Museums Involving Communities: Authentic Connections

In Margaret Kadoyama’s vision, cultural organizations are vital members of their communities and are actively involved in community revitalization.  Margaret works collaboratively with museums and cultural organizations to create strategic community involvement and audience development plans, assess programs, and plan for sustainability. 

Margaret was kind enough to share some thoughts here on the ExhibiTricks blog about her new book, Museums Involving Communities: Authentic Connections.


Imagine this: You are on vacation, and you decide to check out a local museum. You have a professional and personal interest in visiting, and when you arrive, you notice that the people there – the staff and visitors – seem to be happy to be there, and there is a vitality and energy about the place. When you look around, the staff and visitors are all sorts of people – various ages, styles, races, ethnicities, groupings, and the place feels welcoming and inclusive. People are engaged with one another and with the exhibitions and programs. You think, “Wow – this is a great place to be! How did it come to be like this?”

That scenario is a guidepost for me, and writing this book has been a way to discover how to make that happen for more museums. I have been long committed to the quiet but tenacious goal of helping people learn how museums can be vital members of their communities.  Since the late 1980s this vision has driven my work, and when I was asked to teach at John F. Kennedy University Museum Studies in 1997, I hoped that this was a way to influence many students over many years to embrace and incorporate community involvement into their daily practice. It has been a great pleasure to see hundreds of JFKU students embracing community work and join with colleagues in moving this forward. To my delight, the museum field has grown and is increasingly embracing community-focused work.

At this time and place (the United States in 2018), colleagues in many museums and cultural organizations are articulating the importance of being inclusive. A current example is the April 2018 issue of National Geographic, in which Editor in Chief Susan Goldberg’s editor letter acknowledges National Geographic’s racist history, and notes, “Let’s examine why we continue to segregate along racial lines and how we can build inclusive communities.”

The purpose of Museums Involving Communities: Authentic Connections is to explore how museums can become vital members of their communities, actively involved in community revitalization, and how community members can become actively involved with their museums. This exploration examines the components of museum-community relationships, with the goal of creating more accessible, inclusive, and relevant museums and cultural organizations. 

This book provides insights and guidance into how museums can be more fully engaged with their communities.  We take you through the process, looking internally to learn about our museums and ourselves, and then externally to learn about our communities.  We’ve included key questions to help guide this process, such as:

• What is your intention for engaging in a museum-community involvement initiative?

• Why do you want to have stronger relationships with people and organizations in your community?

• What do you hope will happen as you become more fully involved in your community?

Also included are stories from the field to illustrate how organizations such as the Science Museum of Minnesota, Queens Museum, Arab American National Museum, Oakland Museum of California, and others are embracing community. The stories are not only about what the museum leadership and staff are doing, but also why they are doing it, the challenges they are facing, how they navigate through those challenges, and the short-term and longer-term impacts of their work for the museums and their communities. And, sample worksheets and charts are included as helpful tools for museum leadership and staff.

In the book, we ask questions about communities’ impacts on museum programs, exhibitions, collections, audience and internal culture, a museum’s impact on its community, and the role of leadership in fostering community engagement. The book guides the reader to a) understand how relationships between communities and museums can be forged, b) learn and weigh strategies for involving and advocating for communities in museums, and c) learn how to develop a community involvement action plan.


A question posed by my friend and colleague Leslie Bedford says it best:

Why are some museums comfortable and successful at embracing community and others not? How is that culture of inclusion created and sustained?

Museums Involving Communities hopes to help you find out.

AND NOW --- A CHANCE TO WIN A FREE COPY OF MARGARET'S NEW BOOK!

If you would like a chance to win a copy of Margaret's new book, Museums Involving Communities: Authentic Connections, just become an email subscriber to the ExhibiTricks blog by clicking on the link at the top right of the blog's homepage.  If you are already an ExhibiTricks subscriber you can simply send an email to info@orselli.net with the subject line "I want to win a book!" 

In either case, all entries must be received before April 30, 2018.  The randomly-selected winner will be notified after that time.

UPDATE: Congratulations to Blaire B. of the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery for winning the book!


You can also order a copy of Margaret's book directly from the Routledge Publishing website.  If you enter the code FLR40, you can receive a 20% discount at checkout.  (The book is also available at Amazon and other online booksellers.)


For those of you attending the 2018 AAM Conference in Phoenix, Margaret will be doing a book signing on Monday, May 7th from 3:00 to 4:00 PM at the Alliance Bookstore -- Booth #2448 in the Expo Hall.


Last, but not least, you can find out more about Margaret and her work by visiting her 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!)

Raising Up Little Voices: Girl Museum

In response to a recent ExhibiTricks post about "small but mighty" museums doing things a bit differently than the "mega-museums" in the world, Tiffany Rhoades from Girl Museum reached out and offered to share some information and insights based on her experiences there --- first as an intern, and now Program Developer. 

Tiffany has worked on amazing projects that are pushing the boundaries of museums. Today, she’d like to share with ExhibiTricks readers what Girl Museum is, what they’re been working on, and tips for success in engaging with communities.

Girl Museum is…

Girl Museum is the first and only museum in the world dedicated to celebrating girlhood.  We research, preserve, and present the history of girls from all cultures and time periods, with an emphasis on letting their voices and stories shine. 

“But wait, isn’t that just a women’s history museum?”

Well, no.  While we do talk about women’s history a lot, Girl Museum is different because we intentionally focus our gaze on the experiences of females from birth through the age of 25.  Our work crosses into women’s history – because the voices and records of girls are largely lost to us.  We have to dig for them, but we know the girls are there because we’ve already found so much.

And all of this is accomplished by a volunteer team (not even our director is paid!), on a shoestring budget, and put online so it is freely accessible by anyone, anywhere, anytime. 

Girl Museum does…

In the three years I’ve worked with Girl Museum, we’ve produced projects that have reached new audiences and highlighted marginalized groups:

Surfer Girl looked at the history and contemporary culture of women in surfing, and was entirely contributor-led. It included videos on surf history by students, oral history interviews with female surfers of the 1950s and 1960s, and stories showcasing how surfing is giving girls better opportunities and a platform to advocate for equality.

