3 Museum Projects To Support

After my recent cross-country, back-to-back, museum conference trips, I thought I would highlight three museum projects that can benefit from your support: Exhibition Journal, ExhibitFiles, and the Museum People's Tattoos blog.


Exhibition Journal

NAME (The National Association for Museum Exhibition) has recently renamed and redesigned its journal, now called Exhibition.

The latest issue is entitled "Designing Emotion" and contains some fascinating articles that detail unique approaches toward exhibition development practice. NAME makes available two articles from the current issue of Exhibition online, as well as complete digital access to past issues via the Exhibition Journal's online archive. Check out the current free articles by clicking these links: "Designing for Outrage" and "Core Emotion and Engagement in Informal Science Learning"

Of course, the very best way to access Exhibition is by becoming a subscriber.  You can find out how to become a subscriber by clicking this link (and you do not need to be an AAM member to become an Exhibition subsciber.)

Last, but not least, if you've recently seen an exhibition that you'd like to share with colleagues via my "Exhibits Newsline" column, just send me an email for details, so we can get your contributions into a future issue of Exhibition!


ExhibitFiles

Recently, one of my Twitter followers sent me a message lamenting the fact that the ExhibitFiles site seems to be languishing a bit.

What is ExhibitFiles you ask?  ExhibitFiles is a website (originally funded by the National Science Foundation) for museum professionals (and aspiring museum professionals) from around the world to post Reviews of exhibitions they've seen, or to post Case Studies of exhibition projects they have been involved with.  (There's even a category called "Bits" that lets you quickly post bite-sized observations about a particular exhibit element or feature you may have seen.)

ExhibitFiles is a great resource, but it needs active participation to grow. And the more ExhibitFiles grows, the more valuable it becomes to the entire museum field. So I'm asking every ExhibiTricks reader to choose a noteworthy exhibition you see this summer, and add an ExhibitFiles entry this summer. C'mon! Think of it as your "summer resolution"  (it's easier to keep than a New Year's resolution!)

So what are you waiting for?  Click on over to the ExhibitFiles website now!



Museum People's Tattoos

As if running the ExhibiTricks blog wasn't filling a very specialized niche, I also co-run a blog in an even more rarefied niche, called "Museum People's Tattoos."

It really is a funny small museum world.  When I saw my friend Beth Redmond-Jones' awesome Manta Ray tattoo on Facebook, I jokingly suggested that we start a blog called "Museum People's Tattoos."

As the blog intro states: "Many museum folks have a love for tattoos—their cultural significance, their artistic quality, their documentation of the natural world, and some, just for their own personal meaning. For years, we have talked about tattoos, the ones we want, the design, the stories behind them, and the artists who create them ... "

I really love reading about the tattoos and the stories behind them on the blog.  And isn't that what museums are about --- stories and stuff?

So if you'd like to contribute your own tattoo images and stories to the Museum People's Tattoos blog, feel free to send me an email. (You need to be a person who works with or in museums, but your tattoo does not need to necessarily be museum-related.)  C'mon and help Beth and I out! A museum people's tattoos blog doesn't run itself!



BONUS CONTEST!

If you've read this far, you are eligible to win one of two physical copies of the latest Exhibition journal on "Designing Emotion." All you need to do is subscribe to the ExhibiTricks blog by clicking on the link at the top right side of the blog page by May 30th.  (If you are already a subscriber, just send me an email with the subject "Journal Contest" by May 30th for your chance.) At the end of the month, I'll randomly choose one new subscriber and one email entrant to each receive a copy of the latest Exhibition journal. Good luck!

UPDATE: Congratulations to our two contest winners, Alicia V. and Margaret T.  Your copies of Exhibition are in the mail and making their way to you!


Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

ReWind: Many Ways To Say Thanks (and extra Thanks!)

This is the time of the year that many blogs and websites give you their "Top 10 Whatever List."  But given that I don't like those kind of lists (especially the bogus "Top Ten Science Museums" or "Top Ten Children's Museums" lists that seem to pop up in "family" magazines all too often) I thought I'd "ReWind" one of this year's most popular posts instead --- all about ways to thank donors and sponsors in interesting ways --- and couple it to the end of the year "thankful mood" that naturally seems to accompany the Holidays and the New Year.

