Museum Commons

Museum Transformation: A Voice of Experience

2012-02-13T13:52:00.001-05:00

Banner for website. Courtesy of Boston Stories.

I recently discovered a great resource for all the current discussions about Museums for the 21^st Century. It’s a site about a 90-year-old museum that grew to prominence more than 50 years ago, but was so far ahead of its time that its collective wisdom remains applicable today. The site is called Boston Stories, and it’s produced by alumni of the Boston Children’s Museum. As the website states:

Boston Stories is not an exercise in nostalgia. It is a resource for today’s generation of educators and museum practitioners, as well as leaders of other mission-driven, nonprofit organizations. Faculties of business and management schools, museum studies programs and organizers of volunteer training, staff brown-bag seminars, Webinars, and dialogs can selectively use this case study material as grist for the discussion of issues of leadership, values, decision-making, and management.

Begun in 2004 and led by former Boston Children’s Museum director Michael Spock, Boston Stories has been produced by a team of more than 100 contributors—former and current staff, board members, community leaders, stakeholders, funders, writers, technicians, and advisors.

Jeri Robinson(standing right) and families in Playspace. Courtesy of Boston Stories

Continuing Relevance
I’m doing research for an article I’m writing on play, so of course the first person I contacted was Jeri Robinson, creator and sustainer of the groundbreaking Playspace exhibition at BCM. Jeri sent me to Boston Stories, and I found not only a wonderful account of the evolution of Playspace, but a variety of extremely interesting articles and interviews by and with other former BCM staff such as Michael Spock, Elaine Heumann Gurian, Janet Kamien, Bernie Zubrowski, and Leslie Bedford. There are also videos and images. I haven’t looked at everything on the site – it would take many hours to do so – but here are some items of interest I’ve found so far.

Documentation of an exhibition development process: Spaces for children and families on the exhibition floor are now commonplace in museums, especially children’s museums. Jeri Robinson's account illustrates the perseverance, explanations, meetings, and setbacks it takes to bring a vision from an idea that no one had seen before into a reality. Along the way there are also examples of administrators who initially did not understand the vision but were open enough to be persuaded, and who became supporters. Documentation of such ephemeral processes, by the way, is still an important obligation for all of us, if not on our own museum sites then on sites like ExhibitFiles.
Two models of cultural learning. A fascinating series of reflections by Leslie Bedford and Leslie Swartz provides another example of the time and thought it takes to develop a truly iconic exhibition like the Japanese House, and then to rethink it in terms of growing cultural awareness and concerns about cultural artifacts and conservation.

Ahead of Its Time

The above topics, of course, remain relevant today, but there are some specific reminders that 50 years ago BCM was already fostering and promoting a number of priorities that museums of the 21^st century continue to value and work to achieve:

Community commitment: Founded in 1913 by a group of teachers who felt that museums were an important part of education, BCM has consistently valued community advisors and has had a longtime commitment to local ethnic communities -- Native American, African American, and Asian American.
Recognition of the family as the visiting unit: Today there is a great deal of research, e.g. by Falk and Dierking or Borun et al, confirming that museum going (for all museums, not just children's) is mostly a social activity involving multigenerational groups. Recognition of this fact has not necessarily led to the development of exhibitions that seriously attempt to engage family groups. BCM has done this for many years, and Playspace in particular is a model for addressing the needs of the very youngest visitors along with their adult companions.
Participatory exhibitions: Almost from its beginning in the late 1970s Playspace has involved visitors in what is on display and in its offerings to other visitors, from the Ask the Experts activity to the Parents’ Talkback Board. Inviting visitor feedback and contribution at BCM is a longtime practice.
Coffin and tombstones on display in Endings:
An Exhibit about Death and Loss.
Courtesy of Boston Stories.
Exhibitions on difficult and socially relevant topics: From Endings: An Exhibit About Death and Loss; to The Kid’s Bridge, on prejudice, tolerance, and multicultural issues; to Boston Black, on the varieties of the Black experience in Boston, in particular newer Latino communities--BCM has continually addressed issues that might be considered taboo for any museum, especially one for children and families. Other exhibition topics have included homeless families, living with disabilities, and nontraditional families including homosexual parents. And the museum is still here.
A nonproprietary perspective: Over the years I’ve attended some of the many BCM workshops and seminars that have shared and disseminated their innovative approaches. The Psychology Exhibition on which I worked in the 1990s was enormously indebted to BCM for the child development section, based on Playspace. Now Boston Stories is freely sharing BCM’s approaches, policies, challenges, and achievements: a web-like sensibility that dates from long before there was a web.

Boston Stories provides insights into how the museum achieved many of these 21st century ideals by providing both personal and professional accounts, some in the form of diaries that recount both discouragement and success. The site is a work in progress. There are sections still to be written and media and other resources to be added. But even in its present form Boston Stories provides a rich and rounded picture of a museum grappling with transformative practice.

