UTICA — The Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, 310 Genesee St., hosts two free events Thursday, Feb. 23 and two new Museum of Art exhibitions to view this month. 

Art Alive! Family Day at the Museum will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It will be followed by the PrattMWP Easton Pribble Lecture Series with Washington, D.C.-based artist Shaunté Gates at 3:30 p.m. in the Bank of Utica-Sinnott Family Auditorium at the Museum of Art.

Both events are free and open to the public. 

Art Alive! will feature funk and hip-hop group The Secret Agency with a free performance at 11 a.m. and free songwriting workshop at 1 p.m. The event will also include hands-on crafts for all ages and interactive robot demonstrations by MUCCBots, the robotics team of the Midtown Utica Community Center. 

A mixed media collage and video artist, Gates addresses his real-world experiences through dreamlike and mythic landscapes based on his childhood in Washington, D.C. The layers of paint and paper reflect the layers of his memories. The images recall a particular geography, the people who lived there and experiences over time in Gates’ public housing neighborhood in the nation’s capital. 

Gates’ work is included in the “No Place Like Home” exhibition on view at the Museum of Art. Home, as a concept or location, occupies a prominent place in everyone’s lives. It is the place we were raised, the rooms we occupy and the memories formed there.

Highlights include Gates’ “There’s No Place Like Home” in which the artist portrays mythological figures in the setting of Washington, D.C., his childhood home, in a mixed media collage of photographs, American history textbook paper and charcoal. Syracuse-based Jerome Witkin narrates an unhappy childhood memory of the dissolution of a family through his three-part painting “Division Street.” Themes of migration and mobility are explored in Yinka Shonibare’s “Doll House,” which views the impact of colonialism. 

The “No Place Like Home” exhibit is free and runs through March 19.

In addition to “No Place Like Home,” Munson-Williams also presents “InSight: Photography at Munson-Williams,” which opens Feb. 22.

Munson-Williams’ Museum of Art opens the vaults to present rare works in photography from its collection in InSight, an exhibition that examines contemporary life through the lens of history, nature, portraiture and photojournalism. 

The powerful, dramatic six-part portfolio by Dread Scott, “Slave Rebellion Reenactment Performance Stills (2020),” will be seen for the first time at Munson-Williams alongside the work of renowned photographers Tommy Brown, Donna Ferrato, Ralph Gibson and William Wegman, among many others.

“InSight: Photography at Munson-Williams” is free and runs through April 23. Both exhibitions are on view in the Museum of Art and feature works from the permanent collection.

Admission to the Museum of Art is free year-round, except when noted for special exhibitions or events. For more information, call 315-797-0000 or visit www.mwpai.org.