Heroines Quilt 2016: Girls of World War II showcased the real women and girls who were impacted by the war, both at home and abroad.  Utilizing our blog as a platform for engagement, we invited visitors to discover a new story every day during Women’s History Month, and dive deeper through photo essays and our podcast series.

STEM Girls showcased the history of women in STEM fields, as a platform to explore how we can get more girls interested in STEM.  This exhibition was one of our most well-received to date and proved that exhibits can be platforms for changing the world.

Gamer Girl invited female gamers around the world to discover their long (and surprising!) history and advocate for better treatment and representation.  It featured contributions from well-known gaming professionals, while also giving a voice to girls around the world with our Why I Game participatory quilt – making it our largest and most popular exhibition to date.

This year and next, we’ll introduce exhibits focused on girls’ history, including Kindertransport and Ancient Girls.  We’ll also combine history with pop culture in our explorations of what it means to be a Warrior Princess and how girls have impacted music in Alternative Girls.  And there’s so much more in the works – including fashion, art, girl groups, more historical periods, and mythology.

Tips for Success

Though we’re entirely in the virtual realm, the lessons I’ve learned from creating these projects are integral to making museums more relevant and engaging to our communities. 

1. Let Your Community Guide You

When producing Surfer Girl, I started with only a rough idea of what I wanted.  I researched a lot, but what I couldn’t find was the actual voices of girls.  So, I put aside my notes and reached out to surfers, surfing companies, and academics for advice.  What I got were contributions from around the world that showcased exactly what I wanted: surfer girls’ stories, told in their own words.  My job was simply to put these stories together and provide transitions along the way. 

The result was an exhibition that engaged new audiences with our museum, used a variety of multimedia, and had other underrepresented groups emailing in to discuss possibilities.  We also made connections that have proved vital to keeping our museum funded.

2. Embrace Social Media

We live and breathe social media.  It’s the primary way we connect with our audience – sharing stories we find interesting, highlighting girl-related news, and connecting with people who can help bring our ideas to life.  We use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and a blog on a daily basis. 

In late 2014, we put together a Social Media Strategic Plan.  Within one year, we nearly doubled our social media following – and it’s still growing. 

3. Infuse Everything with Passion

Every project our interns are assigned is given to them because either (a) it was their idea or (b) they absolutely love the topic.  By empowering every member of our team to pursue what inspires and motivates them, we produce projects that tap into the hearts of our audience.  (Bonus: Many of our interns stay on as long-term supporters, advocates, and contributors!)

As a museum, our job is to inspire people – and passion is the key to doing that.  We tell every exhibit like a story – one infused with real voices, real experiences, and real questions.  When we invite contributions, we make a point not to edit more than grammar.  When we produce a project, we ask how it is relevant to today – and we aren’t afraid to stand up, put in a call to action, or ask our audience the hard questions. 

In Kindertransport, we’re doing just that – showcasing the experiences of girl refugees during World War II, linking it to the refugee crisis today, and asking, “Are we willing to stand by and watch another genocide?  Or are we going to do something about it?”

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Fail.

We’ve failed – epically.  Several of our projects never go viral.  But no matter what, we keep trying.  We haven’t figured it all out yet – our budget alone could tell you that – but we’re not giving up.  Because what we do is important.  Because we know that we can change lives.  Because girls – from throughout time and space – deserve a museum entirely their own.  Because museums matter, now more than ever.

Tiffany Rhoades is a public historian and emerging museum professional, specializing in exhibitions, social media, and digital public programs.  She volunteers as Girl Museum’s Program Developer, and currently makes ends meet as an independent consultant for museums and museum-related organizations.

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!)

How Do Museums Adapt To What's Changing Around Us?

One of the many responses to the recent ExhibiTricks post entitled "What Is Innovative Exhibition Design?"  came from Walter Staveloz, the Director of International Relations at the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) in Washington, D.C.

With Walter's kind permission, I've printed his response in today's post.  (PLEASE NOTE: Although Walter works for ASTC, the words below represent his views only, not necessarily those of ASTC.)


I think it's great that we are finally discussing how effective our field is in its core business. Thanks to Axel and Paul for launching this discussion. I will not try to respond or comment on most of what Axel says, I want to make some side observations to contribute to the discussion.

I think that my first remark would be that we cannot or should not see an exhibit (hands-on or not) isolated from the rest of the museum experience. As Axel points out, there is no way that an isolated exhibit will deliver what we expect. Even the most effective and most surprising exhibit, such as a counter-intuitive experience, does not teach a lot of anything, as has been proved by the Exploratorium. There needs to be a favourable environment that includes cultural dimensions: "Counterintuitive experience does not necessarily support inquiry, neither does straightforward hands-on. It’s all the other aspects like: great aesthetics, opportunities for creation and intriguing representations". J.P. Gutwill: Journal of Museum Education, Volume 33, 2. 2008.

In addition, a science centre experience has to build on the social dimension of the visit. It is and has to be different from a visit to an art museum because it does not appeal only to emotions - it is supposed to help us understand something that will hopefully be meaningful for the visitor’s future life. The best strategy to build on is to stimulate group learning, as a family or as a school group.

In South Africa, Prof. Jan Smit applies this through the POE method. It's a three phase process where visitors are invited to predict, then to observe and discuss and finally and only after, read the explanation about what they saw. That only works if visitors create a dialogue among themselves. Something that was successfully tested at the Exploratorium using the GIVE project.

