In the context of this pilot project, each class of students (from kindergarten to secondary five) were hosted by museums across Montréal for a series of weekly visits. The goal of this program is to foster a sense of belonging within these institutions and explore different nexuses of learning beyond the limits of the schoolhouse.

For the Fall 2022 term, the PHI Foundation’s Education team welcomed a class of grade five and six students over the course of six weeks during the solo exhibition of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, titled DANCING LIGHTS THAT FLEW UP TO THE UNIVERSE. In the subsequent term, in Spring 2023, the team hosted kindergarteners over four weeks, who encountered different artists in a group exhibition, titled Terms of Use. 

The School at the Museum project began in 2019 at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, which hosted a kindergarten class from la Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys for over eight weeks. In the last year, the project has grown in scale, bringing together students from primary and secondary school at a variety of museums, including the PHI Foundation. 

Through their participation in the 2022-2023 edition of the project, the PHI Foundation’s Education team has seen how merging the school and the museum has positive impacts on students, teachers, and museum education professionals.

In the Spring of 2023, a new cohort of Le Vitrail students, this time Cindy Lebel’s kindergarten students, came for a series of four visits at the PHI Foundation to explore the works and themes of four women artists in the collective exhibition Terms of Use: Chun Hua Catherine Dong, VahMirè (Ludmila Steckelberg), Shanie Tomassini, and Helena Martin Franco, guided by educators Marie-Hélène Lemaire, Kim Johnson, and Prakash Krishnan. This series of visits included an artistic creation workshop conceived and delivered by artist Shanie Tomassini that involved a to-scale, two-dimensional recreation of her work autel (2023).