The Nasher Sculpture Center presents Reinventing the Museum: Olivier Meslay in Conversation with Adrien Gardère, a lecture hosted in association with the Museum of Street Culture. Meslay, Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs of the Dallas Museum of Art, and Gardère, an internationally known museographic designer based in Paris, France, will be introduced by Alan Govenar, Founding Director of the Museum of Street Culture, and will discuss new approaches to designing and building museums in order to reach and engage diverse and underserved audiences.

The discussion will take place in the context of the development of the Museum of Street of Culture, located in Encore Park, an initiative of The Stewpot of First Presbyterian Church of Dallas within a quickly evolving community that includes residences, restaurants, small businesses, places of worship, and facilities for housing and services to homeless and at-risk people. The Museum of Street Culture will be dedicated to the exhibition of art created by the homeless, as well as current directions in street culture, including performance, installation, and emerging art forms.

For Reinventing the Museum, Gardère will bring his rich experience in exhibition design to bear in the conversation, having designed the exhibition spaces of many of the leading museums around the world, including the Louvre-Lens Museum in Lens, France and the Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, as well as working with David Chipperfield Architects on the current expansion of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He has garnered praise for his ability to incorporate current technologies, innovations and ideologies with traditional museological practices into his exhibition design, making for fresh, provocative spaces for the experience and contemplation of art and objects. Olivier Meslay, who has overseen the curatorial vision of the European and American departments at Dallas Museum of Art as Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs since 2009, will lead the discussion about an array of questions concerning access, sustainability and exhibition strategies.