LEWISTON – Mark Bessire, director of the Bates College Museum of Art, will be this month’s Great Falls Forum featured speaker. His presentation will be the last of this season’s forums.

The title of Bessire’s talk is “Unpacking the Museum and Raiding the Icebox: The Radically Transformed World of Art Museums.” A question-and-answer period will follow the talk.

Bessire will provide specific cultural examples that define the modern museum as well ones that have finally forced a 200-year-old structural system to collapse. Rather than dwell on the deconstruction moment, Bessire will look at ways for museums to rebuild themselves with a broader mission and sense of purpose, thus enabling them to grow collections, not store them away.

Bessire has recently served on the committee to choose public art for the new Lisbon Falls elementary school and the committee to choose an artist for the new Monument Square bus stop in Portland, and has worked with the Maine Arts Commission on the Contemporary Art Development Committee.

He was a Fullbright fellow at Sukuma Museum in Mwanza, Tanzania, and a Helena Rubinstein fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In addition, he was a William J. Heffernan scholar with the Columbia Business School at Columbia University.

The Great Falls Forum’s lineup for the 2005-06 season will be published in late summer or early fall. People with ideas for future speakers are asked to call Mari Maxwell at (207) 689-2857 or send her e-mail at [email protected] before May 26.

Lunch for Bessire’s talk is $7 with preregistration, $10 at the door, if space is still available. People may make lunch reservations by calling Jeanne Lachance at 689-2843 by Tuesday, May 17.

The Great Falls Forum is a monthly public platform for thought-provoking speakers and discussion. Everyone is welcome.

Go and do

Who: Mark Bessire

What: Great Falls Forum

When: 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m., May 19

Where: Lepage Conference Center, St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center