After last semester’s successful Coffee & Contemporary Arts showcase, Barry Art Museum has opted to bring it back on a weekly basis to showcase forms of performing arts alongside their collection of fine arts.
Barry Art Museum will present artwork and offer free Vessel Craft Coffee every Thursday from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. throughout the fall and spring semesters. It is a permanent addition to the museum’s schedule designed to be an event that ODU students will come to associate with Thursday afternoons.
Suzanne Peterson, the Manager of Education & Engagement, created the program to encourage ODU students to visit the Barry Art Museum.
“I wanted to develop a program that got people in the door, but wasn’t really asking anything of them,” she said.
Peterson also said that she hopes the showcases will draw students who don’t regularly come to the Barry Art Museum to the events since the museum is quite a trek for students who live in the quad houses and the Powhatan apartments. Many of those students have few classes that take them across Hampton Boulevard.
“Hampton Boulevard can be this physical barrier,” Peterson said. “I thought it was a great way to get some of those students who are really active in the Webb Center over to the museum.”
The time of day is another important factor in the program’s creation. Barry Art Museum holds many exhibitions in the evening, but Coffee & Contemporary Arts is an accessible event during the day. Because it is held during ODU’s activity hour, students can come to showcases in between their classes.
Student-led showcases include the ¡WEPA! Latin Dance Performance on Oct. 5 and the ODU Student Art League Showcase on Dec. 7. The Queer Cafe of the LGBTQIA+ Initiatives, a monthly event usually held in the Webb Center, will move to Barry Art Museum on Oct. 19. Peterson has plans to host Queer Cafe once a semester for Coffee & Contemporary Arts.
Coffee & Contemporary Arts is also offering a movie screening of “Fantastic Planet” on Oct. 12 as a tie-in to the upcoming Fantastic Planet festival and exhibition on Oct. 13-15. The movie served as inspiration for Amanda Parer, the artist whose work will be on display at the festival.
Other planned showcases include a screening of the Madame Alexander Doll Club Documentary on Sept. 28, the Norfolk Zine Fest on Oct. 26, a participatory Day of the Dead Altar in partnership with the Office of Intercultural Relations on Nov. 2, the Theatre Performance with ODU Communication & Theatre Arts on Nov. 11, a spoken word performance by Dr. Tonya Shell on Nov. 16, and a piano performance by Walter Bell on Nov. 30.
Vessel Craft Coffee, a shop local to Norfolk, is providing the coffee for each event. In future semesters, Barry Art Museum may branch out and offer coffee from a different Norfolk-based provider.
“We really liked the idea of highlighting a different local coffee roaster every time […] as a way of showcasing that art, the art of coffee and the incredible local coffee roasters and brands that exist here in 757,” said Peterson.
To learn more about the Coffee & Contemporary Arts events and other public programs offered by the Barry Art Museum, go here.