So, THANKS ExhibiTricks Readers and Subscribers!  I really appreciate the thousands (!) of you who plug into this blog each and every week.  If you have ideas or suggestions for ExhibiTricks in the upcoming year, feel free to email me.

As a bonus for those of you who go in for calendar year transitions, here are two fun "Museum Year Resolutions" ---- things you can do for yourself and the museum field:

1) The first is to contribute to ExhibitFiles (if you haven't already!) and post a review or case study to add to your own professional portfolio, but also to expand the museum field's record of exhibits descriptions and exhibition criticism.  Get started by heading over to the ExhibitFiles website.

2) The second is to join Experimonth.  What's Experimonth? A place to complete monthly challenges and collect data for curious and playful scientists!  It's a project spearheaded by the brilliant Beck Tench, so what are waiting for?  Head over to Experimonth website!


And now, without further ado, here's one of 2013's most popular posts,  

Many Ways To Say Thanks

Most donor recognition installations in museums are really ways to say thanks.  And who could argue with that?

But you can thank someone with the equivalent of a cheap mass-produced card you grabbed on your way home, or with the donor recognition version of a homemade loaf of bread accompanied by a carefully chosen book inscribed to the recipient.

Last month I asked museum folks for images of interesting and thoughtful examples of donor recognition.  I received an avalanche of images --- many more than I'll include in this post, so I've gathered all the images that I've received into a free PDF available for download from the POW! website.

Just click on the "Free Exhibit Resources" link near the center-top of any page on the website, and you'll see an entire collection of free goodies, including the newly added link called "Donor Recognition Examples."  Once you click on the link you'll get the PDF of images. (Be patient --- it's a BIG file.)

So what sorts of images and examples of donor recognition did I receive?  They fell into several larger categories, namely:

• Frames and Plaques

• Walls and Floors

• Genre Specific

• Mechanical/Interactive

• Interesting Materials

• Digital Donor Devices

So let's take each of the six categories and show a few examples of each.


FRAMES and PLAQUES

I'm sure you've seen lots of bad examples of this donor recognition approach, but there is a lot to be said for the simplicity (and creative twists!) that can be employed using this technique.

The image at the top of this post is a nice example of "helping hands" (but still essentially plaques) in this category from the Chicago Children's Museum.

I like the use of colors and the physical arrangements in the following two examples. The first pair of images comes from the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh (with bonus colored shadows!)

The next is a sert of back-lit elements designed by Skolnick A+D Partnership for the Children's Museum of Virginia --- The entire unit is essentially one big lightbox!

Light is also used as a strong element in the image below from Macalester College.  The folks from Blasted Art used Rosco's Lite Pad product to create the glowing text.

Lastly, I like this simple example from the MonDak Heritage Center.  Just frames, but it does the job nicely.

WALLS and FLOORS

Sometimes donor recognition wants to be BIG, in an architectural sense, so interior or exterior walls are used  --- and sometimes even floors!

Here are two exterior wall examples that stood out.  The first from the Creative Discovery Museum

 

And the second from the Oakland Museum.  They are both colorful and animate nicely what would otherwise be a big blank wall. 

 Here's a nice interior wall from Discovery Gateway, in Salt Lake City

 

Each of the pieces is back-laminated graphics on acrylic.  (Here's a detail.)

Of course, even the best-laid donor recognition plans can get circumvented by operational issues!

 

And lastly, here's a floor example from The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History.  It's the Periodic Table with donors in each element.

GENRE SPECIFIC

Several people sent examples of genre specific donor recognition designs.  A popular motif is to use collection objects or images, especially in the case of Natural History Museums.

Here is the Specimen Wall from the California Academy of Sciences.  It's an elegant  low-tech solution that features specimen reproductions encased in laminated glass. The wall was conceived by Kit Hinrichs and realized in collaboration with Kate Keating Associates, with fabrication by Martinelli Environmental Graphics and glass by Ostrom Glassworks.

Here's a clever use of old school tabletop jukeboxes to recognize donors to radio station WXPN put together by Metcalfe Architecture & Design in Philadelphia.

MECHANICAL / INTERACTIVE 

In the same way that interactive exhibits are fun and memorable, donor recognition can be too!

Gears are a popular motif in this regard.  The first image (Grateful Gears) is from an installation at the Kentucky Science Center, while the second is from the Madison Children's Museum.

INTERESTING MATERIALS

Sometimes the design element that gets people to stop and actually read the donor names are the unusual materials that the donor recognition piece is made of. If the materials relate to the institution itself, so much the better!


