What was it about?

Last week the Pop Up Museum traveled to Berkeley, CA for a pop up museum on “Building a Home” with the Youth Training Project (YTP). Something between a typical Pop Up Museum and a Pop Up Museum workshop, this pop up was a remarkable learning exchange between the MAH and the YTP.

The YTP, which is a project of the California Youth Connection, “inspires young people to transform the systems of care that affect their lives, and affirm and reignite the compassion and passion of youth-serving professionals.”

The YTP recently received funding to support a traveling museum, which they call The Museum of Lost Childhoods. Displaying personal objects donated from former foster care youth, the exhibit illustrates human strength and compassion through objects often unseen, and stories often untold. We held a Pop Up Museum on Building a Home to explore the transitional period from youth to adulthood, and the struggles and relevations along the way. Members from the YTP brought objects illustrating the ways in which they build homes.  The Pop Up Museum brought objects from MAH’s collection. The Pop Up Museum then fed into a larger conversation about the ways in which the YTP can share stories and inspire positive action.

How did it go?

This pop up museum was more of a workshop pop up museum in which the pop up museum format was used to illustrate one of the ways the YTP could exhibit stories from former foster youth. It was an intimate setting, and intitaited conversation about the idea of a "home" and the tools we use to build homes. It was not only a remarkable learning exchange between projects, but also a meaningful dialogue between people from different backgrounds.