The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World
Lecture by Dr. Susan Linn
Sunday, November 1, 2009
2 p.m.
Museum of Glass Theater

Tacoma, Wash. (October 23, 2009)— The Museum of Glass and the Children’s Museum of Tacoma welcome Dr. Susan Linn, an advocate for protecting children from corporate marketers, to the Museum of Glass Theater on Sunday, November 1, 2009.  Dr. Linn will present a lecture entitled The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World, which addresses the role of play in human development and how unfettered commercialism undermines it.  Linn will address the links between play, creativity, and health, showing us how and why to preserve make believe that children need to be happy and become productive adults.

Dr. Linn is the associate director of the Media Center at Judge Baker Children’s Center; co-founder and director of the coalition Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood; and instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.  She is the author of two books, The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World and Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood, both which address the relationship between play and creativity and how they are threatened in our commercialized culture.  Dr. Linn is also the sister of Nancy Pearl, famed Seattle librarian, Book Lust author and NPR Morning Show commentator.

Dr. Linn wrote the catalog essay for Kids Design Glass, a new exhibition opening at MOG on Halloween that showcases fantastical glass creatures designed by young Museum visitors and created in the Hot Shop by professional artists.  In her essay, Linn writes, “In a commercialized culture where excess masquerades as necessity, Kids Design Glass provides children only with time, spaces, tools, and inspiration—exactly, and no more than, what every artist needs.  The results of this extraordinary collaboration between generations—the fragile, playful, weirdly wonderful objects in this exhibition—speak for the integrity of the process and for themselves.”

Before or after the lecture, visitors can view the Kids Design Glass exhibition and watch new kid-designed creatures being made in the Hot Shop.  Cost for the lecture is included with regular Museum admission.