NYU anthropologists Haidy Geismar and Robin Nagle will deliver a public talk, “How Do You Make a Museum from Garbage? A History of New York’s Department of Sanitation and the DSNY Museum-in-the-Making,” on Thurs., Jan. 10 and Sun., 13 at 136 West 20th Street. Both talks, which are free and open to the public, begin at 6 p.m. Subways: F, V (23rd St.); 1 (23rd St.). For more information: write robin.nagle@nyu.edu or call 212.998.8065.

New York City sanitation workers in the 1930s
New York City sanitation workers in the 1930s

New York University anthropologists Haidy Geismar and Robin Nagle will deliver a public talk, “How Do You Make a Museum from Garbage? A History of New York’s Department of Sanitation and the DSNY Museum-in-the-Making,” on Thurs., Jan. 10 and Sun., 13 at 136 West 20th Street (between 7th and 6th Avenues). Both talks, which are free and open to the public, begin at 6 p.m. Subways: F, V (23rd St.); 1 (23rd St.). For more information: write robin.nagle@nyu.edu or call 212.998.8065.

The lectures are held in conjunction with DSNY and NYU’s “Loaded Out: Making a Museum,” an exhibition about the sanitation department’s history and importance in New York City. The show, which runs through Jan. 13, 2008, is also at 136 West 20th Street. Admission is free. Exhibition hours: Thursdays through Sundays, 3-7 p.m.

The DSNY and NYU have collaborated through this project to lay the foundation for the eventual brick-and-mortar DSNY Museum. The exhibition evolved from a course, “Making a Museum: Materializing Regimes of Value with the New York City Department of Sanitation,” taught by Geismar, a professor in NYU’s Museum Studies Program and in Anthropology, and Nagle, director of NYU’s Draper Interdisciplinary Master’s Program and the DSNY’s anthropologist-in-residence. Nagle’s book, Picking Up, is out next year from Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

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