Details
Touching Grass Together: Embodied Learning, Well-Being, and Art Museums
Wednesday, March 3, 2027 | 8:45am–5:00pm ET | New York, NY
Please note: Preconvention registration will open mid-November 2026.
About the Preconvention
Museums have long been hubs of activity-based teaching and embodied, object-centered learning; increasingly, museums are viewed as spaces connected to well-being. Grounded in an understanding that we engage with artworks through mind and body together, in these Preconvention events we consider how participation, play, making, sensing, and social connection can expand museum learning beyond discussion-based approaches. How do museums foster holistic well-being and meaningful community connection? How do we activate spaces for people to move, do, sense, and feel their way into creativity and artworks together? This Preconvention amplifies interdisciplinary, human-to-human, and activity-based approaches to engagement in art museums today.
Call for Proposals
The Preconvention invites museum educators to participate in a dynamic, full-day program of member-led workshops, gallery experiences, and discussions that explore contemporary practices in museum education. At its heart is a simple belief: There is nothing quite like a group of educators gathering to experience art together! When we move, sense, reflect, play, and learn alongside one another in the presence of objects, we create opportunities for insight, connection, and discovery that extend beyond traditional discussion-based approaches. We’re curious:
How do you shape embodied and activity-based learning in your museum to engage people as whole learners—through mind and body together? How do you support movement, making, sensing, feeling, and social interaction to deepen object-based learning and foster well-being, belonging, and meaningful connections with the people participating in your programs?
Share with us! The Preconvention is shaped by the contributions of the Museum Education Division members. You are invited to submit proposals based on your experiments, strategies, questions, and practices that best reflect relevant, practical, and responsive ways of engaging the people you’re serving in contemporary museum work.
Proposal Guidelines:
- Proposals must be submitted by Friday, November 20, 2026, 11:59pm ET.
- Presenters must be NAEA members.
- If selected, presenters must register and attend the Preconvention in person.
- Presenters must pay their full Preconvention fee (no discounts).
- Proposals will be anonymously reviewed; please do not include identifying information (such as the name of your museum) in the proposal description. Reviewers will not receive your contact information.
- Preconvention sessions are meant to be conversational, interactive, and/or demonstrations of best practices, not the kind of presentation you’d give at the full Convention.
- Sessions will take place in the galleries, and no technology will be available (i.e., no PowerPoints).
- Presenters will share their sessions TWICE at the Preconvention. For each session, you should be prepared to present a 30- to 40-minute in-gallery experience, and allow time for questions, responses, and feedback.
Deadline for submission: Friday, November 20, 11:59pm ET
Final presenters will be notified of their selection on Monday, December 14, 2026
NOTE OF ENCOURAGEMENT: We are all stretched thin these days, so don’t agonize over your proposal to make it “perfect.” It’s more important that you share your ideas and thoughts rather than have smooth transition sentences or perfect editing. We want your contribution!
If you have any questions, email William Zaluski at william.zaluski@board.arteducators.org. We are happy to help!