Greene Family Learning Gallery
Visit the Greene Family Learning Gallery
TicketsFree with museum admission
The Greene Family Learning Gallery, located adjacent to the Robinson Atrium in the Stent Family Wing, offers two distinct spaces for creative play that combine cutting-edge technology with hands-on activities. Both spaces offer a welcoming and fun child-centered, child-directed environment, with age-appropriate activities for kids ranging from infants to eight-year-olds.
The Greene Family Learning Gallery is open during regular museum hours and is included in museum admission. Please note that the Greene Family Learning Gallery is closed during events such as HIGH Frequency Fridays, Friday Jazz, and UPS Second Sundays.
The CREATE space is a bright and open studio centered on the creative process and devoted to developing young visitors’ art-making abilities. EXPERIENCE is a deeply immersive gallery that enables visitors to explore what art means, how it feels, and where it can take us. Each gallery features a quiet space with activities designed for reflection and an area specifically for babies and toddlers.
The goals of the Greene Family Learning Gallery are to
- offer a space for families to make memories while fostering stronger connections between caregivers and children;
- empower children and their caregivers to explore the Museum and more confidently engage with its collection;
- inspire wonder and encourage children to be curious about the art they encounter every day; and
- celebrate creativity, imagination, empathy, and play, and help families develop these skills through one-of-a-kind interactive experiences found only at the High.
In addition to the Greene Family Learning Gallery, the High offers a wide range of family programming, including Summer Art Camps and the popular Toddler Thursdays and Saturdays and UPS Second Sunday events.
Know Before You Go:
- Engage in fun and safe play with your toddlers and babies in our designated toddler areas.
- Quiet play spaces are available for contemplative reflection.
- Leave your strollers in our stroller parking areas so that you can play with your children without constraints.
- To maintain a calm and safe environment, no running, jumping, or climbing is allowed.
- No food or drinks are allowed. If you need to take a snack break, please do so in the nearby lobby, which includes tables and chairs for your use.
- The Greene Family Learning Gallery is closed during events such as HIGH Frequency Fridays, Friday Jazz, and UPS Second Sundays.
The High Museum of Art has conducted years of research into family audiences and what motivates them to come, how they use family spaces, and what they value about them. The book Curiosity, Wonder and Play: Creating Family Spaces in Art Museums (2022) shares insights, best practices, and lessons learned from years of experience in creating dedicated spaces for families in a wide range of art museums. Through case studies, in-depth stories, and engaging graphics and images, the book identifies key issues that museum professionals need to consider when developing family spaces in museums. Each section contextualizes groundbreaking visitor research with how museum educators have used those findings to better understand family audiences. The book’s comprehensive advice covers topics ranging from creating or updating an interactive family space, understanding your audience, hiring a designer, opening your doors to the public, and more. Learn how to develop fun, safe, inclusive spaces that inspire wonder and curiosity and provide meaning making and family bonding, all while cultivating committed museum visitors.
Timeline:
1968–1971: Color/Light/Color
1971–1974: Shapes
1974–1978: The City
1978–1979: Children in America
1979–1983: Spaces and Illusions
1983–1988: Sensation
1988–1993: Spectacles
1993–2003: Visual Arts Learning Space (VALS)
2005–2018: The Greene Family Learning Gallery
2018–present: The Greene Family Learning Gallery – CREATE and EXPERIENCE
Sarah Bridges-Rhoads, Assistant Professor, Co-Coordinator of the Master of Arts in Creative and Innovative Education (MACIE), Georgia State University
“I am very excited about how the Greene Family Learning Gallery invites children and families to engage and experiment with various creative processes and techniques. Children and families will be able to build upon and reimagine those processes and techniques as they create at home together!”
—Sarah Bridges-Rhoads, PhD
Margie Cooper, President, Inspired Practices in Early Education and board member, North American Reggio Emilia Alliance
“The High Museum is poised to interact beautifully with children and their families through the newly expanded Greene Family Learning Gallery. The innovative experiences children will enjoy each time they visit the Museum will become part of what childhood means in Atlanta.”
—Margie Cooper, PhD
Emily Max, Kindergarten Teacher, Toomer Elementary School, Atlanta Public Schools
“The Greene Family Learning Gallery integrates the visual appeal and sophistication of the High Museum into a child-centered space that ignites endless possibilities for open-ended play, imagination, and creativity. Each visit to the gallery will open up a new learning experience with different opportunities to build, create, and dream.”
—Emily Max
Tamara Pearson, Associate Director of School and Community Engagement, CEISMC, Georgia Tech
“The opening of the newly designed Greene Family Learning Gallery represents an opportunity for families of all different backgrounds to experience firsthand what makes the High Museum a special place to visit—a place that values creativity, innovation, exploration, and the unique gifts that exist within all of us and showcases those values in everything they do.”
—Tamara Pearson
Deklah Polansky, Creative Director and Partner, studio’farrell
“Let’s face it: despite the cultural aspirations we hold dear for our children, not everyone is into a weekend visit to the art museum. For some, it is an acquired taste that does not stack up that well against the local water slide, arcade extravaganzas, or the all-consuming digital handheld screen. The new Greene Family Learning Gallery, however, feels like the perfect introduction to ease the disinterested and protesting child into a whole new interactive and sensorial creative journey. This innovative space has the potential to spark their curiosity to go beyond the ‘kids space’ and ask, ‘What else is going on here?!’ I am so proud to have played a small part in shaping this vision for kids and family engagement. My boys and I can’t wait to experience it and make it a regular weekend haunt.”
—Deklah Polansky
Kim Thorpe, Educational Program Specialist, Metro RESA
“The revision of the Greene Family Learning Gallery aims to offer families an inclusive environment to play and explore.”
—Kim Thorpe
Meghan M. Welch, Program Specialist, L4GA Grant, Georgia Department of Education
“I’ve been so impressed with how the High has so intentionally focused on the inclusion of all families in the planning and redesign of space. This project has and will elevate Atlanta and surrounding areas as a community that values rich early childhood experiences.”
—Meghan M. Welch
Related
Julia Forbes dives into the history of family spaces at the High Museum of Art as we celebrate the anniversary of our dedicated interactive space.