EXHIBITS

So far in 2020, we have experienced a bombardment of breaking news, health risks, and injustice, and the story changes every day. Our new exhibit, Since March, offers a space to pause and reflect on your personal experiences and the experiences of fellow community members, past and present, in the face of a contagion. The exhibit features materials from around the county, including artwork from Boulder Community Health, photographs from residents, ‘day-in-the-life’ videos from middle-schoolers, and a film showing the quiet streets of Boulder during the lockdown. You will also have the opportunity to share your own experience with other museum visitors and with our permanent historical collection.

What if forests were made of rainbows, every step made music, and you could design the world however you wanted? Explore a wonderland straight from your imagination at Playzeum!

Play serves a deep and important purpose: It provides a way to explore the world, try out new ideas, and collaborate with others, all in a safe context that is buffered from dire consequences if an experiment doesn’t work out. Again and again, studies have shown that undirected, self-motivated play is a crucial component of a child’s cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development. In Playzeum, we encourage our youngest visitors to discover those themes at an age-appropriate level and nurture skills that will enable them to become Boulder’s change-makers of the future. Just as our history exhibits tell the story of Boulder through a community lens, you and your learner can connect how you’re playing in each section to local professionals who draw upon these skills to do their jobs.

We invite you into a space that nurtures self-guided exploration, imagination, and experimentation.

Presenting Boulder’s history to connect visitors to the past, provide a context for the present, and inspire a vision for the future.

The Boulder Experience exhibition is a space for people to engage with the breadth of the innovation that was developed in Boulder and its impact on the world. Visitors are guided through displays, interactives and multimedia experiences that cover the history of Boulder from the earliest days of Native American inhabitants, through key times of cultural, scientific and economic change, continuing to the present day. There are stories ranging from the travels of the Arapaho to the building of the Kepler telescope by Ball Aerospace.

Entry to the exhibition will be free with Museum admission.

A creative space for messing about!

The Google Garage is based on the idea that children learn best when they get to explore, create, experiment, and follow their natural curiosities – just messing about.

Due to COVID, Google Garage activities will be provided as a take home program for members.
Details and sign up here

For over 150 years, Boulder has undergone an astounding evolution – from pioneer mining town to quiet college town to bastion of liberal social causes and global center for science, technology, and outdoor recreation. Throughout, Boulder has seen conflicts from within and challenges from outside the community. But this small, resilient city continues to evolve through them all – bolstered by a respect for diversity, a love of the land, an appreciation for education, and a desire to grow and take risks as a community.

The Museum of Boulder’s Archive 75 exhibition will feature 75 artifacts and documents evoking the depth and breadth of the Museum of Boulder’s holdings. They will tell 75 stories—harrowing, heartbreaking, pathbreaking, brave—about Boulder’s rich and complicated history. This installation will be featured in the 2,600 square-foot main exhibit gallery on the first floor of the Museum of Boulder from mid October 2019 – June 2020 in celebration of the Museum’s 75th Anniversary.

Where will the Museum pull these artifacts and documents from? The Museum’s Collections Facility in north Boulder houses historic artifacts and archives, which continue to be important resources for research, education and community engagement. Our 7,000 square-foot facility houses more than 45,000 historic artifacts. The Museum’s Archive Collection, housed at Carnegie Branch Library adjacent to the Museum of Boulder, contains over 900,000 historic documents and photographs. The Museum collects items that represent the people, businesses and events that have lived in, or taken place in, the Boulder region. We have items dating back to the first settlers in Boulder and others that represent more contemporary people and events in our community, like the Bolder Boulder Road Race, Ball Aerospace, and Celestial Seasonings. In 2017, we added 1,073 new objects to our historic collection. Objects in the Museum’s collection are used for research, exhibitions, publications, and for loan to other museums and other venues for exhibitions. Some of our objects are on display in The Boulder Experience gallery on the second floor of the Museum. However, due to the large number and fragile nature of many of the items, the majority have never been seen by our community.