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Whatever Is Unspoken Becomes Unspeakable

2012-01-30T12:32:00.000-05:00

Whatever is unspoken becomes unspeakable

Whatever is unspeakable becomes unthinkable

Whatever is unthinkable ceases to exist.

Harmony Hammond, artist

These words reflect the theme of the panel session I attended on Saturday, January 21, 2012 at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Entitled “Sexuality and the Museum,” the roundtable discussion was organized by Jonathan Katz, curator of Brooklyn’s current featured exhibition, Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. As discussed in a previous post the exhibition sparked controversy while on display at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC in 2010/11.

A Legacy of Silence and Invisibility

I’ve written and spoken about issues of diversity throughout my 30 plus years in museums, but have mostly framed my thinking in terms of ethnic and cultural issues. If asked, I would always have included broader elements of diversity such as gender and sexual preference, but these were rarely at the forefront of my thinking. The panel on Saturday brought me to a new perspective: this is an audience and a museum constituency that has been as invisible as the racial and cultural groups whose exclusion I have always decried, an audience whose usual response from the museum world has been polite (maybe sometimes not) disinterest, discomfort, or denial.

Why Follow the Story of Hide/Seek?

This exhibition is one to watch because it provides another page in the annals of “The Unexhibitable,” a theme I have been following for some years. The memories of Enola Gay, the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition, and other controversial shows of the 1980s and 90s hover like a cloud on the American museum scene. How to see through a fog of potential bad press, lost funders, political pressure (both local and national), firings and resignations, to decide to exhibit sensitive and difficult issues? As Elaine Heumann Gurian said at a symposium organized by researcher Fiona Cameron in Sydney, Australia on Exhibitions as Contested Sites in 2003,

…museums and their staffs remain mostly timid. When confronted with public debate, we find that the most threatened have retreated. Fiona Cameron is right to point out that those who feel most public, and whose funding is most controlled by politicians, are most vulnerable to the pressure put upon them by the funders. That does not surprise me. However when the same institutions are led by courageous people, they create programs, policies and exhibitions that have led the world to change.

The very existence of Hide/Seek together with the refusal of the Smithsonian to close
it down after it removed the controversial video have already led to some significant changes:

· Hide/Seek lives on: After contacting some 40 museums about hosting the show following its run at the Portrait Gallery, Katz found no takers. He was in the process of closing down the exhibition and returning all of the loan objects when he was contacted by the Brooklyn Museum and the Tacoma Museum of Art in the state of Washington. These two organizations, Mr. Katz stated during the afternoon discussion, literally resurrected the exhibition and put it back together again, including a complete version of the excerpted video tape that was at the center of the controversy in the nation’s capital. The exhibition will close in Brooklyn in February and will be in Tacoma from March 17-June 10, 2012.

· Acceptance grows: Thus far the exhibition in Brooklyn has generated nothing like the controversy seen in Washington. This may be due as much to location as anything, but the Brooklyn has seen its share of controversy over exhibitions with what some saw as objectionable religious and sexual content , so it may also mean that the public is becoming more comfortable with museums’ presentation of sensitive material. It will be interesting to see what the public reaction is when the exhibition moves to the state of Washington.

· AAM provides a platform: During and immediately following the controversy in DC, there was a fair amount of discussion in the museum community, including symposia organized by Seton Hall/Rutgers and by the Smithsonian , but the American Association of Museums remained silent, at least officially and in public, about the issue. Mr. Katz announced during the Brooklyn roundtable that AAM has invited him to address its annual meeting in Minneapolis/St. Paul in May of this year.

Some Difficult Questions Examined at the Roundtable

Should every exhibition expressly call attention to issues of sexual identity and preference?
As modeled in the introductions and discussions by the six panelists (three museum professionals and three artists) some specifically mentioned their gay or lesbian sexual orientation and some did not. Thus it is important to look at the relevance of such issues for a specific exhibition. One panelist, artist Deborah Kass, stated that her art defies categorization- she addresses a host of topics including the American song book, Broadway, and pop culture in general, as well as lesbian and feminist themes, yet she is always referred to as a Jewish lesbian artist, which she believes has marginalized her work.

At the same time, I think that she as well as all of the panelists would agree with another speaker, artist Harmony Hammond, who maintains that museums’ “assumption of the ‘heteronormative’” can and should be changed in a number of ways. More exhibitions like Hide/Seek that address sexual identity directly and openly are needed; at the same time all types of museums need to incorporate LGBT material in their collections, exhibitions, and programs. And when same-sex attraction is relevant to an exhibition story, as in an exhibition on Weimar culture or about the life of Gertrude Stein, it should be part of the story rather than being ignored.

