Family Activities at the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East

Behind VA Shadows, in partnership with the Harvard Square Business Association and Intercontinental Management, is pleased to welcome the group exhibition “8+8+8: Dividing Time”, the latest installation at the 25/8 artspace project located at 2 Linden Street in Harvard Square. It will be on view from September 20 to November 23, 2026.

Curated by Krystle Brown, an interdisciplinary artist and a staff member at the Harvard Art Museums, the exhibition draws on the intersected identities of museum workers and artists, featuring artworks by Harvard Art Museums staff BBB / CDA, Steve Deane, Ian Gage, Annajean Hamel, Yi Bin Liang, Hussein Al Masarani, Jenni Nelson, Maithili Rajput, Mario Rojo, and Rebecca Leopoldina Torres. Denise Jillson, executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, commented, “We’re so pleased to continue our collaboration with Intercontinental Management and Yolanda He Yang on this, our third art installation at the 25/8 artspace.

This popup gallery exhibits beautiful artwork that is to be enjoyed “from the street” in an unexpected location in Harvard Square!” The exhibition title is a reference to the Welsh philosopher and social reformer Robert Owens’s idea of dividing a day into equal parts of work, recreation, and rest, exploring the nuances of time division and care work. The exhibition poses the following question to the various participants of the artworld: While art museum workers spend a lot of time supporting others’ artworks at work, how do they support their own art practices? 8+8+8: Dividing Time is an attempt to bring some light into the approaches people undertake to sustain an art practice outside of work.

According to Brown, the curatorial project, focused on Harvard Art Museums staff, is inspired by a series of works by artist Jess T. Dugan.

Titled “A Moment Collected: Photographs at the Harvard Art Museum (2006-2008),” Dugan’s photographs center museum workers at Harvard Art Museums and turn the stage to the exhibition space outside of the wall and the frames. Through 8+8+8: Dividing Time, Brown investigates the effect of museum workers’ daily close proximity with art, delving into Dugan’s statement where they identified art museum workers as “a group of people united by their desire to surround themselves with art.” Therefore, Brown circulated an open call for art within the institution, calling for participation particularly from staff whose roles are front-line facing.

As a result, the exhibition brings together folks who work(ed) in various departments within the institution, occupying roles including museum attendant, collections associate, conservation technician, exhibition production specialist, and communications coordinator. 8+8+8: Dividing Time “seeks to highlight the creative lives of museum workers and reflect on the ways individuals labor both inside and beyond the Harvard Art Museums while sustaining creative practices of their own.” Moreover, the curatorial project aims to extend the precedents of celebrating staff creativity within the Harvard community, including the Harvard Staff Art Show and the Staff Art Show within the art museums, by presenting the exhibition at the public window space of Behind VA Shadows in the neighborhood. Simultaneously, Brown seeks to bring a closer focus on the museum context while bringing it outside of the museum space.

Within the gallery space, the exhibition unfolds with BBB / CDA, Masarani, and Nelson’s figurative works, where the artists introduce the daily dynamic of viewing and being viewed at an exhibition space. The activities within the orderly gallery space are immediately juxtaposed by Torres’s photograph, peeking into the other states of being of artworks when they aren’t on the stage at the exhibition hall.

The sculptural characteristic is echoed in Hamel’s installation work where the artist connects the studio space and the conservation lab, reflecting on the precision, control, and impulse required in creative processes. In the following window space, Rojo also engages with the artmaking and workspace by collaging found objects associated with working in the museum.

In Rajput, Gage, and Liang’s works, the artists delve into the subjects of space and movement, expanding and extending beyond the museum space. Finally, Deane’s photo collage captures the cyclical process of sleep, connecting to the time divisions of a day that govern, structure, and repeat.

As a community organizer and artist, Brown reflects on the exhibition being one way of bringing visibility to the labor of artists in museum space. Commenting on institutions that are easily siloed, the curator treats the exhibition as a starting point to build connections with fellow artists within the museum.

More importantly, similar to the ethos of Behind VA Shadows, building communal care and solidarity with each other is crucial for getting through this precarious time.