In the mid-1980s, Jerry Beck (MFA '91) and some friends staged an art show in twelve derelict railroad cars on the South Boston waterfront. The Revolving Museum was born. "It was magical," Beck says. "Some of us slept in the cars. One night we had storytelling, and every kind of person you can imagine was shoulder to shoulder: artists, children, people in their eighties, homeless people. It cemented my idea of what I wanted the Revolving Museum to feel like."

What began as a nomadic experiment in public art that "revolved" from one site-specific installation to another—from a civil-war fort to an ice cream truck to an abandoned baseball field, for example—is now a permanent fixture in an old industrial building in Lowell, Massachusetts. It's also the winner of a 2007 Massachusetts Cultural Council Commonwealth Award. Yet the Revolving Museum, led by Beck, has preserved its eclectic traveling-carnival soul: it's an exhibition and performance space, a collection of youth education programs, and a promoter of community art projects that take place throughout the city.

One of the museum's goals, Beck says, is to start a conversation with people who've been alienated from the arts. "I think social engagement is part of the aesthetic ideal," he says. "We’re trying to build bridges, bring artists and the public together in adventurous ways, and push the boundaries of what a museum can be."

Beck grew up in south Florida doing "generic stuff" like scavenging on the beach and building tree forts, laying the foundation for the dumpster-diving and the found-object sculpting he would later do. At Florida State in Tallahassee, Beck became a political and cultural activist who organized group art exhibits in dilapidated buildings. In Boston, Beck dropped out of the Museum School for a few years to pursue his unconventional guerrilla art, and ended up starting the Revolving Museum.

Today he's a pillar of the Lowell arts community, yet he still talks a bit like a radical art student. "We’re trying to subvert the hierarchy of museum culture," he says. While traditional museums can sometimes feel "elitist" and "sterile," Beck finds that "the untrained eye can be as powerful as someone who’s highly skilled. Art can be made anywhere at anytime with anybody."