The team built experiments where groups discussed so called "juicy questions" in order to have a fruitful discussion as well as a "hands off" one. The results are absolutely positive:

"Families and field trip groups who’d learned one of the inquiry games did more “linked” investigations than those who hadn’t been taught the games. In other words, their questions built on each other to create a line of investigation, rather than being lots of unrelated questions….. In particular, groups who had learned to play “Juicy Question” interpreted their results most often. Families in Juicy Question spent more time at the exhibit than other families. Families and field trip groups who’d learned one of the inquiry games made more “consecutive interpretations” than those who hadn’t been taught the games – meaning group members made interpretations in a back-and-forth conversational way, rather than making interpretations in isolation.  This suggests they were trying to make meaning of their results together, in collaboration.”
Group Inquiry by Visitors at Exhibits (GIVE) in Group Inquiry at Science Museum Exhibits by  Gutwill, J. P., & Allen, S.. Exploratorium Museum Professional Series, Left Coast Press 2010.   (Here is a link to a related research report.)


This is not surprising and in a way is confirmed by the most recent findings on what the new pedagogy should be. The most recent publication of the Open University in the UK: Innovative Pedagogy 2014. Sharples, M., Adams, A., Ferguson, R., Gaved, M., McAndrew, P., Rienties, B., Weller, M., & Whitelock, D. (2014). Innovating Pedagogy 2014: Open University Innovation Report 3.Milton Keynes: The Open University, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, United Kingdom.© The Open University, 2014.

There is much of the Innovative Pedagogy report that is worth citing and relates to topics such as:

Massive open social learning; Learning design informed by analytics; Bring your own devices; Dynamic assessment; Event-based learning; Learning through storytelling; Threshold concepts and Bricolage that all apply to science center activity in some way.  But I will stick to the element called "Flipped Learning" and the need to incorporate the "Learning to Learn” concept.

The flipped classroom reverses the traditional classroom approach to teaching and learning. It moves direct instruction into the learner’s own space. At home, or in individual study time, students watch video lectures that offer them opportunities to work at their own pace, pausing to make notes where necessary. This allows time in class to be spent on activities that exercise critical thinking, with the teacher guiding students in creative exploration of the topics they are studying. Flipped learning is sometimes seen simply as a different approach to delivering content. It also offers opportunities for the classroom to become a more flexible environment, where the physical layout can be shifted to enable group work, where students can make use of their own devices, and where new approaches to learning and assessment are put into practice.

Learning to learn: We are always learning. Throughout our lifetime we take on board new ideas and develop new skills. What we find difficult are learning what others want to teach us, and managing our learning in order to achieve particular goals and outcomes. Self-determined learning involves learning how to be an effective learner, and having the confidence to manage our own learning processes. ‘Double-loop learning’ is central to this process, for double-loop learners not only work out how to solve a problem or reach a goal, but also reflect on that process as a whole, questioning assumptions and considering how to become more effective.

What I find particularly interesting in this report is that it actually confirms what I believe and Axel mentions as well. The most efficient way to help people learn and not become overwhelmed with information is to familiarize them with the scientific method. Transform every citizen into a researcher if you will. Not such a stupid idea. It's the ambition of Prof. F. Taddei from the CRI (Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire - INSERM the French Institute of Health and medical Research) in Paris. He has created the "Savanturiers" project (a contraction of savant and aventurier) Prof. Taddei, who was a speaker at the SCWC in Mechelen (March 2014), motivates his project as follows:

 "The mission of the schools today is defined by the response to the question: can they deliver youth that become flexible and thinking actors in society? This identity crisis of the education system opens the doors to a renewed pedagogy resulting from the digital transformation of our society. Our learning project with the youngest children is based on the scientific research method and ethics. Scientific research is a combination of engagement, collaborative projects, questioning, creativity and rigor, opening to the world, inspiration from shared knowledge and the will to explore the unknown to serve the greater good. The capacity to identify the problems and to ask a new and the right questions is what defines innovators whatever the field they are in.

The kids we work with value the constraints of permanent scientific questioning. They learn how to formulate solid and pertinent research questions, to define concepts and to share results with their peers. In this way, the learning of the scientific thinking becomes part of their cultural values and a product of collective intelligence".

"This concept is the result of research in cognitive sciences that shows that all kids have the ability to correctly question natural and cultural phenomena…. Individuals for whom learning is as fun and rewarding as necessary. We don’t want to train only professional researchers, but to offer all citizens the critical thinking skills, the engagement and the entrepreneurial spirit of researchers (...)

But this also changes the relationship between the researchers and the citizens. Citizens will still recognize the specificity of the research profession, but they will not think anymore that they should be excluded from research itself, the debates it generates or the way it influences society as a whole"
http://les-savanturiers.cri-paris.org

This is an interesting connection and evolution of the thinking within the scientific community. We have moved away from the deficit model of the nineties and have implemented in several places around the world significant "science in society" or "science for society" programs. These programs enable us to rethink the place of science and scientists, and their role in society through a renewed dialogue with the public. This is a great achievement in itself. Taddei's position, however, goes beyond that - the dialogue does not only serve a better engagement of the public with scientific issues, it is the core for improved science learning.

I do believe that this brings us all to a new place. Public engagement and science learning cannot be seen separately anymore. They are the two necessary components to develop the scientific literacy of a country.

There is no surprise that change is coming at this point. On various occasions and through different means and voices, the scientific community has expressed a changing view of their role in society. There is a push for a better understanding of their role as experts and advisors. There is a vision that decision making processes should be based on scientific evidence that possibly puts the scientist in a role of advocate for certain causes. For more on this see:

· An open letter to the newly elected House and Senate to urge them to take action against global warming: Prof. Steve Schneider from Stanford University and a group of famous climate scientists (March 23 , 2009)

· An AAAS and NSF funded  workshop on October 17-18, 2011 at AAAS aiming to explore what role, if any, scientists should play as advocates for specific policies is a matter of heated debate both inside the scientific community and in society more generally.

· From Anne Glover, Chief scientific advisor to the European Commission 2012 -2014. From European Science and Technology - Issue 15 Research. A clearer path to prominence 10 July 2012: “The most positive thing is that, by and large, my appointment has been welcomed and one of the areas that people speak about is how we can get evidence to be more prominent in policymaking, how we can make it easier to give the evidence a higher profile and be able to speak about the evidence in a much more comfortable way.”