Norman Kleeblatt, curator at The Jewish Museum in New York agreed, stating that open and inclusive policies and attitudes about gender, sexuality, and sexual preference must be “woven into the museum fabric;” include education of the board, the administration, curators, educators, all museum staff; and inform exhibitions, programming, educational materials, and web content, always in a manner that is sensitive to the ages and needs of the audiences served.

Why Does the Marginalization of Art by and about Women Continue?
Both Kass and Hammond spoke passionately about museums’ need to take the same approach regarding art by and about women as the panel recommended for LGBT themes. As Kass said, the boards and directors of most art museums are from the 1%, white and male to boot, and museum collections reflect this. Instead of occasionally hosting what Kass called a “Women in Our Collection Who We Usually Don’t Show” exhibition, museums must make art and artifacts by and about women a usual part of collecting and exhibiting policy. Kass noted that Hide/Seek itself is very much a male-oriented exhibition. It was interesting that both women had some wry observations about serving on museum panels; it seems this is a way of diversifying programming around exhibitions that don’t necessarily include them. “Being the woman on a panel isn’t the same as the museum buying a man’s work,” said Kass. Hammond added that It is only when you are in a collection that you begin to be collected (a chicken/egg situation), critiqued, and written about. Being a guest speaker is not a substitute.

Some takeaways for museums
Art museums appear to have no qualms about discussing the sexual relationships of male artists with their mistresses and muses. The National Museum of African American Art and Culture, together with the Thomas Jefferson Foundation of Monticello has just opened an exhibition at the National Museum of American History that discusses and acknowledges the heretofore denied sexual relationship of Thomas Jefferson with Sally Hemings and his complex connections with the Hemings family, some of whom were both his children and his slaves. Just as relevant heterosexual relationships should be included in an exhibition narrative, why not same-sex relationships that are part of the subject matter? Art museums, history museums, historic sites and houses in which such relationships are related to the collections must find ways to tell these stories in open and sensitive ways. What remains unspoken has not only become unspeakable but unexhibitable. Hide/Seek and a few other courageous exhibitions and institutions are breaking the silence.

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2012-01-14T15:06:00.000-05:00

Politics and Sexuality in the Museum: A Second Act for Hide/Seek

Tom Murphy by Minor White

When the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture finished its run in February, 2011, earlier plans to travel it had been abandoned due to the controversy it had engendered. Much of the uproar over an exhibition exploring themes of gender identity in portraiture was caused by the Smithsonian’s removal of a short video featuring ants crawling over a crucifix. The work was deemed offensive by The Catholic League and certain members of Congress. This provoked discussion of a variety of issues, both in the press and in the museum community: the responsibility of museums to mount exhibitions that explore sensitive cultural issues, especially those related to sex and sexuality; censorship and the fishbowl existence of the national museums in Washington, DC; federal funding for the arts and humanities; the role of the curator, and many more.

Following the February closing, however, the Brooklyn Museum in New York and the Tacoma Art Museum in Washington decided to reorganize and host the exhibition at their respective venues (October 2011-February 2012 in Brooklyn and March-June 2012 in Tacoma). Now in Brooklyn, the original exhibition, with the exception of a few objects for which loans could not be renewed, is virtually intact. The offending art, “A Fire in My Belly,” a four-minute excerpt from a video made in 1986-87 by David Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS in 1992, at 37, is back in the show. And the Brooklyn Museum has mounted a wide array of public programs, for families and teens as well as for adults, that embrace the major themes of the exhibition in a way that was not possible in the nation’s capital.

Self-portrait, Romaine Brooks.Images Courtesy Brooklyn Museum.

I’m hoping to attend one of the programs, a roundtable discussion with museum directors, curators, and selected artists, entitled Sexuality and the Museum, with the implicit question, What’s next? The program will be held at the Museum on January 21, 2012. Readers in the New York area might want to check it out.

I followed the 2010-11 discussions here in Washington with great interest. I've been writing and speaking about exhibitions on "unexhibitable" topics for many years because, as each museum deals with its particular controversy, much is revealed about the individual museum and more is revealed about the field as a whole and its reluctance to take up these kinds of issues. I plan to post again after seeing the Brooklyn installation and attending the discussion. For now I am including below the editorial I wrote about the exhibition for the Spring 2011 issue of Exhibitionist. The theme of that issue was “Is It a Museum? Does It Matter?” and it explored some of the same questions raised by Hide/Seek controversy.

On a chilly day in November I walked the three blocks from D.C. Superior Court, where I was serving on a grand jury, to see a new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Word was that Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture broke new ground in examining the ways in which 20^th century artists both communicated and obscured gay and lesbian themes in their work. I went back to the show on two subsequent lunch hours, but I did not linger at the video installations and thus missed what became the cause célèbre.

