The American Visionary Art Museum's Seven Education Goals

What inspires you?  What pushes you to think about your work in new and different ways?

Given that my recent post about Hayao Miyazaki's Museum Manifesto seemed to resonate with, and inspire, so many ExhibiTricks readers, I thought I would share a similar "manifesto" of sorts, courtesy of the American Vision Art Museum (AVAM) --- one of my very favorite places to visit!

If you are not already familiar with AVAM, it is an art museum located near the Inner Harbor of Baltimore.  The buildings and exhibits pulse with energy and excitement that is infectious, and the majority of the pieces on display were made not by formally-trained artists, but rather an eclectic group of very creative people. To quote from the AVAM website:

"Visionary art as defined for the purposes of the American Visionary Art Museum refers to art produced by self-taught individuals, usually without formal training, whose works arise from an innate personal vision that revels foremost in the creative act itself." 

But what I'm interested in sharing today are the Seven Education Goals that guide AVAM.  They strike me as admirable goals for any museum, or any creative person (which really means everybody, doesn't it?)


      AVAM's Seven Education Goals

1. Expand the definition of a worthwhile life.
2. Engender respect for and delight in the gifts of others.
3. Increase awareness of the wide variety of choices available in life for all ... particularly students.
4. Encourage each individual to build upon his or her own special knowledge and inner strengths.
5. Promote the use of innate intelligence, intuition, self-exploration, and creative self-reliance.
6. Confirm the great hunger for finding out just what each of us can do best, in our own voice, at any age.
7. Empower the individual to choose to do that something really, really well.

I hope you continue your week choosing to do something really, really, well!



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Subscribe to Exhibitionist!

Exhibitionist is a "journal of reflective practice" published by the National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME) in the Spring and Fall of each year. Exhibitionist is also one of the best, if not the best, museum-related journals available.

Exhibitionist features thought-provoking articles on exhibition theory and practice, exhibition critiques and commentary, book reviews, technical articles, and other essays of interest to the profession. 

As a former board member of NAME, and current columnist for Exhibitionist (check out this free sample of my "Exhibit Newsline" column)  I urge you to help keep yourself informed on what's happening in exhibitions, and in the broader museum field, by subscribing to Exhibitionist !  

You can also download free examples of past articles (and in some cases entire past issues!) of Exhibitionist by heading over to the Exhibitionist Online webpage.

You are now able to subscribe to Exhibitionist without being a member of either AAM or NAME.  So what are you waiting for? Click on over to the Exhibitionist subscription page right now!



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Exhibit Designer Toolbox: Online Tone Generator and AAPT Films

What do websites geared toward Physics Teachers have to do with developing or designing exhibits?

Well, on the surface, nothing!  But I recently bumped into two different physics-oriented websites that I think are worth bookmarking for any museum exhibit designer.

The first site is called Online Tone Generator.  It is a multi-faceted site filled with a variety of audio tools available for testing and/or download.   Some of my favorite apps on the OTG site include the "Hearing Test" which lets you generate different frequency tones to determine the range of your hearing.  (As we age, we tend to lose our ability to hear high frequency sounds.)  Simple and clean, I could easily see adapting "Hearing Test" for exhibit or program demo purposes.

The "Pitch Shifter" tool allows you to change the pitch of audio files (mp3 or wav format), without affecting the tempo. You can also save the pitch shifted files you create.  Again, this tool would be great for creating audio files for an exhibit or program.  So click on over to the Online Tone Generator site to explore the dozen or so FREE audio tools available there.

The other online tool is Physics Teacher James Lincoln's YouTube channel hosting a set of short videos called AAPT Films.   The films break down into sections, with one set called "TRY THIS EXPERIMENT NOW" which are short, punchy videos that let you perform quick (and unusual!) science demonstrations or experiments.

Two of my favorites are the "Eye Poke" video, which let's you recreate one of Sir Isaac Newton's classic experiments involving optics and the human eye.  Another fun one is the "Hear Your Muscles" video (embedded below) which demonstrates a simple techniques that anyone can use to "hear" your own muscles moving or flexing.  Cool stuff!




