Pass The Flamingo: An Interview with Andrew Coletti

Andrew Coletti is an educator, writer and history / fantasy / food nerd who holds degrees in Classics and Museum Education. He is a full-time educator for the non-profit Salvadori Center. You can also find him teaching about ancient food (and sharing some) at the Brooklyn Brainery, Caveat and other venues around New York City. His food writing has appeared in Eaten magazine and Atlas Obscura and his fantasy novella The Knife’s Daughter is now available from Pink Narcissus Press.  

Andrew was kind enough to answer some questions about his work and background in this interview for ExhibiTricks readers.


What’s your educational background?
I have a BA in Classics from Bard College and a Masters in Museum Education from Bank Street College of Education.


What got you interested in Museums?
During college, I got a summer job as an intern in the Education Department of the MFA in Boston. I had never really heard of museum education as a field, so I’m not sure how I found the job posting or what made me decide to apply, but I’m glad I did! That summer I got to develop teacher resources to supplement school programs, and I fell in love with museums and education from there.


What prompted you to start your “Pass the Flamingo” blog?
I’ve always loved the ancient world and over time, I realized that food was a great way of bringing ancient history to life for people. I had been giving lecture-based classes for adults on ancient history at the Brooklyn Brainery for a while when I decided to incorporate some food, using a cookbook of reconstructions I had sitting on my bookshelf but had never really used. I made Mesopotamian beer for people to sample at my Mesopotamia class and later hosted a Roman dinner party at home using recipes from the same book. 

I had been steadily gaining an interest in cooking around the same time, so I was really excited to have found a way to combine my interests. Soon I was giving classes at the Brainery specifically on ancient food, with a menu of samples. The blog developed out of those classes. Since then, I’ve gotten to present about ancient food at museums and educational venues outside the Brainery and publish my food writing outside of my blog.


Tell us a little bit about how your background informs your work?
One of my college professors used to joke that majoring in Classics is like majoring in everything. You get a little bit each of history, language, art history, philosophy, etc. and you learn to be a good writer, which is a skill you can apply anywhere. I try to take some of that well-roundedness that I was encouraged to cultivate in college into the work I do.

Because I didn’t study education until grad school, my approach to teaching and curriculum development is very influenced by Bank Street’s philosophy. I’m big into hands-on experiential learning with multiple sensory levels, and that has informed my approach to ancient history as well, such as the food blog and classes.


What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about the latest thinking on ancient history?

 • All Mesopotamia (Find them at Facebook or allmesopotamia.wordpress.com): They post really cool and informative articles that take a deeper dive into Mesopotamian culture and history.

• Eidolon (eidolon.pub): Fun modern Classics scholarship, often slightly tongue-in-cheek or with a pop cultural bent

• Colleen Darnell (@vintage_egyptologist on Instagram): A professor of Egyptology at Yale who also happens to be obsessed with vintage fashion. She posts interesting snippets of Ancient Egyptian history and literature with images of herself in fabulous 1920s garb.

What advice would you have for fellow cultural workers and educators, especially those from smaller institutions, in bringing an appreciation of ancient history into their work?
Be flexible and embrace new interpretations of old material, and don’t be afraid to introduce a historical parallel or connection where it might not be expected. You’d be surprised the number of connections you can make between ancient and modern people’s lives, especially when you look at common human experiences (like food, love/sex, and death). 

When I teach my ancient food classes, the most important thing I want people to take away from the experience is that ancient people really weren’t that different from us. If you can believe that, it’s easier to see how it can be relevant to your own life, which is the biggest hurdle people have to overcome to get interested in or excited about the ancient world: what does it have to do with me?


What do you think is the “next frontier” for museums?
I feel like I am seeing museums increasingly reinvent themselves and restructure their way of presenting their collections, although some institutions are ahead of others in this regard. I think it will need to happen to a greater extent for museums to stay relevant and inspire new generations of people to care about their collections.


What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions?
I recently got to visit the Museum of Childhood in London. It’s a really fun and different take on a children’s museum, with displays that trace the evolution of children’s toys and games over the centuries.