Within a week or so the Catholic League objected to a video that depicted a crucifix with ants crawling over it, an artist’s testament to a lover who had died of AIDS. The Smithsonian quickly removed the offending video but held firm in not shuttering the exhibition before its scheduled February 2011 closing date. This despite intense pressure, including threats of budget cuts, from the new Congress. Most of the ensuing controversy focused on questions of art censorship and the quick compliance by the Smithsonian with the Catholic League’s demands regarding the video.

But from my point of view (and the reason that I am discussing this in an issue devoted to the nature of museums) the more important point is that this exhibition exemplifies what museums should be about: designed spaces that provide opportunities for insight, enjoyment, and new ways to experience the world. In a period when gay and lesbian concerns are highly sensitive, a mainstream American museum, in a very tough political environment, chose to explore through design and display an important aspect of American portraiture that had been left mostly unexamined in the museum world. I was familiar with a number of the paintings and photographs in the exhibition, but their juxtaposition and interpretation here provided a new set of lenses through which to view them.
Those who have seen the show will know what I mean when I say that I will never look at another vintage Arrow shirt ad in the same way! This is, I think, what motivated me to spend three precious breaks from the jury room –I was seeing familiar work anew, I was gaining a wider perspective—this kind of expansive learning is extremely engaging. Hide/Seek was a very traditional exhibition in terms of its format, despite one or two somewhat interactive installations. But within its genre it was extremely well done: its scholarship took visitors to uncharted territory; the works selected were impressive in their quality and variety; the design and measured pacing of the galleries within the whole led the visitor forward; and the content provided insight into an important contemporary issue. It was an example of best practice that any museum would (or should) be proud to display. Isn’t this what all museums strive to do? Through interpretation, intentional design, and exhibitry (whether artifacts in cases or hands-on components) museums provide time and space to explore both known and unknown worlds. This is the achievement of NPG’s Hide/Seek, and why I think it provides an object lesson on the nature and role of museums in the 21^st century.
First published in Exhibitionist Vo1. 30.No.1.

Participatory Culture in Museums- Smooth Sailing or a Bumpy Ride?

2011-12-16T14:06:00.000-05:00

Writing this blog for six months has introduced me to all kinds of fascinating conversations found in other museum-related blogs and tweets. There’s a whole new world out there of ready-to-hand (but how make it ready-to-mind?) information about:

· museums

· participatory culture

· new uses for technology, especially social media

But how are all of these related? And aren’t they sometimes confused and conflated? About one out of every two tweets or blogs I read contains a link to some other article or discussion. I used to be an inveterate clipper of newspaper articles. Now my electronic clipping and filing skills are being tested to the limit. How to make sense of all of this? Here are some thoughts about sorting through these discussions, and some resources I’ve found extremely helpful.

So many phones, so little time. Michael Kwan on Flickr

Beware of “museums of the future” that look a lot like the past.

A number of presentations and blog posts I have read recently describe myriad new technologies in use in a "museum of the future." As these accounts envision visitors moving through a museum landscape, however, linking to (and being tracked by) technology in the museum, the words used to describe the physical surround sound pretty old hat –objects, artifacts, cases, screens on walls, linear displays, etc. If all this flat stuff in cases is what visitors are exploring on their smart and social technology, what is the point? Not much transformation of the basic structure of the museum or its exhibition formats here.

And the experiences described are virtually social but physically individual, each visitor using his or her smartphone or tablet to link with Facebook friends who like the same exhibition or tapping into further information about an interesting object. Most of the exhibition developers and visitor researchers I know are working to make museum experiences more social, more whole-body, more conducive to questions and discussion, more engaging and accessible to the multi-generational/family audiences that are the bread and butter of museum visitation. Are they working at cross purposes with IT departments that are focused on a single experience -- Bret Victor's memorable term "sliding pictures under glass"? Certainly smart devices have many engaging uses within the museum context; and visitors are going to find all kinds of creative uses for these devices on their own. But which of these technologies museums choose to support and sustain with their limited resources should be guided by larger questions of accessibility and inclusiveness. It’s in these areas that I think reports like the ones discussed below can inspire and inform museums thinking about the long term and not just what’s new. A recent survey on the blog MuseumMinute indicates a growing interest in museums as commons or forums. While this survey doesn’t have the substance of some of the other resources discussed here, it’s a good example of the “culture of participation” that appears to be growing all around us.

It’s easy to equate participatory culture with social media but it’s important to distinguish between them.

In a White Paper sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21^st Century, Henry Jenkins of MIT clearly states the case for focusing on the growing culture of participation rather than exclusively on the interactive technologies that support it. Jenkins defines this culture of participation as one

1.With relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement

2.With strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others

3.With some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is

passed along to novices

4.Where members believe that their contributions matter

5.Where members feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they

care what other people think about what they have created).