· At the Planet under Pressure Conference: "Research plays a significant role in monitoring change, determining thresholds, developing new technologies and processes, and providing solutions. The international global-change research community proposes a new contract between science and society in recognition that science must inform policy to make more wise and timely decisions and that innovation should be informed by diverse local needs and conditions". , Dr Lidia Brito and Dr Mark Stafford Smith, supported by the conference Scientific Organizing Committee. Co-Chairs (London, March 2012).


These statements link the changing role of scientists with a new relationship to the public:

· "There was growing momentum to establish a set of Principles for Science Advice as an instrument to galvanize a global commitment to evidence-informed public policy." (...) "As such, there was evidence not only of the rapidly changing relationship between science and society, but also the changing relationship between the public and their elected officials, as mediated by science". 28-29 August 2014, the International Council for Science (ICSU) organized a conference in Auckland (NZ) under the Presidency of Sir Peter Gluckman, Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand that addressed the issue of "Science Advice to Governments".


·  The mission of the scientist cannot be limited any longer to producing and disseminating knowledge because of the social and economic impact of scientific discovery. Scientists now have a collective responsibility to contribute to the citizens debates/discussions about priorities for the science activity, the scientific policy as it were. Prof. Jean Marc Levy-Leblond as developed in "Pour une nouvelle politique scientifique" in "Le Monde Science et Techno (10/11/2012).


How should science centers react to this global change in relation to their own mission and, in particular, to their key activity in building exhibits?

Allow me to isolate only one sentence out of the above citations and references. It relates to the ICSU conference in New Zealand: "As such, there was evidence not only of the rapidly changing relationship between science and society, but also the changing relationship between the public and their elected officials, as mediated by science"

This may be the key for us to understand what our new role should be. It tells us we need to go beyond the traditional self-explaining exhibit and the limited public engagement or relevance to our communities. I am indeed more and more convinced that we are facing a new deficit model regarding our connection with the community. There are of course significant exceptions, but overall, the connection with the community seems to be an increased effort to convince the community that they need us, while I think we should focus on the opposite question: "how can we help the community?"

Most of our science centers are in urban areas and today many cities face increased problems of sustainability because of global challenges for the planet. Cities increasingly understand the need to base their decisions on scientific evidence and the scientific community. The "Future Earth" program steps up to help in that context. If we then hear the message that the ICSU conference concluded with: “the evidence for a changing relationship between the public and their elected officials, as mediated by science" we should understand that there is a special role for science centers in the future which is to educate the public about the science that helps the community to make the right decisions.

After all, and citing George Hein, did he not say it already?  "What could be more worthwhile than consistently considering how our educational activities might support democracy and social justice? The important point is not only be that there is an unequivocal educational purpose for all museum activity, but also that education should be progressive, that the educational purpose be in the service of improving society". George E. Hein: Progressive Museum Practice; John Dewey and Democracy. August 2012.


Thanks again to Walter Staveloz for sharing his thoughts with ExhibiTricks readers!

How can museums be more effective in building bridges to their communities?  Let us know in the "Comments" section below.



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!)

To find out more about working with Paul Orselli and Paul Orselli Workshop, check out the POW! website.

What Can Museums Learn From The DIA?

Hooray for the Detroit Institute of Arts! ---  one of the bright spots in the sometimes grim reality of modern-day Detroit.  Since I was born and raised in Detroit (yes --- actually inside the city limits) I've followed the recent activities of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), one of the first museums from my childhood with great interest.

Two particular aspects of the recent history of the DIA could well provide valuable lessons for museums of all types, stripes, and sizes:

1) Look Inside First
The Detroit Institute of Arts re-opened in 2007 after being closed for several years to reinvent and reinterpret (my words) itself.  As part of this process, the DIA building(s) and the collections were re-arranged and re-installed in ways to deliberately make the world-class collections more accessible to the widest range of the visiting public. 

New labels and graphics provide information for multiple ages and interests, while interactive opportunities (both low-tech and high-tech) directly related to the art/collections in each gallery foster understanding for different learning styles.  For example, a "virtual dining" experience set amidst a gallery of centuries old French silver, glass, and porcelain, gives what could be a "what's with all these old dishes?" experience much more context.

Perhaps more importantly, the DIA weaned itself (for the most part) away from big traveling "blockbuster" shows, and chose to exhibit, display, and reinterpret the wealth of its own collections.  The museum looked inside first, with much success.

Every museum has internal and community resources that it can use to its benefit, if each institution chooses to look "inside" first instead of reflexively always looking "outside."  To me that's the first lesson of building up "internal capacity" and part of what makes a museum shift from being merely good to truly great.

Unfortunately, reopening right before the world-wide economy crashed in 2008 really rocked the Detroit Institute of Arts.  Like many other museums, the DIA faced layoffs and budget cuts --- especially painful following the excitement of the "new" DIA opening.   The DIA was forced to face the "dirty little secret" that most museums try to avoid, which leads to lesson Number Two:


2) Where's The Money?
Even though the Detroit Institute of Arts has an endowment, the museum was still woefully underfunded (over time funding from the State of Michigan shrank from $16 million a year in the 1990s to zero in recent years.)  Despite being a world-class museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts might have been forced to close its doors. 

Instead the DIA successfully risked touching the political "third rail" (especially these days) of TAXES.  Fortunately, a tax millage was successfully passed in the three counties containing, or nearest to, Detroit.  In exchange for homeowners ponying up approximately twenty dollars per household per year for the next 10 years, the DIA will get around $23 million per year and provide free admission to anyone who lives in any of the three counties in question.

Several cities in the U.S. (St. Louis for example) provide ongoing governmental support to ensure the financial health of their cultural institutions.  Because that's the "dirty little secret" of museums --- most institutions, despite their optimistic projections, simply cannot sustain themselves over the long haul without the continuous, ongoing support of some private or governmental benefactors (or both!)