In the US, I love the Mesopotamian galleries at the Morgan Library & Museum and the Penn Museum museum in Philadelphia. NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World on the Upper East Side often has cool temporary exhibitions.


Can you talk a little about your book?
Sure! My novella The Knife’s Daughter will be available July 10th from Pink Narcissus Press. You could say it’s loosely related to my love of food and ancient history (food comes up quite a lot and it’s set in a world inspired by ancient Korea). It’s meant as a subversion of familiar fairytale tropes, including the prince who goes on a quest; in this case, the hero is a prince who was born female but raised to consider themselves male. It’s written in the second person so that the hero is just referred to as “you.”

If money were no object, what would your “dream” museum project be?
I would like to stage a production of my college senior project (a one-act comedy in which I performed in drag as the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna), in the Ancient Near Eastern galleries at the Met.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with ExhibiTricks readers, Andrew! Find out more about Andrew's work through his ancient food blog at www.passtheflamingo.com or @passtheflamingo on Instagram and Twitter. 


AND NOW THE FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY!  We will be giving away two FREE copies of Andrew's new book, The Knife's Daughter to two lucky ExhibiTricks readers!  Here's what you need to do to win --- if you are not yet a subscriber to the ExhibiTricks blog, just click on the link at the very top right of this page and subscribe via email or your favorite newsreader app.  If you are already a subscriber to the ExhibiTricks blog, just send me an email and put "I want to win a copy of Andrew's new book!" in the subject line.

In either case, you must enter by July 27, 2018 to be eligible to win. One new subscriber and one existing subscriber email will be chosen at random to receive one copy of The Knife's Daughter. GOOD LUCK!



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.

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Asking the "Why" Questions: An Interview with Bob Beatty

A twenty-year veteran of the nonprofit world, Bob Beatty is founder of The Lyndhurst Group, a history, museum, and nonprofit consulting firm providing community-focused engagement strategies for institutional planning, organizational assessments, and interpretive direction. Bob was kind enough to share some thoughts about his work with ExhibiTricks readers in the interview below.


What’s your educational background?
I like to say that I'm an accidental museum professional and my "museum" degree is from the School of Hard Knocks. That's mostly true. My bachelors is in Liberal Studies, a.k.a.: "College." This reflects the fact that I changed my major five or six times and after four years at the University of Central Florida, I didn't have enough credits in only one area to graduate. Thankfully an advisor showed me how I could cobble something together, basically four minors and no major. 

I was getting my master's in history, also at UCF, when I started my museum career. Honestly, when I started the program, this career wasn’t even on my radar. I just thought, "I like history and I want to get a graduate degree." Several years into it, I started at the History Center in Orlando and the rest, as they say, is history.

In 2013 I started the Ph.D. in Public History program at Middle Tennessee State University and should graduate this August. So I'll soon have some "official" academic bonafides for our field.


What got you interested in Museums?
There really wasn't a single moment I don't think, but a series of events. First was the Elliott Museum in Stuart, Florida. They had these great vignette displays with mannequins—kind of like life-sized dioramas. I remember a barber shop and the druggist—I believe it also had a cobbler and some type of general store. I was fascinated by them and still love dioramas to this day.

Also nearby in Stuart was the House of Refuge, a historic site that was the last of many such places along the beaches in Florida (and maybe elsewhere) for shipwrecked sailors. I think I was intrigued by the story of these places, as well as the sense of adventure and danger they evoked in my imagination.

I pretty much always gravitated toward the "tangible" in museums and used to drag my family to historic sites, battlefields, and forts. I remember being intrigued by a historical display of Civil War objects at the long-gone Six Gun Territory in Ocala, Florida, and the displays in public places: restaurants, hotels, banks, post offices, businesses, and the like. These still stir my imagination.

Thinking back, the first time I even considered the possibility of working in a museum was when I was 12 or 13 visiting a museum at a community college in a small town in Alabama. The director probably saw a little bit of me in him and was really gracious, helpful, and friendly about the field. It stuck with me for sure. 


Tell us a little bit about how your background informs your consulting work?
I think there is so much unrealized potential and power in the exploration of history, no matter what you do in life nor which museum discipline you work in. It's trite to say, "You can't know where you're going until you know where you've been," but it's also true!