Although writing about media education, Jenkins’ caution is good advice for museums: understanding the growing forms of participatory engagement that are changing the total culture is key: interactive technologies can assist museums in making the most of this cultural shift, but these technologies’ rapid development and proliferation can distract from the more fundamental issue of the thoughtful development of more inclusive and participatory museum infrastructure. Jenkins states, "Rather than dealing with each technology in isolation, we would do better to take an ecological approach, thinking about the interrelationship among all of these different communication technologies, the cultural communities that grow up around them, and the activities they support."

It’s important to think about new technologies within context and over time.

A recent publication that takes this contextual approach is the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Report 2011: Museum Edition. Complied through a wiki involving some 40 leaders in museums and new media, the report analyzes “six emerging technologies or practices that are likely to enter mainstream use” within the next five years. The technologies discussed are:

mobile apps and tablets, already in use in a variety of contexts, including museums;
augmented reality and electronic publishing, predicted to be in wide use in two to three years;
digital preservation and smart objects, with a four to five year projection.

If your curiosity is piqued about these terms, the report explains them clearly and discusses each in terms of its potential impact on museum education and interpretation; exhibitions and collections; and marketing and communications. The Executive Summary is just a few pages, and the entire report is clearly written and extremely well organized, with specific examples and suggested readings a part of each chapter. Well worth a read.

Darting beneath a calm sea

As I digest these thoughtful documents, while at the same time trying to absorb and save what’s useful in blogs and tweets on museums, technology, and the future, I’ve developed a metaphor for the experience. The world of reports and white papers, whether in print or online, is a relatively tranquil sea of reflection and the longer view. Beneath it dart and swirl dozens, hundreds (thousands?) of tweets, blogs, ideas, observations, often rising to the surface and breaking the calm. If you’re going to set sail you need to consider both the waters above and what’s going on beneath. Here's wishing you Happy Holidays and hoping for a bit of a bumpy ride in 2012.

Sexual Harassment in Museums: What's Changed? What Hasn't?

2011-11-13T17:26:00.001-05:00

Here in the United States the issue of sexual harassment has been on the front pages for months – in May and throughout the summer with the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, and in October with the 20^th anniversary of law professor Anita Hill’s testimony against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Now in November we read daily about accusations by former female employees against Herman Cain, a Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency, and most recently about allegations of terrible sexual abuse of minors by a former coach at Pennsylvania State University. I decided not to provide links to any of these stories as all, even the oldest, appear to be unfolding daily.

Given that our museums reflect our culture in so many ways, it is not unreasonable to assume that sexual harassment is an issue that they have faced in the past, and will continue to grapple with, although this is rarely discussed publicly. And so, in the spirit of Museum Commons, I propose these reflections. They are based not on surveys but on my own personal and professional experiences over the years.

What Has Not Changed

When I was a young newcomer at a museum many years ago I was the recipient of unwanted, inappropriate behavior from the director. Even after reporting it to my immediate supervisor, a woman, it continued for some months: this was not new or unexpected behavior from this man. Ultimately, after another woman and I gave similar reports to higher authorities the behavior was stopped. This experience has given me an insider’s perspective whenever the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace is discussed. While public sensitivity and workplace policies are different now than they were when I was younger, I believe the actual experience of harassment has not changed at all, and this is why people are still so unwilling to come forward. The experience involves:

Shame and embarrassment to have been involved in the situation, even though a victim;
Anger and a feeling of powerlessness as a subordinate (usually) accusing a superior;
Fear of retaliation both in the current job and in future career choices – being seen as a troublemaker;
A feeling of being alone, despite the knowledge that this is not a unique experience;
A profound sense of invasion of privacy, both because of the unwanted actions of the harasser and also because of having to report and share the experience with others in the organizationin order to gain justice and closure.

I experienced all of this, and I sense it as the back story each time a woman* comes to the fore, especially when she tries to explain why she might not have reported the experience immediately. While many take this as evidence that the incident either did not happen or was insignificant, I see it as confirmation of the powerful threat that sexual harassment is. Even when there is no physical contact, it is an act of psychological aggression and violence that leaves a legacy of fear.

THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964 OFFICIALLY MADE SEXUAL HARASSMENT

ILLEGAL IN THE WORKPLACE.

What Has Changed

When I reported my experience, I don’t think I knew the term “sexual harassment.” I didn’t have a name for it; I just knew I didn’t like it, and I wanted it to stop. After I became an administrator and manager in other institutions I had to deal on a couple of occasions with reports by women employees of inappropriate behavior by male colleagues or supervisors. By this time the term “sexual harassment in the workplace” was a defined and acknowledged entity. While at the Smithsonian (1998-2007) with its federal workforce, I received required training every 2 years in the legal aspects of this issue, the kinds of behavior that are deemed inappropriate, how these can affect the atmosphere of an office, and the procedures every supervisor had to follow if an employee reported harassment. While some, especially friends and colleagues in other countries, may see these kinds of structures as too rigid and puritanical, for me they provide the finger on the scale that gives some degree of power and agency to victims who are most often in a subordinate position. I am grateful that at least some organizations now have procedures that allow them to take action with a fair amount of speed and discretion.

