Sexism and Racism Must Be Addressed as Systems
While revealing individual misogynists is hard, uprooting misogyny is much harder. Lozada, When Women Dare to Step…
MASSAction 2017: Decentering Whiteness
How to transform museums into places of greater inclusion and equity? This is the key question of the MASSAction (Museum as Site for Social Action) initiative, begun in 2016 and coordinated out of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. A few weeks ago 36 museums (art, history, science) from across the country gathered for…
Excellence and Equity: 25 and Still Alive
“Museums must become more inclusive places that welcome diverse audiences, but first they should reflect our society’s pluralism in every aspect of their operations and programs.” Excellence and Equity. 1992 This sentence on the first page of Excellence and Equity makes it the prescient and seminal publication that it was in 1992 and that it remains today.…
The Idea of Museum Neutrality: Where Did it Come From?
Where is Part 2? In a post written on March 2, 2017, Stayin’ Alive, Part 1: Advocacy, I described efforts by the American Alliance of Museums, on behalf of the larger US museum community, to advocate for continued government funding of museums and cultural institutions in the face of a proposed Trump budget. As implied…
The Naive* Display of Cultural Symbols
I know when someone that’s not you tries to tell your story, especially when you don’t look like the person who’s telling your story, they’re gonna screw it up! And the only way to have it right is to have them as closely involved as possible. Comedian and writer Aziz Ansari, Master of None I…
Do Children’s Exhibits Privilege One Point of View?
What do we really mean by Parent Support and Engagement? Over the past several weeks Rebecca Herz, blogger at Museum Questions, and I have been conversing about philosophies of exhibit design, play, and learning in children’s museums. Two of her recent posts posts (here and here) have examined the history and impact of…
Play is the “Content” in Children’s Museums
One of my favorite blogs is Museum Questions, posted most Mondays by Rebecca Herz. I read her February 27, 2017 post, “Why Are Children’s Museums Museums?” with even greater interest than usual for a couple of reasons: First, during the late 1980s into the 1990s–the period that Rebecca is examining in her post–I was involved developing…
Stayin’ Alive, Part 1: Advocacy
And now it’s alright, it’s okay And you may look the other way We can try to understand the New York Times’ effect on man. Stayin’ Alive. The Gibbs Brothers Monday, February 27 was training day for the 9th annual American Alliance of Museums Advocacy Day program; two days when museums from all over the…
Diversity and Inclusion: Thinking Systemically
What is thinking systemically? A system, as we know, is a group of interrelated and interconnected parts, such that what happens to one has an impact on all. I’ve been noticing, in all kinds of media, references to the importance of examining problems from a systemic point of view, i.e. recognizing that a problem is…
Immigration Pop Up Museum: A Small, Powerful Voice
In January, 2016, I organized and taught a two-week seminar with Monica Montgomery called Museums Are Us. The seminar was one of the on-site courses offered as part of the Johns Hopkins University Museum Studies Program. We partnered with the DC Public Library to present a pop up museum on the themes of Home and…