This first image comes from the San Francisco Food Bank

The next is from the Museum Center at 5ive Points, in Cleveland Tennessee which has a strong history of copper mining.  So this intricate donor recognition piece is made from copper!

I love this clever use of miniature doors and windows at the Kohl Children's Museum.  You can open doors and windows to reveal additional information about donors.

The last entry from this section is the truly striking three-dimensional "Donor Tree" from the Eureka Children's Museum in the UK.

DIGITAL DONOR DEVICES

As with all museum installations, digital technology plays an increasing role --- even in Donor Devices.

One unit that stood out was this digital donor recognition device at the National  Historic Trails Center that solicits donations in real-time and puts up digital "rocks" on the rock wall screen of different sizes --- depending on the size of your donation, of course!  A really neat idea that beats a dusty old donation box,  hands down.

As I mentioned earlier, these images are really the tip of the iceberg.  So please check out the entire PDF of all the images I received by heading over to the "Free Exhibit Resources" section of my website.

Also, if you have some other really good examples of donor recognition installations or devices, feel free to contact me and email them along, and I can share them in future ExhibiTricks posts.



Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Your 2012 New Year's (ExhibitFiles) Resolutions

I normally hate the idea of New Year's resolutions.  Why wait until January to start making improvements?

But here are two easy resolutions for museum/exhibit/design folks to make (and keep!) as the yearly calendar transition approaches:  1) Join ExhibitFiles 2) Post something on ExhibitFiles.

What is ExhibitFiles you ask?  ExhibitFiles is a website (funded by the National Science Foundation) for museum professionals (and aspiring museum professionals) from around the world to post Reviews of exhibits they've seen, or to post Case Studies of exhibition projects they have been involved with.  (There's even a category called "Bits" that lets you quickly post bite-sized observations about a particular exhibit element or feature you may have seen.)

So what are you waiting for?  Click on over to the ExhibitFiles website now.  (It's a lot easier than resolving to lose ten pounds!)

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Automatic ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Your New Year's (ExhibitFiles) Resolution

I normally hate the idea of New Year's resolutions.  Why wait until January to start making improvements? 

But here are two easy resolutions for museum folks to make (and keep!) as the yearly calendar transition approaches:  1) Join ExhibitFiles 2) Post something on ExhibitFiles.

What is ExhibitFiles you ask?  ExhibitFiles is a website (funded by the National Science Foundation) for museum professionals (and aspiring museum professionals) from around the world to post Reviews of exhibits they've seen, or to post Case Studies of exhibition projects they have been involved with.  (There's even a category called "Bits" that lets you quickly post bite-sized observations about a particular exhibit element or feature you may have seen.)

So what are you waiting for?  Click on over to the ExhibitFiles website now.  (It's a lot easier than resolving to lose ten pounds!)

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

ExhibitFiles Launches "Bits"

The already excellent ExhibitsFiles (a community site for exhibit designers and developers to share their Reviews or Case Studies of exhibits or exhibitions) has added a new tab to its homepage called "Bits."

Bits gives you an opportunity to provide, well, just a quick "bit" of information like a picture or video or Flickr link that introduces a cool exhibit idea or something you'd like to get feedback on.  Not quite as detailed as submitting a  Case Study or Review (although, c'mon isn't it time you've submitted one of those to ExhibitFiles already?)

So why not do your "bit" for ExhibitFiles and submit a Bit today?

Not an ExhibitFiles member yet?  It's simple and easy to sign up by clicking here.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Help ExhibitFiles Crack 100!

ExhibitFiles is one of the most important websites for people who care about museum exhibits, period.

What's that? You're not an ExhibitsFile member? So click here now to join up! (It's free, and will only take a minute or two ...we'll wait.)

Now that everyone reading is a member of ExhibitFiles, I hope you'll take the time to post a "Review" of an interesting exhibition you've seen, or a "Case Study" of an exhibition you were involved in creating.

Despite all the time and effort that goes into creating exhibitions, the museum business has been traditionally very lackadaisical about documenting the processes and products involved in exhibition design and development. In many cases, once exhibitions (even incredibly amazing ones!) were dismantled or retired, the information about them --- POOF! --- simply disappeared.

