Experience the Unforgettable Memories of the 2nd Annual Night at the Museum

On Wednesday, April 15th, the AD&A Museum hosted the 2nd Annual Night at the Museum. The aim of this event is to allow the student body to engage with the museum in a more casual, approachable manner. This event hosted a variety of activities and opportunities, including free Associated Students merch, an exhibition scavenger hunt, live music, and snacks courtesy of UCSB Concessions, good vibes, and more!

This year students were able to engage with the exhibition Tiffany Chung: indelible traces. A UCSB alumni herself, Tiffany’s work handles various complex and emotional subject matter including displacement, war, grief, and loss while also encompassing her vast 25-year career. This event provided the audience with a guided exploration of the works, through the scavenger hunt, while also encouraging individual exploration of AD&A Museum galleries. First time museum go-ers and experienced ones alike were able to engage with Chung’s work through a fresh perspective.

AD&A interns Mia Velazquez and Reese Hutson were active participants in the planning and execution of this event. One of the main goals of the AD&A internship program is to engage with members of our campus community and the greater Santa Barbara area, and our interns certainly captured the essence of this!

“Night at the Museum has been the main focus of my internship since January! It was so gratifying to see all of our hard work come together for such a successful and fun event. As an intern, I created professional materials, helped source bands, organized a scavenger hunt, and provided input on merch and catering! My mentor, Carlyle, provided individual help and advice, but let my fellow intern, Mia, and I make the event our own. My favorite part was having the live music; people sang, danced, and laughed with our fabulous museum as the backdrop” – Reese Huston

A very special aspect about the live music is that the bands playing during this event all originate from our local Isla Vista community. Part of the drive of this event is how it specifically caters to encouraging the UCSB community to engage with museum spaces, and what better way to uplift that goal than hearing from our very own student body through their own artistic spirit! This year, we had the pleasure of enjoying performances from IV bands Emergency Contact and Monkfish, which for this special night included another one of our AD&A interns, Nicolas Sama, as the bassist! Here are a few words from Nicolas:

“As for me, the event was pretty fun! Organizing the bands was pretty similar to how it always is in Isla Vista, especially once you’ve been in the scene for a little while. Considering the setting I thought that a more chill lineup of bands would be appropriate, and I’m friends with both Monkfish and Emergency Contact. The Night at the Museum was a pretty standard experience for both bands since they play a ton at breweries, wineries, and other daytime gigs. I enjoyed the fluidity of the musicianship the most. Monkfish musicians sat in to play with Emergency Contact (which is usually a solo act), and vice versa. Everyone had a good time!” – Nicolas Sama We hope visitors of this event felt the love and care put into curating an approachable museum experience for students by students. We are grateful for everyone who stopped by and participated, and to everyone involved in making this event possible. Let us know what you would like to see next year, and be sure to check out our event recap on Instagram!

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Looking forward to the next! We hope to see new and familiar faces!