Marina’s writing explores what looking at artwork can teach us about seeing the art of our ordinary lives.
Newsletter
The Museum Gaze (2021 - present), a Substack newsletter that explores how looking at life with the same embodied gaze we use with art in a museum can open us up to wonder, compassion, and empowerment
Selected essays:
Series:
Art for the Wilderness (2022), a seven-week series that looked at what we can learn about navigating periods of wilderness from artists who engage with difficult experiences through their art
Artful Advent (2021), a four-week series to help parents of little children to nourish themselves in a busy season by looking at their lives like art
Online
“Sensuality of the Freeze” (2024), KHÔRA, Issue 39
“A Bridge is a Place” (2024), KHÔRA, Issue 38
“Stranger Technologies” (2024), KHÔRA, Issue 37
“Sister” (2023), KHÔRA, Issue 26
“Shadow Revelations” (2023), Mothering Spirit
“Terrible News and Beautiful Fruit” (2022), Anthrow Circus
“Illumination in the Detroit Institute of Arts” (2017), Culture Keeper
“Retreating in The Met” (2016), Culture Keeper
“Fostering Imagination in Museums” (2016), Culture Keeper
IMAGINIBUS (started in 2014), a blog with over 200 articles about playing with new ways of experiencing art museums
“Untamed Attention” (upcoming), Entwined: an Anthology of Creativity & Motherhood
“Annunciation” (2022), Episcopal Charities Lenten Reader
Residencies and honors
Selected for the ninth curated team of writers at KHÔRA (2024)
Collegeville Institute Writing Workshop, Exploring Identity and (Dis)belonging through the Personal Essay with Enuma Okoro, at the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan (2023)
Doctoral Residency at the École du Louvre’s Research Center in Paris, with funding from the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art at Concordia University and the Groupe de recherche sur l’éducation et les musées at the Université du Québec à Montréal (2023)
Featured for “Making Art, Even Here” in the Substack Reads list of favorite Substack articles from 2023: “Substack Reads: George Saunders, Margaret Atwood, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Nellie Bowles, and more select their top reads” (2023)
How people describe Marina’s writing
“Engaging, full, and juicy”
“Insightful, hopeful, clear-eyed, empowering”
“Full of surprises. Luscious.”
“Like a warm hug”
About Marina
Marina Gross-Hoy (she/her/elle) is a writer, Museum Studies PhD candidate, and speaker. She takes playing in museums very seriously.
Originally from Michigan, Marina moved to museum-saturated Paris to complete a master's in muséologie at the École du Louvre and work in the education department of a Parisian museum. She moved back to North America for a PhD program in Museum Studies at the Université de Québec à Montréal, focusing on how museums develop digital projects to create engaging experiences for visitors. She also serves on the board of the Committee for Education and Cultural Action within the International Council of Museums (ICOM).
Marina writes about playing with new ways of paying attention to embodied experience. Her writing has appeared in Khôra, Mothering Spirit, and Anthrow Circus.
She currently lives in the Eastern Townships of Québec with her family.
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