ExhibitFiles was designed as a repository for valuable information, criticism, and documentation regarding exhibitions --- a resource freely shared that everyone could learn and benefit from. Thanks to Kathy McLean from Independent Exhibitions and Wendy Pollock from ASTC for approaching NSF to get the ExhibitFiles project funded. (Also a shout-out to Jim Spadaccini and the Ideum crew for the excellent site design!)

I notice that the ExhibitFiles counters for both "Case Studies" and "Reviews" are nearing that magically round number of 100. So let's make an effort to move ExhibitFiles past that magic "100" mark and beyond!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like movies!)

Happy 1000 ExhibitFiles!

ExhibitFiles now has 1000+ members, as reported on the ExhibitFiles Blog today!

ExhibitFiles is a great site that lets anyone post reviews or case studies of exhibitions. This is especially important for exhibitions that may only be on view for a short period of time, or are displayed in a far-flung part of the world, and then "disappear" forever. Thanks to partial funding from the National Science Foundation, ExhibitFiles provides a forum for people to share their insights about exhibitions and museums from around the globe (including Antarctica!)

In this happy holiday season, why not give a "gift" to the museum business by posting your own exhibition review or case study? (That's a New Year's Resolution that's easy to keep.)

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to subscribe right now via email (or your favorite news reader) with the tools on the right side of the blog.

Planning for People in Museum Exhibitions: An Interview With Kathy McLean

Kathy McLean is a real dynamo who keeps thinking about ways to improve museum exhibitions, and the process by which exhibitions are developed, even after many years in the field. She is currently the president of VSA, The Visitor Studies Association.

Kathy has shared her insights about the exhibition process through her collection of thoughtful books on the subject, most of which are available through ASTC or AAM. She was kind enough to answer a few questions for ExhibiTricks about her work and background.



What’s your educational background?

I attended Friends World College, an experimental college founded by Quakers in the 1960s and based on the notion that if we better understood people's cultures and traditions, we would have a greater chance at achieving global peace. The college was modeled after Dewey's theories of education as experience and the American Friends Service Committee work camps, and we spent our four undergraduate years doing work-study at seven regional centers around the world. I spent most of my time in Mexico, Kenya, India, and Japan.



What got you interested in Museums?

I was looking for a job in the early 1970s, and the Oakland Museum had a number of positions funded by CETA, the Comprehensive Education and Training Act which was an extension of the WPA. I was hired as a Museum Curatorial Specialist to participate in the development and design of a major exhibition—Earthquake!—funded by the National Science Foundation. After about two months at the museum, I realized that this was the type of place that brought together all of my interests— informal education, cultural studies, environmental studies, and civic engagement.



What are some of your best/favorite examples of innovative exhibits?

I still appreciate "The Etiquette of the Undercaste," developed back in the early 1990s by Antenna Theater (not to be confused with Antenna Audio). I went through it at the Experimental Gallery at the Smithsonian. I say "went through it" rather than "saw it" (which is what most people say when describing their experience of an exhibition) because it was a physical experience as much as an experience of sight and the imagination. I entered the exhibition by lying down on a mortuary slab and being pushed into a body vault. On the other side, I was "reborn" and got up and walked through the exhibition as a homeless person. The entire exhibition seemed to be constructed primarily of cardboard, tape, and string. An extraordinary experiment.

I have written a lot about "Massive Change," an exhibition by Bruce Mau on the notion of design as the ultimate tool of social change. I enjoyed the exhibition because of its fresh approach to old rules—many of them deliberately broken—regarding exhibition design and communication. It was a traveling exhibition organized by the Vancouver Gallery of Art, and it only went to three venues, partly because it was large and expensive, but I think primarily because it couldn't be pigeonholed. Was it an art exhibition, a science exhibition, a history exhibition? It didn't fit into the museum mold. Too bad.

One of my favorites that I worked on was "Boundaries: It All Happens on the Edge" at the Exploratorium. It took less than $50,000 and 6 months to develop, from initial idea to installation. An environment constructed of painter's scaffolding, construction fencing, road signs, and large evocative graphics on cardboard panels, it contained a variety of interactive exhibits, immersive environments, and visitor feedback components dealing with a broad range of notions of boundaries, from semi-permeable membranes to personal space, from physics to psychology. It was a real oddball at the Exploratorium partially because it was such an intentionally designed environment, and partially because it was so thematic. One staff member said it was "the ugliest exhibit we have ever done." But visitors seemed to be very engaged, visitors from the Society of Environmental Graphic Design Conference were very excited by it, and it won an AAM Award for Exhibition Excellence.