Good history regularly attempts to answer the "Why" question(s): Why did something happen?; Why are things the way they are today (or were "back then")?; Why this/that/the other matters? The list is truly endless. Things don't just magically "become" they way they are today, a number of forces combined to make it so. That's what makes history so fascinating to me.

As it pertains to consulting work, asking why helps in any number of ways as I help clients adapt to the needs of their stakeholders. Some questions are more simple: "Why do you have barriers to a room in a historic house when you only lead people through on guided tours?" or "Why do you limit photographs?" There might be very good answers, and that's important to tease out. But you and I both know that barriers can represent both physical as well as intellectual obstacles and/or that people LOVE to post photographs of places they've been on social media, which is a great marketing/PR opportunity.


Do you think your approach to project development is different because you focus on history projects?
In some ways yes and in some ways no. I focus on history projects because that's where I have the most experience and it's also my passion.

But I have found that our work—yours, mine, whoever's—is very similar in a lot of ways. We are using the tools we have at our disposal (art, science, history, play, experience, you name it) in an institutional setting for the betterment of communities, stakeholders, and/or constituencies. The instruments may change, but we're all part of the same orchestra. My instrument, if you will, is history. (It's also guitar, but that's another story!) 


What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about the latest thinking on public history?
I served as editor of History News magazine and managing editor of the AASLH book series with Rowman & Littlefield from 2007-2018, and both have proven invaluable for staying informed.

I'm also a pretty avid reader of blogs. John Fea's The Way of Improvement Leads Home is a must-read on a variety of topics, mostly historical. Kevin Levin's Civil War Memory really keeps me informed about issues related to how communities grapple with history. I am also a huge fan of Colleen Dilenschneider's  Know Your Own Bone blog on audience research.  Though his blog mostly waxes poetic about music, I find Bob Lefsetz says a lot about audiences that I think applies to my work. In some ways, he reminds me of Carol Kammen whose "On Doing Local History" column in History News has long been an inspiration of mine. 

Twitter has just become a great place to see the discussion going on with historians of all stripes: academic and public historians in academia, history professionals, museum professionals, public intellectuals, and even celebrities.

Several podcasts are regularly in my queue as well: The Road to Now (which features Bob Crawford of the Avett Brothers and historian Ben Sawyer), Museum People from the New England Museum Association, and Museums in Strange Places from my colleague Hannah Hethmon. This is by no means a comprehensive list. But each addresses our work either specifically or tangentially. It's up to me to make the connections to my own work.

I also maintain contact with a lot of people from all levels of work in our field: consultants, directors, educators, curators, students, you name it. Sometimes I'll see something come across the transom and reach out to someone about a program or activity. Other times I'll schedule a call just to check in or pick someone's brain. There are so many people doing so many amazing things and collegiality is one of our best traits as museum/history professionals.


What advice would you have for fellow museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in bringing aspects of community engagement into their work?
I blogged about this a little while ago. It's a term that Kent Whitworth first shared with me: "Stewardship is the open hand, not the closed fist."

People have to remember that we're in this together with stakeholders, constituencies, and the community. We cannot mandate from on high. The open hand means asking: “What can do that benefits you the most? How do we help you achieve your goals?” The closed fist is more like, “I’ll tell you what you need that we can provide.” (Sometimes the latter statement also adds the word “only” to the equation.)

This is a museum professional's version of the Platinum Rule: "Treat others the way they want to be treated."


What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions?
There are too many to mention and I know I'm going to leave a few out. The Strong in Rochester, New York, is probably my favorite museum. I really loved the history of California exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California, particularly its Forces of Change gallery which I thought was just terrific in both engaging the public and in what they displayed. Like many of us in this business, the Tenement Museum is at the top of my list. I also have a real affinity for Civil Rights-related museums like the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, and the Rosa Parks Museum. The recent redo of the LBJ Library and Museum really gave me some renewed insight into Johnson as a president—particularly as it related to Civil Rights and the fight against poverty.

