Ibram X. Kendi, director of BU’s Center for Antiracist Research (left), and Bina Venkataraman, Boston Globe editorial page editor. Photos by Janice Checchio (left) and courtesy of VenkataramanJOURNALISM & MEDIA The ever-visionary Ibram X. Kendi has just announced an exciting project– a collaboration between his Boston University Center for Antiracist Research and The Boston Globe. Kendi and…
Over the coming year, MASS Action is committing itself to holding our institutions accountable to the statements they’ve made committing to racial justice. We are holding up a mirror to our organizations to generate alignment between their words and their actions, and collaboratively working towards the abolition of racism and all its manifestations in…
Join Museum Workers Speak for a listening session on Wednesday, July 22, 2020 at 7:30 pm ET. Go to this invitation for more information on the event and on how to participate. The Museum Workers Relief Fund MWS is a collective of activist museum workers interrogating the relationship between museums’ stated commitments to social value…
As a longtime museum professional who is white, I do not presume to speak for my colleagues of color at this moment. I speak only for myself. But I wish that this statement or something like it could be published by the still predominantly white museum field. And I include myself as an individual who…
See timely advice from The Empathetic Museum: How to Be an Empathetic Museum in these Troubled Times”
In the century that has followed the rise and near-triumph of Nazism between the 1920s and 1945, history has judged not just Adolf Hitler, his government, paramilitary organizations, and army. We have also become aware of the almost total submission of German civic institutions to Nazism: the courts, universities, banks, hospitals, arts organizations –…
In his opinion piece in the New York Times on July 26, 2019, (Museums Need to Step into the Future) Ford Foundation President Darren Walker applauds museums’ greater involvement in social justice issues. And he calls for increased efforts toward diversity and inclusion. Walker correctly takes a holistic approach, touching on hiring, collecting, exhibitions, and…
Is learning tangible or intangible? This question from a student in my museum learning class in India a few years ago brought me up short. Fortunaetly, my lack of a quick answer allowed for a great class discussion. We finally came up with the idea that learning is intangible, but it can be measured–there…
Broad use of the Excellent Judges Framework inside institutions, and advocacy of visitor-centered goals by exhibition professionals, just might make all of our jobs a bit easier—and the products of our efforts more effective—in the future. Beverly Serrell. 2006 We’re over ten years into the future envisioned by Beverly Serrell, one of the most respected…
On July 22, 2014, almost four years ago, I raised this issue on AAM’s Future of Museums blog: Unacompanied Children at our Borders: Can Museums Help? It didn’t attract much attention, but this was before #museumsrespondtoFerguson, #MuseumsAreNotNeutral, Museums and Race, MASSAction, and countless other disussions and initiatives regarding museums’ engagement with and responsibility to the…