Mischief and Met-dling: A Night at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2025
The year is 2025. Exactly one year ago, the New York City Council got word of some strange happenings in the Maya exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. Rather than remaining as static objects, it appeared as though the landscape and figures within it were living, moving around as if they were alive. As the City Council found, the issue could only be solved by becoming a living figure within the exhibit. After the City Council in 2024 heroically resolved the crisis, all was calm…until it wasn’t. The City Council recently received a report detailing an all too familiar issue, this time occurring in the Meeting of Confucius and Lao Tze artwork at the Metropolitan Museum of Art! The figures in the art can be seen moving around, living their everyday lives. Upon further inspection, it seems as though the artwork can be entered.
As part of this committee, delegates are tasked with the investigation of this lively Meeting of Confucius and Lao Tze artwork, which can only be done by entering the moving art itself and becoming a living figure within it. Delegates will live as though they are a part of this artwork, experiencing whatever crisis occurs through the lens of figures from the time period. From what we know, travelers inside the museum will be transported into the cabinet of Duke Xiao of Qin in 361 BCE, but not much else beyond that…
While the committee has been informed of only one artwork’s strange activities, it’s almost guaranteed others are impacted as well. This committee will require the utmost creativity and flexibility as the museum evolves. Only one thing within this museum is certain: actions have consequences.
This is an advanced, fast-paced committee that will involve three exhibits that feature different time periods over the course of the weekend. We highly recommend that delegates have experience competing on crisis-style committees on the collegiate circuit before joining this committee.
Veda Swaminathan
Chair
Veda is a third-year at the University of Chicago, double majoring in Economics and Public Policy. She is originally from Connecticut and has been doing Model UN for maybe too long (going on 7 years!). At UChicago, she is quite involved with MUNUC, the school’s high school conference, and a little underground conference called CHOMUN. Most recently, Veda was a Crisis Director for the MUNC36 Joint Crisis Committee and an Assistant Chair in backroom for The Museum Committee at last year’s CHOMUN. This year, she is also chairing a crisis at MUNUC!
Outside of Model UN, she is a member of a few finance organizations, social impact organizations, and dabbles in running a nonprofit on the side of school. In her free time, Veda enjoys hanging out with her friends, eating good Indian food, walking her (8-year-old) puppy, and listening to (live) music! Veda is so so so thrilled to meet you soon and chair this incredibly exciting committee.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns (or just want to share how excited you are to meet her), please hit her up at vedaswaminathan@uchicago.edu!
Kait Albarran
Crisis Director
Kait is a fourth-year from San Antonio, Texas who is aggressively Texan; she loves Tex-Mex, barrel racing, the Astros, and Tejano music.
Her first year, Kait was an AC in ChoMUN XXV’s JCC, Kad Zora Svane: Kingdom of Serbia, 1918, and enjoyed the experience so much that she decided to return as a CD for One Penguin, One Vote: Dividing Antarctica, 2023 and for ChoMUN XXVI, Nothing Natural About This: A Night at the American Museum of Natural History, 2024 for ChoMUN XXVII, and this committee!
Outside ChoMUN, Kait is the Member-At-Large (formerly USG Hybrids) for MUNUC, UChicago’s high school MUN conference, and, outside the MUNiverse in general, she is double majoring in Biological Chemistry and Chemistry (with a specialization in Chemical Biology–no, biochem and chembio are not the same thing!!) on the pre-medical track with a minor in Linguistics. Kait is a chaos stan and is looking forward to aiding and abetting some shenanigans/tomfoolery during your night at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is excited to meet y’all at ChoMUN XXVIII!
Please do not hesitate to contact her about any questions you may have (or even if you just want to share a cute cat picture) at kalbarran@uchicago.edu.
Wilson Mach
CRISIS DIRECTOR
Wilson is a second-year majoring in Computer Science and Computational and Applied Mathematics. Coming from the great city of New York, he will not hesitate to remind everyone that Taylor Swift wrote not one, but more than 12 songs about it.
He is involved in UChicago's travel team and is a CD for a committee at MUNUC, UChicago’s high school MUN conference. Within CHOMUN, Wilson served as an AC for Nothing Natural About This: A Night at the American Museum of Natural History at CHOMUN XXVII.
Outside of MUN, he highly enjoys wandering Chicago to satisfy his craving for good food and regularly gets frustrated figuring out why the code he spent 10 hours on doesn’t work.
Wilson is extremely excited to be a CD for this committee and to help delegates get their mischief managed. If you have any questions or want to share any obscure historical facts, please feel free to reach out at wmach@uchicago.edu.
Secretariat oversight:
Khristian Bass, Under-secretary-general