This past May and June, MoMA’s Education and Research Building mezzanine was the site of MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me, an interactive space that explored the intersections between art, therapeutic practice, and the ways in which we relate to objects and people through physical encounters. Organized in conjunction with the exhibition Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948–1988 (on view through August 24), this Studio featured a series of drop-in programs, participatory experiences, and artist-led workshops that revealed the profound resonance Clark’s work has had with contemporary artists, including Ricardo Basbaum, Carlito Carvalhosa, Stephanie Diamond, and Tamara Vanderwal, Michel Groisman, Jeanine Oleson, and Allison Smith.

In planning the MoMA Studio programs we think a lot about how to foster learning opportunities at the Museum, how to engage with ideas in compelling and engaging ways, and how to cultivate lifelong learners by offering unexpected and memorable experiences in collaboration with artists and other interlocutors. Our aim is that these experiences complement looking at and talking about works of art in the galleries, and allow for engagement with art in participatory, creative ways. At MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me visitors came to experiment, learn, and play as they made connections between their own lives, their creative experiences, and the processes and materials of contemporary art. We hope the Studio is a space where people feel they can come to meet and engage with others, challenge their own assumptions, and build on their knowledge of a given topic or area of interest. In the spirit of Lygia Clark’s work, the sensorial, social, and personal really came together nicely at MoMA Studio: Breathe with Me in the artists’ projects and workshops, which are beautifully summarized in this video below.

We hope to see you in October for the next interactive space, MoMA Studio: Beyond the Cut-Out (October 23, 2014–January 11, 2015), which is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs. This creative and social space will take the cut-out as a starting point from which to consider Matisse’s lasting influence on contemporary art. Join us for a variety of artist-led interactive workshops, art-making projects, and participatory experiences conceived in collaboration with contemporary artists Carlos Amorales, Arturo Herrera, and Elaine Reichek among others. Until then, happy summer!