There are also more standard Physics classroom demonstrations featured on Lincoln's YouTube channel, but for anyone working to develop simple programs or exhibits on the Human Body, Lincoln's YouTube channel is a real gold mine of information and inspiration!


Speaking of information and inspiration, are there some particularly useful or interesting websites or online resources that you keep in your own Designer's Toolbox?   Please share in the "Comments Section" below!



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making/history

 

A little more than a week from now, I'll be doing something I've never done before in my museum career.

I'll be attending an American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) Conference.  (In Louisville, Kentucky.)

It's not that I don't like History Museums, or admire the people who work in them, but my museum "tribes" tend more toward Science Center and Children's Museum folks (and their respective conferences.)

So what prompts me to make this trip to Louisville?  Well, Maker Stuff.  And by "Maker Stuff" I mean the vast worldwide network of MAKE Magazine, and Maker Faires, and the eclectic group of artists, craftspeople, tinkerers, and engineers (amongst others) who get herded under the big umbrella term "Makers."

A few months ago,  I was invited to a meeting of museum folks in Atlanta, and it turns out that many of the other folks in the room were History Museum people. And (me being me) at a certain point I started to berate those nice fellow museum professionals for "completely missing the boat" on the Maker Movement.  It also immediately became clear that many of the people at that meeting had absolutely no idea of what a Maker Faire or MAKE Magazine even were! YIKES!

I mean, what genre of museums is better placed than History Museums to engage people with the stories and stuff behind inventing, designing, building, and manufacturing things?  It's in their institutional DNA!  Not to mention the enormous opportunities for History Museums to tap into new sets of audiences and communities that are deeply engaged in Maker activities that would love to connect with such awesome repositories of the stories and stuff associated with Making.

(Of course this is not to say that there aren't any History Museums plugged into the Maker Movement. The Henry Ford has hosted several Detroit Maker Faires, and The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) is hosting a workshop later this month called  "What is a Maker Space (and why would I want one in my museum)?")

Shortly after that fateful meeting in Atlanta, Bob Beatty, the COO of AASLH, basically said "OK wise guy, I agree that History Museum folks should know more about the Maker Universe, what can we do about it?"

So I'm off to Louisville to launch something called making/history.  What can making/history be? I'm not really sure yet, but that's part of why I'm going to Louisville --- to meet and talk with a bunch of cool and smart History Museum people to find out.


If you're reading this post, and it resonates at all with you, please help in making/history in any (or all) of the three ways below:

1) Spread the word! (Tweet, Facebook, Email, Phone folks in your networks who can help with this.) I want to help brainstorm and instigate with folks who are interested in connecting more Makers with more History Museums.

2) Meet me in Louisville!  The plan is to let me set up shop in the AASLH Exhibit Hall on Thursday, September 17th.  I'll be doing Maker show-and-tell and giving away free swag, but most of all chatting with more folks to help making/history happen!

3) Add your two cents! Are you already plugged into the Maker Universe, or History Museums, or both?  Share your ideas for ways to increase the connections between Makers and Historians in the "Comments" Section below, or by emailing me directly.


See you in Louisville!


P.S. By an amazingly happy coincidence, Louisville will be hosting a Mini Maker Faire on Saturday, September 19th (the last day of the AASLH Conference --- good timing, or what?) that is FREE and open to the public (including AASLH Conference Attendees --- hint, hint!)




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Hayao Miyazaki's Museum Manifesto

Hayao Miyazaki is a film artist who has created some amazing animated films for Studio Ghibli in Japan.  (Some of my favorites include "Spirited Away" and "My Neighbor Totoro".) He also has created one of my all-time favorite museum manifestos, which I think is worth revisiting from time to time.

To capture some of the spirit and history of the films and the film studio, there is a Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Japan.  I've haven't had the pleasure of visiting the Ghibli Museum in person (yet!) but as I was perusing the Ghibli Museum website, I noticed a link to "A Few Words from Executive Director Hayao Miyazaki"on the home page.

The Link leads to a mini manifesto from Director Miyazaki entitled, "This is the Kind of Museum I Want to Make!"

