Museum folks in senior/leadership positions should be on Twitter! A number of museum people of a certain (dare I say it?) age and/or self-regard (educated, well-read, busy, already inundated by media, steeped in museum culture, interested in the future of museums) wouldn’t be caught dead on Twitter. I can say this, because until a few…
I recently discovered a great resource for all the current discussions about Museums for the 21st Century. It’s a site about a 90-year-old museum that grew to prominence more than 50 years ago, but was so far ahead of its time that its collective wisdom remains applicable today. The site is called Boston Stories, and…
Whatever is unspoken becomes unspeakable Whatever is unspeakable becomes unthinkable Whatever is unthinkable ceases to exist. Harmony Hammond, artist These words reflect the theme of the panel session I attended on Saturday, January 21, 2012 at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Entitled “Sexuality and the Museum,” the roundtable discussion was organized by Jonathan Katz,…
Tom Murphy by Minor White When the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture finished its run in February, 2011, earlier plans to travel it had been abandoned due to the controversy it had engendered. Much of the uproar over an exhibition exploring themes of gender identity in portraiture was caused by the…
Writing this blog for six months has introduced me to all kinds of fascinating conversations found in other museum-related blogs and tweets. There’s a whole new world out there of ready-to-hand (but how make it ready-to-mind?) information about: · museums · participatory culture · new uses for technology, especially social media But how are all…
Here in the United States the issue of sexual harassment has been on the front pages for months – in May and throughout the summer with the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, and in October with the 20th anniversary of law professor Anita Hill’s testimony against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Now in November we read…
The museum social media networks have been buzzing lately with discussions about the nature and role of museums in the 21st century. Inspired by tweets and posts by Nina Simon and Robert Stein among others, museum folks on social media have been contributing to substantive conversations about the key questions museums should be asking and the…
I’m currently reading a terrific book, Letting Go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World, edited by Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene, and Laura Koloski. Although this book is about history museums, a number of articles, especially ones by Nina Simon, “Participatory Design and the Future of Museums,” and Kathy McLean, “Whose Questions, Whose Conversations?” made…
This month the United States, as well as many countries the world over, has commemorated the 10th anniversary of 9/11. There have been museum-sponsored events and exhibitions such as the inauguration of the 9/11 Memorial Plaza at the World Trade Center in New York, and a display of 9/11 artifacts collected by the Smithsonian’s…
I have been thinking for some time about museums’ propensity to imitate and reinforce the environments and methods of formal education. I think they need to refocus on what they do best: create informal environments for learning (very broadly defined) and enjoyment. Importing a Classroom Mentality I entered the museum field from the classroom over 30…