PEOPLE

Piloting the ArtScience Prize

The ArtScience Prize grew out of a two-year process of collaboration and partnership between the Cloud Foundation, the Idea Translation Lab at Harvard, and Le Laboratoire in Paris.

Pilot Year 1: 2007 - 2008
Over the course of the first pilot year the concept of MuseTrek emerged and through its co-development at Harvard University, the Cloud Foundation, and Le Laboratoire, the rich international "culture lab" organizational framework of the Boston 100K ArtScience Innovation Prize was formed. A startup company created through a partnership between the Idea Translation Lab at Harvard University and Cloud Place, MuseTrek provides a web and mobile tour and social networking platform to generate impassioned conversations between the public and cultural institutions.

Fall 2007
David Edwards gives his students in the Idea Translation Lab at Harvard an idea: How can information science foster the dynamic exchange of information within cultural institutions that is seen today in popular social networks? A team of Harvard students comes up with the original idea of MuseTrek.

Winter 2007 - Spring 2008
Wishing to explore the value of the Idea Translation Lab's approach to learning among Boston high school students, David Edwards asks the Cloud Foundation to work with the Harvard student MuseTrek team to create "treks" to unite a diverse set of works by Pablo Picasso.

Summer 2008
The Harvard MuseTrek student group, led by Mishy Harmon and Roee Gilron, travels to Paris to participate in the summer Idea Translation Lab Workshop at Le Laboratoire. Nadia, a Boston high school teen artist who participated in the first MuseTrek experiment at the Cloud Foundation, receives a Mary & Henry Guettel Fellowship to travel to Paris with the university students. In Paris the high school and university students work with design students from Paris, and entrepreneurs from Madrid, to perform a first partnered experiment at the Louvre.

Pilot Year 2: 2008 - 2009
Over the course of the second year, MuseTrek assumed the form of a Boston-based startup company and the Cloud Foundation announced with Mayor Thomas Menino the inauguration of the Boston 100K ArtScience Prize. The underlying curriculum of the Idea Translation Lab at Cloud Place was adapted from the Idea Translation Lab at Harvard University, building on the Cloud Foundation's a decade of experience working with teens through the arts, and the experiences of Boston teens involved in MuseTrek.

Fall 2008
The Idea Translation Lab at Harvard begins working with Singaporean teens from the St. Joseph Institute, in collaboration with the Cloud Foundation, around MuseTrek. Bill Jacobson of TechPoint Ventures and David Edwards, representing the Cloud Foundation, agree to work with the Harvard student founders to launch MuseTrek in 2009.

Winter 2008 - Spring 2009
The Cloud Foundation announces with Boston's Mayor Thomas M. Menino that it will focus its resources on the Boston 100K ArtScience Innovation Prize, with new programming beginning in the fall of 2009. Continuing its pilot project, the Cloud Foundation and Le Laboratoire co-sponsor an unusual cultural experiment at the Louvre in Paris for the 20th Anniversary of the I.M. Pei Pyramid. Boston high school students, including a group of students from the John D. O’Bryant School, create original treks for the Louvre's exhibitions inspired by themes developed by Laboratoire artist Shilpa Gupta, who visits Boston for a brief residency at Cloud Place in December 2008.

Summer
MuseTrek incorporates. A group of Boston high school students from Cloud Place travel to Paris to develop their vision of "CityTrek" as part of the launch of MuseTrek in Paris in the fall of 2009. The CityTrek teens also perform an experimental test of their new concept in Copley Square, with guidance from the Cloud Foundation and MuseTrek staff. Meanwhile, mentors and teaching artists are recruited for the Artscience Prize curriculum to be offered in the fall at the Idea Translation Lab at Cloud Place

Teen-curated exhibition at Cloud Place