What Just Happened to the Ontario Science Centre?

The short story. The Ontario Science Centre was forced to close by the Ontario government on Friday, June 21, 2024.

The slightly less short story. Ontario Premier Doug Ford's government decided to abruptly close the Ontario Science Centre as part of its larger plan for OSC. As reported by the CBC, the Ford government already planned to move the Science Centre from its current location to a redeveloped Ontario Place site, next to a planned spa being built by Austrian company Therme, an expanded Live Nation concert venue, as well as new public space and beaches. Under those plans, the Science Centre building won't open up until 2028.

Many reasonable people question the motivations for these plans.  To quote Alex Bozikovic, Architecture Critic for The Globe and Mail, "This closing is a choice. It is a deeply cynical political manoeuvre based on a bogus reading of an engineer's report. The Ford government wanted to close the Science Center, so it did."

The slightly longer story. Who knows what happens next?  Even if the current Ontario Science Centre got served lemons, perhaps they can use this as an opportunity to reinvent themselves as a new type of interactive science museum, building upon their 50+ years of experience at their original site.

The real longer story (for the rest of the field.) There is a whole cadre of large science centers that sprung into being in the later half of the 20th century. These science centers may, in fact, be too large to serve their original purposes effectively. Dealing with a large physical plant inherently makes the mission of a modern, interactive museum much more difficult and the organization less nimble.

What lessons can we learn by looking at museums like the Milwaukee Public Museum, which is intentionally "downsizing" as it moves to its new home? Or the Rubin Museum, which has decided to jettison its physical NYC museum building altogether in order to present exhibitions and programs worldwide?

Of course, I wish the OSC staff (and the citizens of the Toronto region!) much good luck as they figure out the path forward to a new (and different?) interactive, community-oriented science/education institution.

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Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

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Bringing Dark History to Light

In the past few months, I had two interconnected experiences related to Belene, a forced labor camp in Bulgaria.

Belene was a prison camp in northern Bulgaria on an island in the Danube River that was active from approximately 1949 to 1987.  Belene was one of the places where the Bulgarian regime would send dissidents or just about anyone who disagreed publicly with the policies of Bulgaria's socialist state.

This past March, I had the opportunity to tour with a local volunteer guide the site of the former Belene camp, a remote natural area filled with decaying buildings that are slowly being interpreted and restored.  It's a bit of a strange experience since a penitentiary still operates in the western part of the island, while the eastern part is a managed natural reserve filled with pelicans and other wildlife.

Of course, being in a place where so much human tragedy occurred is a deeply moving experience. But how do you interpret the stories from such a remote place? And how do you push against many people's reluctance to bring up such painful memories from Bulgaria's past?

Enter the Sofia Platform Foundation, a non-governmental organization. One part of the Foundation's mission is focused on "promoting remembrance and dealing with the communist past through historical dialogue and education."

To that end, I recently visited a pop-up exhibition entitled “Belene—A Bulgarian Resistance Story” in Washington, D.C. The exhibition drew upon hours of video interviews with Nikola Daskalov, a Belene camp survivor. The exhibit experience provided visitors with the unique opportunity to have a "conversation" with Mr. Daskalov through an interactive AI-driven video system.

The exhibition is one part of the Belene Camp project < www.belene.camp >, an effort of the Sofia Platform Foundation, with the support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation, to preserve the memory of Bulgaria's totalitarian past using state-of-the-art technology.

And isn't bringing the past, even the painful and uncomfortable past, into the light of the present in new and engaging ways an essential part of our museum work?  

I urge you to visit all of the organizations' websites linked above to learn more about their important work, including opportunities to "converse" with Belene survivors via a Web interface.

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Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

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Being Braver

I have been studying Bulgarian for the last year or so with an excellent (and extremely patient) tutor based in Sofia, named Billyana.  The other day, during our Zoom lesson, Billyana reminded me to "Be Brave!"

For me, learning a new language as an adult is paradoxical.  You need to acknowledge, right upfront, that you will be making mistakes -- even if you don't want to make those mistakes.  It may be that to really learn a new language, you need to make LOTS of mistakes! And it is important to learn from those mistakes.

So, when Billyana tells me to "Be Brave," it's a shorthand way of encouraging me to dive in and do my best and make mistakes. можело!

Being "braver' carries over to other aspects of life, of course, including museum work. Your first attempt at creating an exhibition or museum program is unlikely to be "perfect." You'll likely need to encounter a few setbacks before you end up with a really great program or exhibit.

Maybe that's why I enjoy doing exhibit prototyping so much. Prototyping actually gives you permission to make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and bring "brave" ideas and energy to your work.

I hope this post encourages you to be "braver" this week in your own creative work!

 

Благодаря Биляна!

 

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Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

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