I think it is wonderful (and gutsy!) for the director of any museum to share the guiding principles behind the creation of their museum in such an up-front way, but I also thought some of the Director Miyazaki's thoughts were worth sharing here:

This is the Kind of Museum I Want to Make!
A museum that is interesting and which relaxes the soul
A museum where much can be discovered
A museum based on a clear and consistent philosophy
A museum where those seeking enjoyment can enjoy, those seeking to ponder can ponder, and those seeking to feel can feel
A museum that makes you feel more enriched when you leave than when you entered!

To make such a museum, the building must be...
Put together as if it were a film
Not arrogant, magnificent, flamboyant, or suffocating
Quality space where people can feel at home, especially when it's not crowded
A building that has a warm feel and touch
A building where the breeze and sunlight can freely flow through

The museum must be run in such a way so that...
Small children are treated as if they were grown-ups
The handicapped are accommodated as much as possible
The staff can be confident and proud of their work
Visitors are not controlled with predetermined courses and fixed directions
It is suffused with ideas and new challenges so that the exhibits do not get dusty or old, and that investments are made to realize that goal

The museum shop will be...
Well-prepared and well-presented for the sake of the visitors and running the museum
Not a bargain shop that attaches importance only to the amount of sales
A shop that continues to strive to be a better shop
Where original items made only for the museum are found

This is what I expect the museum to be, and therefore I will find a way to do it



This is the kind of museum I don't want to make!
A pretentious museum
An arrogant museum
A museum that treats its contents as if they were more important than people
A museum that displays uninteresting works as if they were significant



What do you think of Hayao Miyazaki's ideas about museums? (Let us know in the "Comments" section below.)

Personally, his words make me want to visit the Ghibli Museum even more now!

And Director Miyazaki's mini manifesto also begs a question: What sort of message to visitors does your Executive Director post on your Museum's website?



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Give Your Exhibition Development Process A Summer Vacation!

I think charettes can be a great way to break out of your normal exhibition development process and give yourself a mental/procedural "summer vacation" of sorts, so I thought now would an apropos time for an "encore" post on the topic.
 

Working with other people can be tricky.  Group dynamics often degenerate into a pat way of thinking about other people (Oh, there's crazy George talking about visitor numbers again ...) or other departments (Those marketing folks don't have any idea of what it takes to put an exhibit together ...)

Unfortunately, in a constantly shifting marketplace that practically demands that museums are continually innovating and evolving, falling into boring operational patterns or getting locked into interpersonal cul-de-sacs is not great for business.  It also makes working with other people a lot less fun.

So how can you break the mold of past practice (or even get past the goofy term "best practice") and shake your museum working groups up in a fun and positive way?

I'd offer one suggestion:  The Charette.

A little history first from Wikipedia: The term "charette" was thought to originate from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the 19th century, the word charrette is from the French for "cart" or "chariot." It was not unusual for student architects to continue working furiously in teams at the end of the allotted term, up until a deadline, when a charrette would be wheeled among the students to pick up their work for review while they, each working furiously to apply the finishing touches, were said to be working en charrette, in the cart. Émile Zola depicted such a scene of feverish activity in L'Œuvre (serialized 1885, published 1886), his fictionalized account of his friendship with Paul Cézanne. Hence, the term metamorphosed into the current design-related usage in conjunction with working right up to a deadline.)

Bringing together a small group of folks, including some from outside your organization, to bash around ideas for a fixed chunk of time, can bring incredible results.  The best charettes are not just  random brainstorming sessions, but rather concentrated bursts of activity surrounding a fixed topic (or topics) leading toward some conclusions about a particular aspect of a project by the time you're finished.

These past few months I've been whizzing around the country, helping to organize, or be part of, exhibit charettes.  I am always heartened and gratified by the large amount of high-quality thinking that can come out of a charette process that puts people into a room without the normal work-day distractions of phone calls, emails, and memos.  The charette process really compels people to bring their "A Game" to the table and contribute their best thoughts and ideas.

We so often complain about the lack of time in the museum business, so it's great to find a process that has a goal of producing tangible, actionable results in a short time.

So pick two or three specific thorny problems your organization has been struggling with, block out a day, and bring in some outsiders to shake things up a bit.  Who knows what sorts of ideas you can fill your "chariot" with?


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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!)