I really love the museums that made me think about the hard stuff. I visited the Museum of Tolerance last summer and it moved me tremendously. The same happened before I was even working in the field when I first visited the Holocaust Museum in DC. Visits to the Oklahoma City Memorial Museum and the National September 11 Memorial Museum impacted me greatly. I should also note the tremendous admiration I have for those who work in these museums. I don't run from the challenging discussions, but I'm not sure I could do it on a 24/7 basis like they do.

Closer to home, I love what Joe Chambers has done with the Musicians Hall of Fame here in Nashville. It's a real hidden gem in a town with a lot of music-related tourism.

That's a pretty robust list but only scratches the surface. I can usually find something to love in just about every museum I visit. So I guess you could say my next visit is probably my favorite.


What do you think is the “next frontier” for museums?
When you figure it out, please let me know!

All kidding aside, I've been keeping my eye on a couple of things. First, as always, is community engagement. When I did my master's thesis "Legacy to the People : Community and the Orange County Regional History Center," I learned how deeply embedded the ideal of community service is in American museums and I've never stopped striving for that.

Collections are our single biggest competitive advantage and I see us continuing to find new ways to use artifacts, objects, and other primary sources in our work. I believe our audiences respond best to this. They may not know the terms "object," "artifact," "archival collection," or even what differentiates various styles of art, but they know they like the "real" that these things represent. And experiencing them online or on television cannot replace experiencing them in person. Along those lines, I've long followed the Active Collections work of Elee Wood, Rainey Tisdale, and Trevor Jones that resulted in a book earlier this year.

I'd also like to see us, as a field, find a way to measure our public value. I've blogged a bit about this already. AAM has recently done a good job reporting on Museums as Economic Engines and the high esteem the public holds for us. But we've yet to truly capture the intangible that we provide to our communities. I've been keeping an eye on the Happy Museum Project out of the U.K. for a few years and perhaps "happiness" is a way we can measure our value.

And like community engagement, the issue of sustainability is not a new frontier at all but it's an important one. I see this resting on two cornerstones in the immediate term.

The first is Diversity and Inclusion. In my book I refer to the former as a passive pursuit and the latter as the more active. We must seek to be more inclusive (and genuine in that attempt). We do this not only because it's the right thing to do but also because audience demographics are against us.

The second is advocacy. We simply must get better advocating for our ourselves and our work. I call it "the steady drumbeat of advocacy"—advocating constantly, not only when faced with some sort of policy or funding crisis.


Can you talk a little about your book? What were interesting common threads in the essays? What surprises popped up?
An AASLH Guide to Making Public History was originally just going to be a compilation of articles I had published as History News editor. Kent Whitworth was program chair for the 2008 AASLH annual meeting (in Rochester, home of the Strong). He hit upon the theme of "transformation" due to the Strong's institutional transformation; it also fit well with Rochester's history. Together we pondered the possibility of transforming the AASLH meeting itself and hit upon the idea of publishing a "theme essay" History News in Spring 2008. We have kept that up since then with articles every year in the spring on the upcoming meeting theme. (As a matter of fact, the latest History News, my 48th and final as editor, has Tim Grove's article for 2018 on Truth or Consequences.) 

The book was originally going to be me compiling these already-written essays into a book, writing a brief introduction and maybe a conclusion, and publishing them with Rowman & Littlefield. I made the "mistake" of bringing it to my dissertation committee at MTSU as my capstone project. I say "mistake" because they wanted me to put more of my own thoughts into the book. So the book went from ten chapters to, ultimately, twenty-one. I wrote ten. It was a great exercise for me and I used a ton of resources beyond just those articles. I ultimately framed the discussions history professionals had had since 2008 around those themes.

Not surprisingly, the book includes lots of discussion on many of the issues I raised in answering your "Next Frontier" question. Financial and institutional sustainability remains top-of-mind as does a need to transform how we operate/interact with our communities. Collections, the sheer volume history organizations hold, standards for care, and what to collect, also predominate.

The other two main themes are Diversity and Inclusion (a term I capitalize intentionally) and History Relevance. Both issues extend well beyond history organizations.

Would you also like to talk about your thesis work?
I'm near completion of the first draft of my dissertation, “You Wanna Play in My Band, You’d Better Come to Pick”: Duane Allman and American Music. It looks at the life's work and career of one of my heroes, Duane Allman, and his founding of the Allman Brothers Band, a truly groundbreaking band.

