The Olmec civilization of ancient Mexico is known for its mysterious sculptures of giant heads that rise up to eleven feet high. Touch a huge modern replica in the museum for one day that is based on Monument One, The King. Explore artifacts with an educator that show Olmec influence on architecture, the ball game, written language, and pigments. Handle reproductions and paint a mini-plaster head of your own to take home.

Workshops also available at 1:45pm and 2:30pm (one hour each)

Registration Deadline: Friday, May 13, 12:00 pm
Ages 6–10,...

These tours, designed and led by Harvard undergraduates from a range of academic disciplines, focus on objects chosen by each student guide and provide visitors a unique, thematic view into collections.

Tours are limited to 18 people, and it is required that you reserve your place. At 10am the day of the event, reservations will open and may be arranged online through this form. The Student Guide Tour reservation will also serve as your...

An influential and acclaimed animator, teacher and author, Yvonne Andersen started the pioneering Yellow Ball Workshop in her home, teaching children every aspect of film animation so they could make their own films from start to finish. Yellow Ball distributed compilations of short films and gained international fame. This program features many entertaining examples of the workshop's unique output.

Cost: $10 for general public; $8 for non-Harvard students & seniors; free for Harvard ID holders

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Expedition Content is an exploration in “decolonizing the archive” through deep listening. The nearly imageless film is constructed from recordings made in 1961 in West Papua by Michael Rockefeller who was part of an expedition organized by filmmaker, professor and HFA co-founder Robert Gardner. Without dismissing the endeavors of their forebears, Karel and Kusumaryati open up the cinematic and ethnographic space to allow for more points of view, for questions and reconsiderations.

Cost: $10 for general public; $8 for non-Harvard students & seniors;...

Join us to hunt for mythical creatures across the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture. Can you find a genie, merfolk, or a centaur? What might have inspired a cyclops or a piranha plant? Travel through the galleries of four museums on your quest for these amazing creatures. Test your skills in the galleries of the Harvard Museum of Natural History, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, and the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments.

On April 15, let the adventure begin! Time is limited, so plan...

Join us to hunt for mythical creatures across the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture. Can you find a genie, merfolk, or a centaur? What might have inspired a cyclops or a piranha plant? Travel through the galleries of four museums on your quest for these amazing creatures. Test your skills in the galleries of the Harvard Museum of Natural History, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, and the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments.

On April 15, let the adventure begin! Time is limited, so plan...

As the unjust war against Ukraine rages, the Harvard Film Archive offers Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa’s powerful portrait of popular resistance as a means to reflect on the deeper history of the war, and as a tribute to the courage of a nation that has long been in the geopolitical crosshairs.

Cost: $10 for general public; $8 for non-Harvard students & seniors; free for Harvard ID holders

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Sotomayor's celebrated debut feature follows a young family on a road trip, of which the final destination remains ambiguous. Told largely from the point of view of ten-year-old Lucia as she observes the world unfolding before her and intuits her parents’ fraying relationship, Thursday Till Sunday avoids over-narrativization by focusing upon those in-between spaces and non-events noticed by the young girl.

Cost: $10 for general public; $8 for non-Harvard students & seniors; free for Harvard ID holders

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Gomes' second film is a bold follow-up to Mortu Nega that extends its critical scrutiny of post-liberation Guinea-Bissau through a poignantly nuanced story of ardent dreams fractured across different generations. The eponymous heroine of The Blue Eyes of Yonta is a spirited young woman smitten with an old family friend, a hero of the revolution falling on hard times as he struggles to keep his business afloat and stay true to his ideals despite the corrosive pressures of the black market.

Cost: $10 for general public; $8 for non-Harvard students & seniors...

In a post-war civilization run by children, director Flora Gomes explores concepts of symbolism and magical realism to tell the tale of a utopian society and its young inhabitants. The Children’s Republic sheds light on an era of national liberation and harmony, where only children—aside from Dubem the advisor, played by Danny Glover—are left to seek peace and redemption from the death and destruction of their nation's lingering past.

