We've been planning exhibitions in this building for 37 years, so we wanted to make sure this last exhibition was really poignant and spoke to who we are as an institution now speaks to our community, our artists, and everything that's happening in the region.

It was definitely bittersweet putting this last exhibition together, but also a really special moment.

I love the fact that Lorraine Fink is in this exhibition.

She was in our very first opening exhibition in this building that we're standing in, and for her to be in the last one feels extra special for us and for the artists herself.

Her whole family.

We're here for the opening.

She's 101 years old, so talk about where we meet.

That's what Virginia Mocha likes to, to bring people together and see what can happen next.

We were founded by artists in 1952, and so that is something that we've taken very seriously, whether it's here in the museum or at the Boardwalk Art Show or at, or some of our satellite spaces.

Really kind of sticking with artists through their career.

Lorraine Fink is a perfect example.

Our team feels really proud of, of those relationships that we build and we sustain.

What a wonderful, wonderful celebration.

Tonight marks a very special moment for the museum as we prepare to transition from our beloved Parks Avenue building to a new home at Virginia Wesleyan University.

I fell in love with contemporary art here.

I found my people.

I learned to do what I do here, and I'm so proud of the work that our team does each and every day, and we are really excited about what's to come.

Here's to 2200 parks to all the memories we've made together to our future memories that we're gonna make together.

Cheers.

So we're inside the new Virginia Mocha.

This is our beautiful atrium and lobby space that guests will walk into as soon as they arrive at the museum filled with light.

Great space for people to come in and hang out, take in the art, and just enjoy being at the museum.

So we're standing in our beautiful new main gallery space.

It's significantly larger than our previous museum, and we're so thrilled.

We've got these gorgeous high ceilings.

We can exhibit works in here that we wouldn't have even been able to fit into our old museum, and we're really taking advantage of that.

We also have completely flexible wall system so we can put walls wherever we want within this space.

So it really gives us lots of flexibility for each of the changing exhibitions that we put together.

It's actually a time for an overwhelming amount of creativity.

A lot of the times in contemporary art, you're dealing with large, heavy, fragile thing.

So the minimal amount of moving that we can do to get them in place the better.

It is really fun to meet the artists and work directly with them.

Getting to kind of help someone fully see a vision of, of what they're working on and the concepts that they're trying to promote.

It's a fun thing to be a part of.

So our approach to our education programming as a whole is really encouraging our visitors and our students who come to the museum to make personal connections to the work on view and the artwork that they're experiencing.

This space that I'm standing in specifically, this is art lab, and this is what we call kind of our low tech hands-on interactive gallery space that we program for all ages.

It's where we take the main themes and the big ideas from our galleries, and we kind of tease them out and break them down in here to make the artwork even more accessible for visitors.

There's some big, beautiful windows here, gorgeous natural light into the space, and it's really wide open space, which is really different than the art lab at our previous location.

We have four brand new studio spaces.

We're able to accommodate a field trip size in that new studio space and that that's really, really huge for our team.

Welcome to our new home, the brand new Virginia Mocha.

We are thrilled to have you.

We've been working for a really long time towards tonight.

It's so special to see this space filled with all of you.

This is why we're here.

We are so proud to open with Nina Chanel Abney, the Pursuit of Happiness, curated by our senior curator Heather McCain today.

Nina, thank you for trusting us with your work, for your vision, for your voice, and for helping us set the tone for who we are from day one.

Tonight we open a space that invites connection, sparks conversation, and brings people together through art.

Thank you for being here.

As we begin this next chapter, we are just getting started.