Those who know me know I'm kind of obsessive about the Allman Brothers. They just represent everything about music that I like. Of the music I love, they've got all of it (with the exception of punk rock—but they have that in attitude). The dissertation is my attempt to say why that band was so special. Writing it and earning the Ph.D. is this is the last of a group of goals I wrote down when my youngest daughter was born. So it's a culmination in a lot of ways.


If money were no object, what would your “dream” museum project be?
Oh, don't do this to me! It would be very artifact-focused. Almost dominated by artifacts. You can rarely have too many of them for me.

The museum would be place-based. I prefer historic sites and historic buildings: purpose-built museum buildings just don't carry the same weight with me. The subject matter would be historical, but would definitely relate to the present day. I mean, why study history in the first place if it doesn't somehow relate to present circumstances? And it'd include music or music history in some way: instruments, stories, songs, movements, all of that.


Thanks again to Bob for sharing his thoughts (and all the great links!) with ExhibiTricks readers!  

Click over to The Lyndhurst Group website to find out more about Bob and his work.  And if you'd like to get a 30% discount on Bob's book, An AASLH Guide to Making Public History, just click on this link, and enter the Discount Code: RLFANDF30 on the Publisher's website.



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!)

Pre-Election Mental Palate Cleanser: Museum People's Interviews!

Look, I get that the US election is important, but I'm begging you to take just a short break from the vitriol and doomsday predictions on both sides, and read a few of these interviews from some wonderful museum people instead.

One of my favorite things about museum people is their genuine capacity for sharing --- be it time, information, or expertise.

One of my favorite things about this blog is the opportunity to give a forum to colleagues through the ongoing interview feature on ExhibiTricks.

After hundreds of entries since I started blogging back in 2007(!) I've built up quite a "back catalog" of posts, including interviews with some of the most talented and thoughtful folks in the museum biz.

You can find their interviews by using the "Search Box" on the right hand side of this page (and searching for the word "interviews" natch!) but I thought I'd highlight a few you may have missed if you're a newer ExhibiTricks reader, or some that are just worth another careful read.

Think of it as a pre-election mental "palate cleanser."  Maybe even a guide on working together with others after the election results are in ...

Click on one of the names below (in alphabetical order!) to start the flow of ideas and inspiration.

Enjoy!


Sean Duran

Christina Joy Ferwerda

Rachel Hellenga 

Erika Kiessner

Brad Larson

Kathy McLean

Margaret Middleton

Beth Redmond-Jones

Dana Schloss

Nina Simon

Dan Spock

Jason Jay Stevens

Harry White

Lyn Wood

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!)

Sacred and Stolen: An Interview with Gary Vikan

Gary Vikan was Director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore from 1994 to 2013; from 1985 to 1994, he was the museum’s Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Medieval Art. Before coming to Baltimore, Vikan was Senior Associate at Harvard’s Center for Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. A native of Minnesota, he received his BA from Carleton College and his Ph.D. from Princeton University; he is a graduate of the Harvard Program for Art Museum Directors and the National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program.

Gary was kind enough to provide this interview for ExhibiTricks in conjunction with his recently published book, Sacred and Stolen: Confessions of a Museum Director

What got you interested originally in museum work?  In the late ‘70s, I was a Byzantine scholar at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC; by day I studied some of the most arcane subjects in the Greek medieval world, but at night, I taught adults in the Smithsonian Residents’ Associate Program. I needed to connect with people, and to make my scholarship somehow meaningful to everyday people. (Thus, my interest in Elvis as a modern secular saint.) And I wanted to use the art of the distant past, and the aura I personally felt surrounding this art, to make that connection to the public. The art experience is, for me, a spiritual experience, and I see myself as its evangelist.

What is your favorite exhibition of the many you worked on? I have two, and they are very different. One, from 25 years ago, is Holy Image, Holy Space: Icons and Frescoes from Greece. I especially liked this show because it marked the first time I was able, in a gallery space, to unleash the spiritual power of the icon. I could tell I succeeded, because the Plexiglass bonnets protecting the icons were covered with kiss marks. With that exhibition, I had brought the holy - the numinous - into the art museum.