The application of federal laws may be a bit different for private institutions. And, of course laws will differ from country to country. In the U.S. a number of states have passed their own laws in this area. The website Findlaw contains an article that lists these states and that discusses state and local laws. The American Association of Museums also has an information page with useful links on this topic. I wonder how many non-federal museums have articulated policies to addess the issue. I did find a number of museum policies posted on the web.

Thoughts for Museum Personnel

If you are a director or manager, you should be sure that:

you have a clear and public policy on workplace harassment in all forms;
all of your employees know about it;
managers and staff feel confident that these procedures can make things easier and contribute to a just resolution if a difficult situation arises.

If you are someone who has experienced or is experiencing workplace harassment, know that you are not alone and that you do have more resources and power than ever before. It is still a huge decision and risk to take the step to report, but know that many victims, both men and women, are in solidarity with you.
Remember that you can comment as Anonymous.

*I realize that all these gender adjectives can be reversed – men can be harassed; women can be harassers; and there can be same sex as well as heterosexual harassment. To avoid a lot of convoluted sentences I am referring only to the most common situations.

Museum transformation - who has the clout?

2011-10-24T20:42:00.000-04:00

The museum social media networks have been buzzing lately with discussions about the nature and role of museums in the 21^st century. Inspired by tweets and posts by Nina Simon and Robert Stein among others, museum folks on social media have been contributing to substantive conversations about the key questions museums should be asking and the significant challenges they face. Meanwhile an international group of museum and library thought leaders met at the Salzburg Global Seminar to discuss some of these same issues in a conference entitled Libraries and Museums in an Era of Participatory Culture. Stein attended, as well as blogging and tweeting about the conference. All of this conversation is exciting and stimulating, and has clearly galvanized the online museum community.

The ideals highlighted in these exchanges all address various aspects of museums’ responsibility to the public dimension:

· listening to visitors, inviting their increased participation in our work,

· making museums more accessible both physically and intellectually,

· interacting with and influencing local communities, contributing to their quality of life,

· creating spaces where citizens can both learn about and shape their world,

· sharing authority with the public in developing exhibitions and programs,

· utilizing social media to involve and attract the public.

Validating the Significance of the Public Dimension in Museums

I have been trying to remember when I last experienced the feeling of excitement and anticipation about the role of museums and their future that I find in all of this public sharing. I think it may have been after the publication of Excellence and Equity: Education and the Public Dimension of Museums in 1992, almost 20 years ago now. The role of education and the public dimension in museums was given a tremendous boost with this report, and with its incorporation into requirements for AAM accreditation. It was an exciting time to be in museum education.

Less Heady and More Hesitant

Yet as I sift through the current discussions, my own thoughts and feelings are less heady and more hesitant. Yes, education and the public dimension are everywhere in museum discourse; they appear in countless mission statements; museum educators and visitor researchers sit on exhibition committees; museums are on Facebook and Twitter. But after 20 years (and really, much longer than that) educators, visitor researchers, and staff who are expert in the arena of the public dimension are still not as influential as they should be in the overall scheme of things. My sense is that in most museums with curators, it is the curators who still make major decisions about the content and format of exhibitions and about the overall vision of the museum. And in science museums, the exhibits department is the most influential in shaping the overall direction of the museum.

The Status of Public Dimension Advocates

Thus it is important to acknowledge the persistent secondary status of public dimension advocates--museum educators, visitor researchers, and social media/technology staff in most museums. Granted there are some exceptions, but in most museums people with these types of expertise are heads of their own departments, not necessarily part of top management. They have input, sometimes considerable input, but do not ultimately control the direction of the museum. How many have final control over museum resources – funding, staff, space, and time? How many make the final decisions about the distribution and use of these resources? How many have a major impact on Board decisions? On the direction of new fundraising? I don’t mean to belittle the successes that my fellow museum educators have achieved in advocating for the public dimension over the years. But, as one colleague put it when I discussed this blog with her – “[museum educators] have changed the identity of museums, but perhaps have not gained power.” Without this power, in my view, advocates of the public dimension have had and will continue to have great difficulty in fundamentally transforming their institutions. And most of our museums, exhibitions and programs will continue to look and operate pretty much the same as they always have.

As our colleagues discuss museum roles for the 21^st century, particularly in this era of social media and participation, I believe we need a frank discussion of whether educators and other advocates of the public dimension actually have the institutional authority and clout to profoundly affect exhibitions, long range planning, and institutional vision. Here are a few thoughts and questions; perhaps you will have others to add:

· Fundamental institutional change is painfully slow; will the lightening speed with which social media operate speed up or just bypass still-needed structural change in museums?

