May Museum Day

In celebration of International Museum Day (May 18), a variety of presentations and tours are provided throughout the day on Friday, May 16th from 9am - 4pm. Arizona State University's Tempe campus is home to a wide variety of museums, galleries and specialized collections — a rich treasure trove of things to see and learn. Come join the Museums, Galleries, and Collections Committee (MGCC) for this special celebration of their many wonderful collections at ASU.

A tour guide will be walking visitors to all locations. Visitors may also choose to attend only certain presentations, if time is limited. An information area will be available at the south end of Old Main throughout the day.

Parking is available at Tempe Center, as well as at the Fulton Center parking structure located on the northeast corner of University Dr. and Forest Avenue (fees apply). This event is free and open to the public.

May Museum Day Printable Flyer (PDF)

Next Tour:

Center for Meteorite Studies
Wed. Apr 23, 2008

May Museum Day 2008

ASU Tempe Campus
May 16th, 2008

Exhibit Openings

Artist Exhibition Openings
ASU Art Museum
January - April 2008

More openings >>

Museum of Geology &
Space Photography Lab

8:30am - 9:30 am

The Museum of Geology contains minerals, gems, fossils from around the world, the only active seismograph in central Arizona, a six-story Foucault pendulum, and Columbian mammoth bones from Chandler, Arizona. The Space Photograph Lab is one of a network of eighteen Regional Planetary Image Facility data centers established by NASA to archive planetary images for use by the scientific and educational communities. SPL houses images and maps from all U.S. space missions, an extensive library of mission documentation, scientific journals and Earth and planetary publications. 

Center for Meteorite Studies

9:30 - 10:30 am

See meteorites from one of the world’s largest and best collections. Home to specimens from over 1500 separate meteorite falls, the Center’s collection is actively used for geological and space-oriented research by scientists at ASU and throughout the world.

Life Sciences Living Collection

10:30 - 11:30 am

See a variety of reptile displays, including the only complete living collection of all eighteen sub-species of Arizona native rattlesnakes. Located in the halls of the A wing, take a self-guided tour of the many living snakes and reptile housed within, or come on the tour!

Staff from the Department of Animal Care & Technologies (DACT) will be giving tours that day of the living collection, which represents all rattlesnake species and subspecies found in Arizona as well as Gila monsters, a coral snake and other non venomous reptiles (snakes, lizards and tortoises), all indigenous to Arizona. The tours will be two part, a discussion of the represented animals (biology & care) and a hands on presentation where all will be given the opportunity to touch a live snake (a non venomous rosy boa), handle snake sheds and a rattlesnake rattle and look at preserved snake eggs and reptile fangs (rattlesnake and Gila monster).

Museum of Anthropology

11:30 am - 12:30 pm

The Museum of Anthropology will feature “Mosaic: Cultural Identity in America,” and “Fuse: Portraits of Refugee Households in Metropolitan Phoenix”. Through the artwork of local artist Eliza Gregory and selected student artists, these exhibitions explore questions of identity and cultural experience in the largest urban center in the Southwest. Although the exhibitions focus on two distinct topics, their approaches and themes complement each, both exploring contemporary regional, social and political relationships.

Harry Wood Gallery

12:30 - 1:00 pm

Will feature the exhibit the Annual Juried MFA Summer Exhibition. The juried exhibition is open to all currently enrolled MFA students, working in any media.

Luhrs Gallery/Arizona Historical Foundation

1:30 - 2:30 pm

The Arizona Historical Foundation will feature “Murder & Mayhem: The Strange Saga of Winnie Ruth Judd,” an exhibit of more than 100 photos from the famous 1930s “Trunk Murderess” case. The Luhrs Gallery will feature the exhibit, "Desert Diamonds: Arizona's Favorite Pastime," about the history of baseball in the Southwest, and includes photographs, sports ephemera, uniforms, equipment and artifacts related to baseball from Territorial times through last year's ASU participation in the College World Series.

Archaeological Research Institute

2:30 - 3:30 pm

The Archaeological Research Institute (ARI) curates several large collections of artifacts discovered during archaeological fieldwork in central Arizona. Learn about why archaeologists dig square holes. Then go behind the scenes to view our prehistoric ceramics collection in open storage.

Art Museum

3:30 - 4:30 pm

Named “the single most impressive venue for contemporary art in Arizona” by Art in America magazine, the ASU Art Museum exhibitions and collections serve a diverse community of artists and audiences through innovative programming. In the current exhibition Josh Greene: Some Parts Might be Greater than the Whole, the artist was in residence for six weeks interacting and collaborating with museum visitors to build his installation. Also in the galleries: A Human Impulse: Figuration from the Diane and Sandy Besser Collection of ceramics and Hogarth Looks at Handel’s London print exhibition in honor of Handel’s birth.