Place the Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery (MAG) on your summer fun list and enjoy a variety of activities for all ages.
If you’re looking for a way to spend your summer, visiting a local museum or art gallery is one way to do it. You will be amazed at the variety of exhibits and artwork that you will see. You might even find a new favourite artist!
Benefits of visiting a museum or art gallery
Inspire creativity! Museums and art galleries offer immersive, thought-provoking, and visual and mental stimuli, and a visit can stir up emotions and promote deep thinking.
They provide interest, leisure, focus, practice, confidence, growth, and a respite from our daily grind.
Learn at your own pace. Look at things of specific interest to you in an informal learning environment.
Stimulate new ideas and dialogue based on what you see and learn from art and artifacts. Museums are repositories of human history, artistry, dialogue, and achievements.
Reduce stress! Looking at art can decrease your stress levels and our bodies release the feel-good chemical messenger — dopamine.
Creating art encourages mindfulness, provides a venue for self-expression and teaches us to let go of perfectionism and self-criticism.
Get the most out of your visit this summer
The key to getting the most out of your visit to a museum or art gallery is to take your time and enjoy the experience. When you first enter the museum, look at what interests you, follow a map, or read about an exhibit beforehand. You will have more context for what you’re seeing, and it will be easier for you to appreciate the artwork and exhibits.
Check out the website and see what events, exhibits, and programs are on offer for your visit. Along with varying exhibits, at the MAG there is a range of learning opportunities for all ages, with ongoing family activities, special events, adult programs, kids camps, and more.
Five types of activities you wouldn’t want to miss
Attend a drop-in art-making class
Participate in staff-guided exhibit tours
Attend artist, history, or other local expert talks
Get hands-on workshops from local artists
Sign up for one of the child/youth camps and more
What to see during your visit to Red Deer Museum
Wander through the local history exhibit “Remarkable Red Deer: Stories from the Heart of the Parkland” and explore many themes from Red Deer’s history such as beginnings, settlement, immigration, change and conflict, good times, war times, innovation, toys, and more.
Activities like listening to stories — voiced by local actors — can be experienced by pressing the buttons on silhouettes or tapping various interactive screens in the Club Café and Newcomers sections.
As you make your way through the temporary art exhibits, you will be able to see the works of Alberta artists featured this summer.
From May 21 to September 26, 2022, explore Tracing Tides: A Topographical Investigation by Edmonton-based artist Lyndal Osborne. Lyndal’s exhibit is another landscape, bridging two sides of the world — the Murramarang National Park on the eastern coast of New South Wales, Australia and the Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
Ceramic sculptures by local artist Dawn Detarando explore the beauty and perils of bees foraging in altered landscapes in her exhibit In Adoration of the Precarious Bee, on display from May 7 to August 20, 2022. The exhibit explores a glimpse into the perils that the artist sees the bees having to face while foraging in a landscape which may or may not be tainted or devoid of the nourishment they need.
Local museums and art galleries are just waiting for you to explore them.