So what about the arguments of citizens around Detroit who opposed the tax millage?  Namely, if your museum can't be "run like a business" you shouldn't be in business in the first place?  (A view often shared by some museum trustees around the U.S.)  Should any government and/or society provide funding to sustain its cultural institutions in some way?   Even if I didn't work in museums, I'm sure my answer would be "yes." 

But what do you think? Should museums be more forthright with the public about the limitations and inherent differences of running a cultural institution "like a business"?  How might being more honest about the "dirty little secret" of museum budgets and budgeting change public funding streams?  

Let us know your thoughts in the "Comments" Section below.



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!)

More Voices at the Table: An Interview with Chris Burda

Chris Burda is Senior Exhibit Developer with the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM). She translates science concepts for lay audiences through art, narrative and creative learning experiences. Over 25 years at SMM, Chris has had a hand in the development, design, production and management of many exhibits and public programs. Chris is currently lead developer on an SMM team charged with inventing engineering exhibits for the new Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas.

While doing graduate work in San Francisco in 1985, Chris was employed as an assistant graphic designer and exhibit builder at the Exploratorium. The experience piqued her continuing interest in the physics of natural phenomena and honed her ability to communicate difficult subjects. In 1992 she joined staff at the Minnesota Children’s Museum to help develop their programmatic master plan and lead the development of a science gallery for young children. Chris is a regular presenter at museum conferences and consults with non-profits in exhibit and project planning. As a community activist and volunteer, Chris applies her talents to climate change education and action. She looks forward to skating and cross-country skiing. 

Chris was kind enough to answer a few questions for ExhibiTricks readers: 


What’s your educational background? 
I have a Bachelors degree in art education from UW Madison, which was an interesting place in the 70s. I keep my K-12 teacher's certification current.

In the mid-80s I took time out for a Masters degree in museum studies at John F. Kennedy University near San Francisco. I tailored the program to include several internships at the Exploratorium. My thesis examined techniques science museums use to communicate controversial issues. Parts of this project included an evaluation of the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Bionics and Transplants exhibit and a survey of all ASTC museums. It should have been a doctorate degree!

I’d like to note an excellent Project Management course I picked up some years back from University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, taught by Best Buy’s lead project manager.  Assignments immersed participants in team-based reality projects that addressed current situations in local and regional businesses. Post-it notes were a ready staple, which only fed my worsening addiction.



What got you interested in Museums?
What drew me to the museum field, rather than any heart-felt interest, was a tip from a friend who knew of a job opening in the fabrication shop at the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM). Exhibits Director Terry Sateran, who came from the theater world, hired me on the spot. He was building a new museum and needed folks with diverse skills. I came with experience in art, theater, education and fabrication. I learned they all come together in creating public spaces and visitor experiences.

Flashback to elementary school. Field trips introduced me to the Chicago giants—the Shedd Aquarium and Brookfield Zoo, Adler Planetarium, Field Museum of Natural History, Museum of Science and Industry, and the Art Institute. The little gems around town were never on the itinerary.

Early museum memories include a real submarine, suspended airplanes and an amazing model train; a theatrical immersion deep into a coal mine; and cave people dioramas. I can’t forget the dinosaurs and mammoth; the mysterious Foucault pendulum (which I never understood); a series of nine pickled human fetuses; and Colleen Moore’s elaborate Fairy Castle. Seeing live zoo animals—swinging monkeys, leaping dolphins and pacing wolves—was interesting, but I always felt sorry for them. Also memorable were smelly lunchrooms, crowds and long bus rides.

Akin to museum experiences of my youth were annual family excursions to Marshall Field’s to see their Christmas windows. The displays magically animated scenes from a story, with mechanical characters and props enacting a tale that unfolded as you walked along State Street. (Over years they became less animated and, finally, useless.) A visit to Santa capped off this holiday tradition, along with lunch in the Walnut room, sitting next to the crackling wood fire and the multi-story Christmas tree, which gawkers glimpsed through the clerestory as they rode the escalators.

Being raised by a first grade teacher helped set the stage. Her classroom was a museum, full of treasures from nature, Native American culture, her own family history and the livelihoods and hobbies of her students’ families, who regularly did show-and-tells. She was like Ms. Frizzle in the Magic School Bus, often role-playing characters in costume. I helped illustrate murals and posters for her bulletin boards. Readying her room was a family project. It was our entrée into object-based learning, entrenched in personal story making.



How does working with local communities to create exhibits inform your design process?
It’s a wake-up call. I’m due for another jolt. Working with communities keeps me in touch with reality. The real-world work of community groups out there in the field reminds me that science museums hardly have a corner on informal science education.

In working with community groups to plan, develop and design exhibits and other projects, I learn how important it is to capture everyone’s ideas along the way. People need to feel heard. I use an active listening process, recording, grouping and connecting ideas visually at the same time, sketching little pictures to animate the emerging storyboard. People are often surprised to see their ramblings taking some form in real time. Visualizing the process helps folks focus, make decisions and prioritize their work.

It’s been several years since I’ve worked with Twin Cities Area community-based science organizations (CBSOs), but the impact lingers. As part of the Community Partnerships Serving Science initiative I led five six-week-long project development workshops for 75 CBSOs, inviting in guest museum specialists to assist. CBSOs are groups of impassioned folks, usually unpaid, engaging their local audiences in every science topic you can imagine, from breeding daffodils to advancing renewable energy, inventing robots or brewing beer. They’re often reaching audiences that museums simply miss.

The CBSOs would come to the Museum for workshops; I met them at their respective sites for strategic planning sessions and to coach them in writing project or exhibit proposals. They all received $600, and it was amazing to see what they could accomplish with such small stipends. A few more substantial monetary awards allowed a tight SMM team to collaboratively work with four CBSOs to build small traveling exhibitions. When I meet these folks at events about town, they say that their work with the museum honed their message and broadened their visibility in the community, which increased their membership. It’s rewarding to hear.