Cost: $10 for general public; $8 for non-Harvard students & seniors; free for Harvard ID holders

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Evolving from his large-format photographs—the same medium of Walker Evans and William Christenberry who also famously focused their lenses on rural Hale County, Alabama—Ross walks a multi-dimensional path both alongside and away from these artistic predecessors. As suns set and moons rise and eclipse, Ross’ camera moves fluidly in and out of invisibility and interaction, capturing moments miniscule and monumental, quotidian and otherworldly, with the same curious, clear eye.

Cost: $15 (free for Harvard ID holders)

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Join us for the public reopening of the Harvard Art Museums on Saturday, September 4!

Begin in our Calderwood Courtyard before venturing into the galleries to enjoy three levels of art, spanning ancient to modern times. See the exhibitions “States of Play: Prints from Rembrandt to Delsarte” and “A Colloquium in the Visual Arts.” And don’t forget to stop by the museum shop, just off the courtyard, to round out your visit.

Our new ReFrame initiative, which reimagines the function, role, and future of the university art museum, introduces new artworks to many of our...

Learn to paint Zapotec design motifs with visiting artists from Oaxaca, Mexico. The father-son team of Ventura and Norberto Fabian continues the tradition of creating hand-carved and painted wooden figures known as alebrijes. This folk art is rooted in traditional aspects of rural village daily life and is now one of Mexico’s largest-selling craft industries. After learning about techniques and styles, participants will select an original, small figure to paint and take home. Workshops will be taught in Spanish with translation to English.

This workshop is most...

Learn to paint Zapotec design motifs with visiting artists from Oaxaca, Mexico. The father-son team of Ventura and Norberto Fabian continues the tradition of creating hand-carved and painted wooden figures known as alebrijes. This folk art is rooted in traditional aspects of rural village daily life and is now one of Mexico’s largest-selling craft industries. After learning about techniques and styles, participants will select an original, small figure to paint and take home. Workshops will be taught in Spanish with translation to English.

This workshop is suitable...

Enrich your museum visit by listening to an evocative playlist of contemporary poems by Native American authors. Wander freely across the first-floor galleries to see where the poems take you and expand your understanding of Native arts and cultures. The poems, drawn from a powerful recent anthology, New Poets of Native Nations (edited by Heid E. Erdrich; Graywolf Press) celebrate Native poets first published in the twenty-first century. Hear the exhibits “come into voice” and experience the museum in a new way. Borrow a free audio player with regular museum admission.

In this special event, Juan Alonso Rodriguez will explain how to make a molinillo, the whisk-like wooden tool that is traditionally used in Mexico to make froth in chocolate beverages. Together with Ana Rita García-Lascuráin, he will discuss the history of chocolate production in Mexico and its current renaissance. Using molinillos, members of the Cambridge-based Fine Cacao and Chocolate Institute will make three different chocolate beverages that participants can taste during the program.

Participants must be aged 18 and over.

Cost:...

The Harvard Art Museums Archives is participating in Cambridge Open Archives, an annual event that offers the rare chance to visit a number of unique archives and collecting agencies in Cambridge. In the Art Study Center, select archival photographs, correspondence, and objects documenting the history of the museums’ teaching mission and its wider impact in the United States will be on display for close examination. Archives staff will be on hand to share the stories behind the materials.

Cost: Free with museums admission (note that admission is always free...

In this one-day workshop, master dyer and textile artist Porfirio Gutiérrez will discuss the history and uses of cochineal dye from the perspective of the Zapotecs from Oaxaca, Mexico, who have used the pigment since pre-Columbian times. Mr. Gutiérrez will demonstrate how to prepare cochineal dye and will guide workshop participants in dyeing their individual wool scarves with both cochineal and pericón, a wild marigold indigenous to Mexico, used to obtain a beautiful bright yellow dye.

This is an all-levels workshop; no previous experience is required. All supplies for...

Instructors: Ventura and Norberto Fabian

Learn how to paint Zapotec design motifs with visiting artists from Oaxaca, Mexico. The father-son team—Ventura and Norberto Fabian—continue the tradition of creating hand-carved and hand-painted wooden figures known as alebrijes. This folk art is rooted in traditional rural village life and is one of Mexico’s most popular crafts. Participants will select an original...