· Fundamental personal change is painfully slow; can public dimension advocates literally change the minds and work of curatorial and design colleagues who take pride in and have been rewarded in many ways for their approaches, skills, and accomplishments?

· Public dimension advocates need to change also. Too much of the energy of museum educators has been directed at the formal education community. (See Confessions of a Formal Education Enabler.) While not abandoning this constituency, can museum educators redirect more of their expertise toward shaping exhibitions and programs that encourage family learning and reflect current understandings of how people learn/engage in informal environments? And most important, can they be given the support of the power structure of the museum to effect this redirection?

· All of us, educators, administrators, and curators alike, have become used to the widely accepted authority of the museum voice; is this is an area of common ground that can be used as a basis for cross departmental discussions about our future roles?

· There are some museums where education, visitor research, social media, and other aspects of the public dimension have been structurally integrated with the research, curatorial, and exhibition design/development functions: their exhibitions, programs, and media initiatives look like the future; how can we highlight these institutions as models for the field?

Sharing Critical Authority in a User-Generated World

2011-10-07T17:45:00.000-04:00

I’m currently reading a terrific book, Letting Go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World, edited by Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene, and Laura Koloski. Although this book is about history museums, a number of articles, especially ones by Nina Simon, “Participatory Design and the Future of Museums,” and Kathy McLean, “Whose Questions, Whose Conversations?” made me think about a wonderful recent experience of shared authority in an art museum. So I've slightly adapted the title for this post.

In September, I had a chance to see the newly opened Musee Bonnard in Le Cannet, a town north of Cannes. I wrote a review of the museum and its opening exhibition Bonnard et Le Cannet dans la Lumière de la Mediterranee (Bonnard and Le Cannet in the Mediterranean Light) on Exhibit Files but here I would like to focus on the approach to adult learning I found there.

Un Autre Regard Sur Bonnard

A friend (full disclosure), Mary Lynn Riley-Durand, invited me to attend an adult workshop she was giving at the Museum on the art and skill of looking: Un Autre Regard Sur Bonnard. I had never seen Mary Lynn in her professional element, but I fully expected an engaging and informative tour of the exhibition. Instead the 17 participants and I were treated to an activity that called on our insights and experience in a dialogue with our facilitator. In the bright education space on the ground floor of the museum Mary Lynn spent about 20 minutes introducing us to Bonnard’s life, his evolution as a painter, the key characteristics of his style, and important influences on his work. In addition to the Impressionists, an important influence was Japanese printmaking, and Mary Lynn showed us examples of these prints with the flat blocks of color and their strong horizontal and vertical orientations. She then took us upstairs to a gallery where several paintings – a scene of the port in St. Tropez, and a landscape – illustrated these influences. (I wish I could share some of these fabulous works but photography was not permitted; you can find at least some examples on the museum website.) She had us examine and discuss these paintings briefly, using what we had just learned. Then she divided us into groups of three and four, gave each group a clipboard and paper for note-taking, and assigned a painting for each group to explore on its own.

Our group of four was assigned “The View from Le Cannet,” a large painting that filled the end wall of one of the galleries. The top of the canvas has an unusual curved form, making the work look almost like an arch through which one is viewing a plaza and the colorful countryside around it in the distance. We talked together about the painting for about 20 minutes, using the information Mary Lynn had given us, plus our own insights, to make observations about the use of color to define space, the vegetation in the foreground, the appearance of people in the distance, the horizontal and vertical lines of the buildings, the contrast of dull and brilliant coloring, and the appearance of a small archway in the center that echoed the shape of the painting. In the final half hour or so of the workshop, we came together around each of the paintings we had been assigned. Members of each group provided a commentary on the painting, with our facilitator adding comments, questions, and providing connections to what we had learned in the introductory discussion. The insights of each group about “their” painting were fascinating, and several times, as with the archway in the middle of “The View from Le Cannet,” the participants had noticed something that Mary Lynn admitted she had never seen before. One of the groups talked about how their painting seemed to question the viewer, creating a dialog between the visitor and the work itself. I could see heads nodding assent all around.

Sharing Critical Authority and Respecting Adult Experience

In thinking about how the workshop became an occasion for shared expertise rather than a one-way delivery of information from expert to novices, I came up with these elements. The facilitator:

Put us all on an equal footing in the introductory discussion–providing us with common tools (art terms, design vocabulary, historical context) to assess the works on our own;
Provided us the opportunity to practice critical looking and conversation with two works at the beginning;
Gave us the time and space to use our art critiquing tools with a specific work;
Provided us with encouragement and connections – we use the term “scaffolding” when talking about children’s learning – in this case it helped those of us with less knowledge about Bonnard and art history to get some command of the language of art criticism;
Provided an opportunity for the life experience and knowledge of adults to become part of the critique;
Respected the connections, observations, and new insights of the participants;
Affirmed the value of both common knowledge and individual experience in looking at art;
Had the courage to leave out most of the exhibition, focusing on just a few works but nurturing in us the ability to look more critically and skillfully at this and future artwork on our own.

