ICA Celebrates First Year

The Institute of Contemporary Art is celebrating its first birthday this weekend. On Sunday, the museum will hold its free "1st Anniversary Community Day."

On Boston's waterfront, the ICA is the first art museum built in the city in almost 100 years. It opened with high expectations on December 10th, last year.

Since then, some 280,000 people have visited the ICA, 11 times the annual number at the museum's former Back Bay location.

It has its first ever permanent collection now, with 22 new acquisitions, and has premiered 20 works in its inaugural performance program.

Executive Director Jill Medvedow says diversity is a deliberate strategy, "We are aggressively multi-disciplinary. So people are as likely to be coming here for performance or a lecture as they are for a museum."

Medvedow adds that finding a "sustainable audience" is one of the many challenges the ICA faces in the future.