I’ve always enjoyed collaborative, community-based projects and find energy in facilitating the group process. Old Mickey Rooney movies are my inspiration. Pooling meager resources, he and his high school friends—including Judy Garland, of course—always managed to create a rip-roaring show in someone’s borrowed basement, barn, garage or the school gym.

My first collaborative design project with community happened in Marshfield, Wisconsin back in the 70s. I taught high school and, as Senior Class Advisor, coordinated and facilitated projects with teens. One year we found two downtown business owners willing to let us transform the clerestory between their buildings into a theatrical streetscape. Everyone brought their skills to the table, including bricklaying knee-walls, designing and lighting shop windows, painting murals, woodworking and scrounging for benches and street lamps. The kids, parents and business folks all came out. It was a blast.



What advice would you have for fellow museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in bringing more community input into their exhibitions?
Try anything that brings more voices to the table at every stage of your exhibit or project. Here are three strategies:

-       Stage a community workshop. Early in a project, convene key community stakeholders (school teachers and principals, librarians, board members, local supporters, critics and naysayers) to help clarify your problem and brainstorm strategies. Don’t be afraid. Pay them a stipend and, before they leave, ask if they’d be willing to come back as volunteers. Bring them and others back to test ideas, serve as advisors, interpret exhibits or, as groups, actually manage exhibit activity areas.

-       Identify community-based science organizations in your community.  Get to know them and you’ll find all sorts of ways to work together. Visit them where they congregate, go to their meetings to meet their audiences and host meet-ups at the museum. Invite them to advise on projects, lead workshops or participate in museum events. Write them into grant proposals; ask them to write you into theirs.

-       Showcase local work in your exhibits. Get to know creative people in your community. Search out area artists, crafters, trades people, entrepreneurs and youth leaders. Find them on the Internet, through person-to-person contacts or through their associations and organizations.  Commission work or purchase pieces that help convey your exhibit themes; credit them and invite them to the party. Art pieces—practical (like lighting or seating), contemplative or interactive—lend a personal, creative twist that appeals. I’ve found that the State Fair is a good place to shop.




What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about exhibition development?  I’ll suggest six books that I use for ideas and inspiration:

• Alexander, Christopher and Ishikawa, Sara and Silverstein, Murray (1977) A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings and Construction, London: Oxford University Press

[Instructs reader in a humanist approach to design, using a sequence of 600 design problems and solutions, from planning a city to planning a bedroom]


• Whyte, William “Holly” (1980), The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, New York: Project for Public Spaces

[Book and accompanying film document iconic human behaviors exhibited by people using New York public spaces—sidewalks, street corners, markets, parks and plazas]


• Zumthor, Peter (1998) Thinking Architecture, Switzerland: Lars Muller Publishers

[Walks you through a diary-like personal reflection and instruction on observation and design]


• Tufte, Edward (1997) Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative, Cheshire: Graphics Press

[Shows ways graphics and illustration can convey dynamic processes without words]


• Underhill, Paco (1999) Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, New York: Simon & Schuster

[Reveals the psychology in attracting and holding potential customers)


• Gurian, Elaine (2006) Civilizing the Museum: The collected writings of Elaine Heumann Gurian, London; New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group

[Explores ways to make museums more central and relevant to society]


What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions?
Etiquette of the Undercaste, by Antenna Theater, is an interactive performance installation; a maze of thirteen rooms that use simple theater props and techniques to put you in the shoes of a homeless person. You die and are reborn into hopeless poverty. The show triggers gut-felt empathy for the disenfranchised. I felt changed in a more positive way by videos of people with disabilities that we developed for Bionics and Transplants: the World of Replacement Medicine—a mind-bending exhibit staged here at the Science Museum of Minnesota.


The City Museum, St. Louis, makes you a player in their adventure reality show. I entered the place as chaperone for a group of teenagers, but found myself facing my fears alone most of the time. Curiosity coaxes you into unthinkable situations—like dropping down into mysterious holes in the floor—that test your courage and survival skills. Strangers encourage each other through often dark, artfully created mazes, slides and tunnels. Experiencing all of the funky outdoor climbing structures at night is particularly cool.


In these times, watching immigrants under siege, I recall being moved by two Smithsonian exhibitions: A More Perfect Union revealed the discrimination against Japanese interned during WW II.   From Field to Factory told a memorable story of the continued persecution of freed slaves as they moved north. They displayed an actual contract that would have been signed by Klu Klux Klan members --- it was a shocker.

If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be?

That would take some thinking. Here are a few ideas.

- Develop dynamic interpretive help centers and connecting wayside attractions that immerse travelers in a sense of place and help facilitate their journey. Nova Scotia does a nice job.

- Work with regional coordinators across the country—maybe the world— to increase the capacity of community-based science organizations to mobilize their audiences. Call it a revolution.

- Build an energy-efficient, accessible home in my neighborhood. I’ve started this process; we’ll see how it goes. Along the way I’d like to move Minneapolis to establish a housing development policy that requires new homes to be visitable or accessible to folks using chairs. Baby boomers are their money in the bank.


- Help develop community art and science centers around the world that reflect local culture and help address real human needs, like health, food, clothing and shelter and the creation of meaningful work. It’s uncanny to see copies of the same exhibits populating museums and science centers everywhere without adaptation to specific places and situations.


- Develop an engaging urban space. I’m an enduring fan of Project for Public Spaces, a New York organization committed to placemaking to build stronger communities, and am drawn into this kind of effort in varied contexts, such as museums, my neighborhood park and my church. Most recently, I’m jazzed to help pull together a focus group convened by Forecast Public Arts, a St. Paul organization that connects the talents and energies of artists with the needs and opportunities of communities.


Thanks to Chris for taking the time to share her thoughts with ExhibiTricks readers!



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!)

Exploring the Community-Museum Dynamic: An Interview with Jeanne Vergeront

  

Jeanne Vergeront is a strategic and education planner with museums, libraries and community organizations. She has worked in and with museums for 25 years, most recently as Vice President of Exhibits and Education at Minnesota Children's Museum. She is interested in learning environments, translating theory into practice and the role of play in literacy development.   

