Suburban Museum: BlackRock Center for the Arts

I was visiting my family in suburban Maryland when I came across the BlackRock Center for the Arts. Fascinating...well, for me.

I guess there've been spaces like these for a long time, but there's something about moving a "Center for the Arts" into a commercial center like this that stuck with me. Why? Because "art centers" are often focused on alterity and suburban commercial centers are generally focused on homogeneity.

The Suburban Museum. "In the early 1990s, a group of Germantown, Maryland residents began to promote the concept of an arts center that would be located within their own community. Their idea became a rallying point for Germantown's active civic leadership. Within a year, the Germantown Cultural Arts Center, Inc. (d/b/a BlackRock Center for the Arts) was founded as a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) organization to develop, own and manage BlackRock." (For more read here.)

Out here you got your Blackhawk Museum. It's cars. And there are all kinds of aviation museums -- here, here and here (Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum: Home to the Spruce Goose!), because they're near the airports mainly, I guess.

Much to consider here...really, it's just the town square...and no one is calling it a "museum." Not sure where I am going with this. I'm just interested that's all.

Comments

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