coach bus was bringing us there. I was ready to be immersed in the artwork and I got the chance to check off another museum I haven’t been to before. When we arrived, I was shocked by the architecture of the museum and thought to myself, “Well if the outside looks this cool, then inside it will be just the same, if not better.” As I sat in the auditorium with over 500 people and listened to the provost speak in a very philosophical manner, I found myself indeed agreeing with his interpretation of what is a museum. It truly is a place where culture is in conversation with itself, and it was proven to me as I explored the different exhibits.

Straight out of the auditorium, I noticed abstract and geometric patterns along the walls. Something about them was appealing to just stop and stare at them for some time. They were satisfying to look at, but they weren’t the abstraction that defined Picasso’s art, which I really enjoy analyzing. Contrastly, the Assyrian art that followed did not speak to me, to the point where I just glanced side to side and ended up at the end of the hallway without realizing. History is not my thing, so when I see it infused in art, I don’t really give it a second look. At the end of the hallway was a “perfect time” for a mini photo session of Macaulay CSI, and the mini groups we formed made the rest of the experience fun.

Afterwards, some of us went to the 5th floor where it was less crowded, and I could tell there was going to be something here that I would actually like looking at. The first thing that stuck out to me was this work called “Bring a Folding Chair: A Portrait of Shirley Chisholm”. Obviously, I did not touch it, but it was very tempting because I could tell there was a lot of texture to the work. The folding chairs on the skirt was something new and I didn’t understand it until I read Shirley Chisholm’s quote: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” The way I interpreted this was that if you’re not welcomed somewhere, carve out your own place and prove why you should be there. There were also a lot of oil paintings and I was able to connect what we talked about in the seminar to what I was seeing. There were paintings of fruit and landscapes, but also a blue wall covered in flowers and a painting of Virgin Mary surrounded by fruit.

The last stop for me was the storage room, where I saw a lot of furniture, specifically chairs, and some old paintings. The chairs did not look the most comfortable and I didn’t understand why they were placed in a museum. The one thing from the storage room that I liked was this lamp that had a cover similar to the roses and vase in Beauty and the Beast. Overall, I had a good time on the trip and now I can say that I have had my own Night at the Museum experience.