On the Inner Harbor in downtown Baltimore sits one of the most unforgettable museums you’ll ever visit, and now you can see GNN’s work featured in an exhibit inspired by the Dalai Lama.
Voted #2 in a recent USA Today poll of favorite art museums in the country, the American Visionary Art Museum was also designated as the official national museum for self-taught and intuitive artistry by an act of Congress..
Because the eclectic exhibits will stimulate anyone’s creativity, Travel & Leisure magazine called the Maryland museum a Top-10 Place to See Before You’re 10.
But all ages will be inspired by this year’s major exhibit, ‘Healing & The Art of Compassion’, in which GNN founder Geri Weis-Corbley was featured as a ‘Good News Hero’.
The theme of this original year-long exhibition, which runs through September 4th, was inspired in good part by a request from the Dalai Lama and features the works of 22 visionary artists—alongside the scientific research, global folk wisdom, and humor—which highlight the two forces of good in any society.
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“AVAM’s mega-exhibition focuses public attention on two sibling essential powers—healing and compassion—twin forces for greater good sorely in need today,” writes the museum’s main curator, director, and founder, Rebecca Hoffberger. “Clearly defining compassion, how it operates as a healing force in our own lives, within our own families, our communities, in social welfare, monetary, and justice systems, is at the heart of this uplifting exhibition’s premise and purpose.”
It is the swan song exhibit for Hoffberger, who is set to retire after 30 years of work on her Visionary Art Museum, which opened in 1995. She asked the GNN founder for a list of her best headlines about compassion and healing—four of which appear in the exhibit:
- A mother who forgives and adopts the killer of her only son after his incarceration.
- A Canadian police officer who goes undercover posing as a vulnerable elder in a wheelchair to catch would-be thieves, and instead finds people trying to help him at every turn.
- In India, where the birth of girls can bring a heavy burden on poor families to provide a dowry, one man instigated a program to plant 111 trees for every baby girl born, as well as a collective fund for their dowry obligation. A vast forest now yields fruit and stands in testament to his kindness and celebration of the village girls.
- California parents launch a charity in memory of their daughter who had traveled to South Africa to help one of the poorest village, but then was murdered. Their wish to continue her good work, eventually involved even the men who caused her death in a mutually redemptive healing and jobs program.
Hoffberger told us in an email, “Many may say, ‘How nice’ about your work, but I think there are so many good and healthful reasons that your Good News Network is actually an imperative.”
The Washington Post once wrote that “the best museum in D.C. is in Baltimore,” recommending the AVAM, which is 30 minutes to the north and attracts 115,000 people annually.
So, next time you are in DC, Maryland, or Northern Virginia, plan your visit to 800 Key Highway and check out the cylindrical building with the gorgeous sculpture gardens and mosaic tile exterior (below) designed and installed by former felons—just one of the many ‘visionary’ accomplishments of this compassionate, mighty museum.
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