Jeanne is also one of the most thoughtful museum people I know, so I was happy that she could respond to these questions for the ExhibiTricks blog:

What’s your educational background? 

I have an undergraduate degree in early childhood education and a masters degree in environmental design, focusing on children’s environments. My research was on adventure playgrounds in London. Watching children build and explore in those settings reinforced a growing sense that there were more potential settings for children than just conventional playgrounds and classrooms for preschoolers that were essentially miniaturized versions of college lecture halls and high school classrooms.

What got you interested in Museums? 

After graduate school I worked in a teacher center in Madison WI which offered teacher driven professional development through workshops, kits, a recycle center, and publications. My interest in the human-environment dynamic led to an opportunity in 1979 to conduct a small study on how the design of teacher centers supported their missions. I studied 7 centers in the Midwest and East, including one in Boston where I also visited the Boston Children’s Museum. 

I hadn’t been to a children’s museum before. I was excited by the possibility of places for children that recognized and valued what children love to do, all the things they can do, and what they need to do. I also saw a children’s museum in Utica NY and one in Fairfield, CT. They gave me a sense of their variety and how local they could be. Heading back to Madison, I decided that my next project would be starting a children’s museum. And, in that serendipitous way things sometimes work, the day after I returned to Madison, I got a call. Three early childhood educators I knew had visited Minnesota Children’s Museum and agreed to start one in Madison; would I join them? While I think there can be easier ways to design environments for children than starting a children’s museum, I don’t think there can be a way that is more challenging or life changing. 

How can museums best involve their local communities? 

The community-museum dynamic is an incredible source of purpose and vitality for museums that also takes a lot of effort and direction to understand and manage well. It’s easy to develop an internal museum perspective; it’s a real challenge to integrate an internal, museum perspective with an external, community informed perspective and to sustain it. It’s relatively easy to offer many and smaller activities involving the community; it’s not so easy to think strategically and cultivate relationships, and be selective in choosing activities for the museum and community to engage in meaningful ways towards larger shared goals. 

A museum should set its community involvement in a larger context of what the community needs that the museum can do well. To be more deliberate about its community involvement, a museum can look at challenges the community faces and where they can make a difference. It can look at community engagement it already does well, and think about why it’s working and how it could be expanded. It’s often helpful to look at other organizations that are more accomplished in engaging their communities. 

Tell us a little bit about how your Children’s Museum background informs your current work? 

In the early years of Madison Children’s Museum, I had no clue that ideas we were grappling with would be central to many museums two decades later and would inform my work in 2010. One fundamental idea is that children’s museums are for someone rather than about something. Stephen Weill’s writings hit on the centrality of the audience and serve as a valuable reminder that museums exist to serve their audiences. Being for someone is a valuable perspective in thinking about and planning for people and taking into account how they see themselves, their interests, their capabilities, and their expectations of their museum experience - and much more.

The immediacy of experience is another legacy from children’s museums. Children experience their world directly, through every sense, and all the time. This may be truer for younger children than for older children, but the value of direct experience never disappears. Children’s museums can’t rely on abstractions or text to get across ideas. I think this is a valuable discipline, one to be worked even harder than it typically is. 

How children explore and learn has been a useful nudge to understand learning very broadly. More of the museums I work with are breaking out of the assumption that learning is facts and skills and that learning is primarily cognitive. Increasingly, learning is viewed as also being social and physical. Learning stretches to include dispositions to learn, such as dispositions to ask questions or a disposition to read. 

I would also have to add play as something from my children’s museum background that informs my current work. Recent research has substantiated what early childhood educators have long known about the value of play. Now we can point to the relationship between play and executive function, between play and literacy, between play and social skills, between play and positive personal outlook for young children; and the benefits last beyond four years, and eight years.  I wouldn’t know where to suggest that the benefits of play end - or even diminish. 

Finally, it has taken a while, but there has been a recognition that while children were the focus of children’s museums, it was also necessary to engage adults to meet goals. This links very directly to a focus on family learning that has emerged as being important in the social context in museums.

What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about exhibition development? 
This is a really good - and hard - question. Exhibition development as a recognized phase in exhibit planning is a relatively newer phase and not universally observed. It’s practiced differently in a science center, a children’s museum, natural history museum, historic sites and art museums. It’s a creative, complex, and elusive process. It’s less concrete than design so it’s sometime absorbed by its better-known sibling, exhibit design, and becomes invisible. 

Online or offline, my favorite exhibition development resources are developers themselves because that mindset is fascinating. Some of the skills are readily recognizable, like keen observation, research, and asking questions. Developers also visualize and interpret experience. They not only take the perspective of the visitor, or learner, but they sometimes “channel” the people an exhibit experience is intended to engage. They’re comfortable with process, whether it’s rigorous or squishy. 

I asked a few exhibit developers what their resources were. ExhibitFiles (http://www.exhibitfiles.org) came up:  The reviews and case studies are often, if not usually, written by exhibit developers and expose an exhibit developer’s perspective.



What advice would you have for fellow museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in setting realistic long-term goals? 
Setting long-term goals is not easy but it’s a basic and essential part of being a vital organization that serves its community. While not a simple process, I do think there are a few critical steps:

• Make planning a core practice in your museum. Smaller museums feel stretched, I think, in finding time to plan. But good habits, and planning is a good habit, pay off.

• Revisit your mission regularly. Make sure it’s local and specific and that the board agrees on what it says the museum should be doing and, conversely, should not doing. It’s more difficult to set long-term goals when a mission is too broad or vaguely relevant to a museum and its community.

• Learn about and get to know 3-5 museums that are comparable to yours in scope and size - budget, attendance, and facility, and community size. You might research a museum that is a bit larger or has an expertise in an area important to your mission. Look at their long-term goals to inform your goals.

• Identify areas in particular where your museum needs to be strong or areas of growth and change. Three areas are what I call areas of enduring focus: they are always important even though your understanding of them evolves. 