Tell us a little bit about ExhibitFiles and your role in that?

For years, one of my soapboxes has been that museum exhibition professionals are ahistorical, every few years reinventing the same old wheel. I wrote "Planning for People in Museum Exhibitions" to help overcome that myopia. I've always dreamed of creating an exhibitions archive or some way to gather the knowledge and experience of past and present colleagues so that future colleagues could benefit from their experiences. When I worked on "Best Practices in Science Exhibition Development," I had my first opportunity to facilitate the creation of 12 case studies of exhibitions that colleagues considered to be exemplary. Wendy Pollock and I dreamed up the idea of continuing that process online, and with Jim Spadacinni as the digital designer, ExhibitFiles was born. I am co-PI on the NSF grant that funded the startup. For the most part, my role now is to contribute, to encourage others to contribute, and to think about ways to improve its usability and access.



Why are so many current museums and exhibitions replaying the same design approaches?

I think it gets back to the old "reinventing the wheel" problem. People don't KNOW they are replaying the same design approaches. People don't build on what others have done—or take things in new directions—because they are operating in a relative vacuum. And most museums aren't pushing for excellence—"adequate" seems to be good enough.



Can you talk a little about some of your current projects?

I recently finished conceptual consulting work on the Dallas Museum of Art's Center for Creative Connections (C3)—it opened in May.

And I'm now working on a wonderful reinstallation project at the Oakland Museum of California. I am the consulting Creative Director on the History Gallery redesign. It's strange, because I started my career at the Oakland Museum, and now I am back there 30 years later. It is wonderful to have a major project in my home town, and not have to fly around the country. It's a challenging project, because it has a very tight budget and time frame, and we are trying to do some experiments with interpretation and design. We are incorporating a number of visitor and community co-designed elements, and we are planning on a "soft" opening, after which we will test everything in context and redesign based on the results.

I'm also working with Wendy Pollock on another book—this one on museum spaces (spaces in both the real and metaphoric sense of the word) and the work is very engaging. I keep thinking back to one of my favorite articles about museum space— "The Museum as Symbolic Experience" by Sheldon Annis—which describes three concurrent types of museum visitor experience: in cognitive space, where people acquire factual knowledge; pragmatic space, where the person rather than the object is the focus and museum-going is a social event; and dream space, or the arena of the symbolic.

Being President of the Visitor Studies Association also keeps me busy. I am working with an extraordinary group of visitor studies professionals who are shepherding the organization through a major expansion of its reach and its mission.



What design trends from outside the museum world should we be paying more attention to?

I think technology-based customization is a big one. Whether people are designing their own jeans online or virtually experimenting with different room colors before they paint their house, the public is coming to expect to be able to participate in the design process in some way. And to create something just for them. This has huge implications for museum exhibition design, which has always tended to be a one-size-fits-all proposition.



Can you talk about your role in the "Plants Are Up To Something" project, and the increasing interest in zoos, aquaria, and botanical gardens in interactive exhibits and immersive environments?

The Huntington Conservatory's Project Manager Kitty Connolly brought me onto the project as an advisor during its initial stages. After I left my position at the Exploratorium in 2004, I got more involved as a consulting designer. I think the project and the installation have been successful because of the amount of thoughtful formative evaluation they did over several years. I know zoos and aquaria have been experimenting with interactive elements for some time now. But I think "Plants Are Up to Something" is the first time a botanic garden has created something so authentically interactive.



If money and time were no object, what would your “dream” exhibition project be?

I don't really need a lot of money or time to do my dream exhibitions (and I have several I keep thinking about). I need organizations that are interested in presenting unusual, thought-provoking experiences. I would love to have the freedom to design some small, experimental installations with museums willing to take a risk.

Before I left the Exploratorium, we were developing an idea for an exhibition on social psychology—tentatively titled "Them and Us"—which was very exciting to me. I'd like to develop an exhibition on symbols, symbolism and archetypal psychology, using the work of Joseph Campbell and others. I'd also like to take a constrained situation—like one cubic foot of earth, or one cubic foot of air—and develop a whole exhibition around it. And I'd love to do an exhibition on the transformative power of music.


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Thanks again to Kathy McLean for sharing her thoughts about museums and museum exhibitions!

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