Learning Specialist, Emma Waldman: My name is Emma Waldman. I work at MoMA. To me, the best part of my job is that I get to be in the galleries having discussions about what we see, what we think about the artwork, making art based off of what we see.
We are here on the fifth floor. It covers the 1880s to the 1940s. We have paintings, we have sculptures, architectural models—these works of art were created at a time where there were shifts in the world. Trains were being built, big cities were being built, factories were being created, which means there was access to more things that artists didn’t have before. So a lot of these artworks that we see are coming out of new ways of thinking and living.
We are going to travel through the fifth floor, thinking about identity. You will hear from me. You will also hear from a few curators, writers, and from some of the artists.
I think that identity is made up of your memories, experiences, objects that hold power for you. It can be feelings, it can be a place. And as we learn more about these artworks, we'll start to uncover stories about how they were made, who the artist was. And I really hope that we come away knowing that art is a powerful form of showing others who we are and who we want to be.