My other favorite, from just a few years back, is Beauty and the Brain. This was a tiny, inexpensive show that I did in collaboration with a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins. It was interactive, and invited visitors to choose their favorite among a multiplicity of subtly morphed shapes. Our aim was to discover if people are “hard wired” for certain shapes (think of Henry Moore); and the answer is yes. 

What prompted you to write a book delving into the shadier side of the museum world? As I walked the galleries in the Walters giving tours, I became increasingly inclined over the years to relate the story behind the work of art, as distinct from the art history of the work. I found them much more interesting, as did my audience. Maybe it’s just that I’m a storyteller by nature. Anyhow, in retirement, I decided to tell some of the stories that I could not tell while still director. And it is true, lots of odd things go on behind the scenes in art museums, and I think the public deserves to know about them. After all, our collections belong to the public, and we work for the public.

How have museums responded to your book? No question I’ve irritated some museum people, and made others uncomfortable. But at the same time, I’ve gotten invitations to speak before museum audiences, so that tells me that at least some museum directors have the courage to open that “staff only” door and let their members and donors into the back-of-house. 

What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about repatriation or return of stolen objects? I love The Cultural Property Observer, online, because it gives a balanced view. This is especially important right now, as the message mostly encountered in the media is that ISIS is somehow making hundreds of millions of dollars in looted antiquities from Syria and Iraq. This simply is not true, and if the US makes policy decisions (as it now is) believing that it is true, we are at risk going too far in closing our borders, and in curtaining gifts of works to our museums from US collectors - and thus endangering the ecosystem of antiquities collecting and gifting that has made our great encyclopedic museums. 

What advice would you have for museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in making sure their exhibitions and programs manifest in ethical ways? Keep the public good and the public trust ALWAYS at the top of your thinking. And never forget that works of art are mute, and they, too, need advocacy.

What do you think is the “next frontier” for museums and museum oversight? Finding a way to reboot the antiquities trade in what I believe is our “post looting” world. My book is a window onto a very different time in American collecting of antiquities - 30 or so years ago. It was truly a “wild west,” of don’t ask and don’t tell. I’m glad those days have passed, but what we are left with right now is an impasse between established collectors and collections and museums, and thus, the public.

The rules for buying and gifting antiquities have simply become too rigid. And so vast numbers of great works of art cannot now be bought by or donated to museums. The key to the future, I think, is the Internet, and transparency. Put these hundreds of thousands of antiquities already within the borders of the US, but lacking full documentation back to the UNESCO Convention on cultural property of 1970, on the Internet. If legitimate claims of looting are brought forward by source countries, those claims should be entertained in good faith. But in the absence of such claims, over time, de facto title should be granted to the collectors or dealers possessing the works, which can then reenter the antiquities trade - and ultimately, end up in a public museum.

How can museum professionals promote ethical collecting and exhibiting of artifacts? The key, again, is transparency. The last work the Walters acquired when I was director, in 2012, was a medieval Armenian tombstone. A visually powerful and important work, and the only one of its kind now owned by an American museum. We could not fully document the history of the piece, so we went to the Armenian Embassy in DC, and asked them what they thought (after alerting the dealer of our intent). Fine, they said, we would be proud to see this work of Armenian culture in Baltimore. In the end, pretty simple.

If money were no object, what would your “dream” museum project be?  I would love to partner with the neuroscience department at Johns Hopkins, and neuroscientists around the globe who are exploring innovation, creativity, the aesthetic experience et cetera, and do a major show exploring the present state of the intersection of art (very broadly defined) and brain science. It is a truly exciting frontier, and I think I am (almost) uniquely suited to brokering a multilateral exhibition collaboration among cultural historians, artists (musicians, architects, and writers), aestheticians, social anthropologists, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists. And it would be highly interactive, and have virtual reality as a key experiential dimension. It would be a big and bold version of my 2010 Beauty and the Brain project. It is the emerging field of “neuroaesthetics.” It could be co-hosted by the Met and the American Museum of Natural History.

Thanks again to Gary for sharing his thoughts with ExhibiTricks readers!


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