One area is audience. Typically, the goal is about more visitors. But just as important as more is the right kind of visitors. Who are the right kinds of visitors? What does more of the right visitors mean for your museum? 

Another area is product, either exhibits, programs, learning experiences and environments. A goal might be related to a consistent quality, a stronger experience, or varied offerings; or perhaps exhibits and programs better targeted to the audience. 

A third area is resources, financial, human resources, expertise, or facility. This goal is often about more or diversified resources or growing a particular type of resource. These may not be the right goals for every museum and there may need to be 4 or 5 goals. But thinking about these areas can give an assist in setting goals that are at the right scale for where you are now and want to be.   

If it’s any consolation, every museum struggles with setting realistic goals that are calibrated to their organizational capacity. 



What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions? 
I like museums and exhibits that surprise me, that offer something unexpected. I think that’s one reason that the City Museum stands out for me and for others as well. I like museums and exhibits that have a strong sense of place and couldn’t be anywhere else. The Mill City Museum (Minneapolis, MN) is in a burned out flour mill on the Mississippi riverfront in the old milling district. 

I love the sense of place that the outdoor Exploratorium exhibits at Fort Mason have, focusing on the light, water, and sound at precisely that place. The particular story of water and rock comes through at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Museum (Astoria, OR). In the city museum in Leeuwarden (The Netherlands) you go downstairs and walk through a hallway as if you were walking under a canal; overhead is the underside of a boat and a calf’s snout drinking at the edge of the canal.

More and more I like exhibits that don’t seem exhibits, but may seem more like a hardware store, or feel like an amazing natural occurrence, or a work in progress. The Noodle Forest at the Children’s Museum of Phoenix is made from hundreds of swimming noodles. A giant section of Sequoia at the Bay Area Discovery Museum stands 8 feet tall on its side; children can look and crawl through. The outdoor area at the Santa Fe Children’s Museum seems like it’s constantly being re-invented and reshaped. This is not a good match for every topic, audience, and museum, but it’s a worthy  approach to consider and to have to argue against. 

Can you talk a little about some of your current projects? 
I’ve been working with The Family Museum (Bettendorf, IA) as they rethink their exhibits through a perspective of the experience they want visitors to have. Following - and sustaining - an experiential approach is different than an exhibit-centered approach. An experiential approach concentrates on first-person engagement, a powerful connection to what is personal and local, and the flow between activities. The museum’s planning group is arriving at some productive concepts like fenced in freedom, context as content, and connected play experiences. Approaching this through experience places design in a role of affording particular experiences. I wish I could fast forward and see how this plays out. There will be some real, and worthwhile, challenges along the way.

I’m involved in an informal group of museum colleagues from Twin Cities museums that has been working collaboratively to find ways to strengthen their mission-related services to new and existing audiences. We’re interested in a couple of things. One is to consolidate and build on audience research and local audience data. Another is to explore the public value of museums from a perspective that is local, informed by community and museums. Probably the heart of the project is a study of the identity, engagement goals and ways that museums matter to museum goers, traditionally non-museum going residents, and youth. Twin Cities Museums will be able to use the information to pilot strategies to increase participation and sustain engagement of more diverse audiences including younger audiences. And we want to learn to work collaboratively long term. 



If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be? 
I might rephrase the question as “if time were no object…” even though time-and-money are intertwined. When museums embark on long-range planning, and I would include long-term exhibit change here, the greatest challenge is finding enough time for the right people to be together at one stretch as well as over a significant span of time. This is what’s needed for staff - and hopefully board - to observe and talk with visitors who are engaged in the museum’s exhibits; to read about and share ideas that challenge and extend thinking about experience and exhibits; to gather, synthesize and interpret a museum’s own studies and reports; to enjoy lively, extended discussions about powerful ideas; and to be able to work the most important of those ideas really hard, to adapt and internalize them. 

This kind of time is critical for exploring what has lasting value for more visitors in exhibits. If this kind of time were available, rethinking a museum’s exhibits in a new and remarkable way would be absolutely wonderful. Actually working with a museum to rethink its exhibits, or a single exhibit, in a new remarkable way, would be a real treat. 



What do you think is the “next frontier” for museums?
There are, undoubtedly, multiple “next frontiers” for museums and, for sure we’ll be surprised when we approach and navigate this new territory. Some frontiers, I imagine, will be more relevant at the community level, others at the organizational level and some will be visitor oriented.

Museums are recognizing that they have public value, that they contribute something the community needs that is not readily available. They’re becoming more practiced at describing their benefit and are finding more meaningful measures to describe their impact. This community-museum connection will evolve and strengthen. We’ll see a shift from viewing and measuring success as primarily institutional health to community vitality. As they do recognize more ways their organizational health is tied to community health, museums will become more accomplished and nimble at targeting their impact in high need areas.

At another level, I think that more museums will see that they have the capacity and opportunity to generate knowledge and will be greater contributors to knowledge and culture in more areas. This might be through growing partnerships with colleges and universities. But it will also come from museums conducting their own research, documenting their work, and assessing their impacts in areas that are salient to their public value, to community issues, and to their audience and then informing their work and that of the field.

I think it’s safe to assume we’ll see some shifting boundaries in the learning territory that museums occupy. At a larger scale, museums will assume expanded roles in educating members of their community across the life-span. Some shifts seem especially likely where informal learning and formal learning meet and interact. More museums are operating schools and that number will grow. I know of about a dozen science museums and centers and children’s museums that operate preschools; some have been doing so for 40 years. There are also museums that operate elementary schools and are involved in museum magnet schools.

At a smaller scale, I would say a new frontier is how users will customize their museum experience across multiple platforms in ways that are truly specific and relevant to museums and not clumsily adapted from other contexts and enterprises. I think discussion in this area is lively while implementation is occurring more slowly and early results are just coming into focus. Stay tuned! 


Thanks again to Jeanne for her insights!  Check out her website for more information about her work.      

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!)