Having slogged through a lifetime of museum tours (either by a guide or with an audio device) where no fact, date, or detail is left unmentioned, this 90 minute experience was a true breath of fresh air. I think it could easily be replicated in the shorter time period of a usual museum tour if guides were willing to share their expertise and take the risk of letting go of the compulsion to cover everything, instead encouraging observation, criticism, and conversation, all of which are elements of true understanding.

9/11: Only Half the Story?

2011-09-20T07:27:00.002-04:00

This month the United States, as well as many countries the world over, has commemorated the 10^th anniversary of 9/11. There have been museum-sponsored events and exhibitions such as the inauguration of the 9/11 Memorial Plaza at the World Trade Center in New York, and a display of 9/11 artifacts collected by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History; and street displays like the models of the Twin Towers, covered with messages from the French people, erected on the Place du Trocadero in Paris.

Where Is the Analysis?

None of these commemorations, if the coverage is accurate, contain much if any interpretation of the event. In his International Herald Tribune critique (Sept. 9, 2011) of two photography exhibitions mounted by the New York Historical Society, Edward Rothstein acknowledges the continuing power of the images taken by thousands just after the event and collected by the Museum. But, he asks, why are they displayed, 10 years later, almost as if they were photographs of a natural disaster, an act of God? In the immediate aftermath it is understandable that the images could stand alone. Yet today, in these exhibitions and in other events around the city, he writes, “the private details of grief still overwhelm any sense of public meaning, which is peculiar given the scale of the event and its consequences.” What is preventing us from “daring to commemorate and comprehend rather than simply remember?”

It’s said that Chinese leader Chou en Lai, when asked in 1972 what he thought about the historical impact of the French Revolution, responded, “It’s too soon to tell.” It is certainly true that historians, especially museum historians, prefer the long view, and feel a professional sense of responsibility to avoid premature assessments even of world-shaking events. At meetings at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in the days after 9/11, I remember heated discussions between curators who proposed that the Museum create some kind of immediate display that would speak to the attacks, and those who thought this was completely inappropriate for a museum of history. In fact, soon after, the Museum did put on view in its large Flag Hall some original posters of Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms as well as the immense fire-stained flag flown by firefighters on the façade of the Pentagon in the immediate aftermath. In an attempt to address the shifting social and cultural landscape at the time, the Museum developed a series of public forums entitled Crossroads, running monthly from November into the following spring.

When the Museum developed September 11: Bearing Witness to History in 2002, it decided, after visitor surveys, to mount an exhibition that encouraged remembrance and reflection, with little or no curatorial comment or interpretation. The program organized by the Museum for the 10^th anniversary was in fact entitled September 11: Remembrance and Reflection, and featured more than 50 objects from the three sites – New York, Shanksville, PA, and the Pentagon- displayed on tables rather than under glass. Visitors filed respectfully and quietly past the tables, and many left comments that will be retained for future research. At the Pentagon there is a memorial park, and we will have to wait until next year to see how the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York handles the interpretive contextual aspects of an event that is still so emotionally raw in that city above all.

When Is It No Longer “Too Soon”?

When is it no longer “too soon” to discuss the historical and social causes and effects of an event? As we enter the second decade of the 21^st century historians and other academics still argue about the major wars of the 20^th. Journals and history listservs buzzed with controversies still alive during last year’s 150^th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War. Is analysis within the decade of an event by its very nature a-historical? For analysis and a search for a fuller understanding of the events of 9/11 necessitate an examination of the role of the US in the larger global community; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the prisons of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib; the impact on citizens’ privacy and human rights; the changing power of the executive branch; anti-Muslim prejudice, and many other difficult topics. Certainly a number of well researched and thoughtful books have been published by journalists such as Lawrence Wright and Robin Wright on many of these questions. Other segments of the cultural community – dramatists and filmmakers for example – have also created material that starts with 9/11 but goes on to link it with larger historical issues.

Is the American public not ready for a complex examination in a museum setting of both 9/11 and its continuing impact? Or are museums not ready? Or is it a bit of both? It’s not too soon to begin discussing this more openly.

Confessions of a Formal Education Enabler

2011-08-08T16:34:00.234-04:00

I have been thinking for some time about museums’ propensity to imitate and reinforce the environments and methods of formal education. I think they need to refocus on what they do best: create informal environments for learning (very broadly defined) and enjoyment.

Importing a Classroom Mentality

I entered the museum field from the classroom over 30 years ago. From that time until I left institutional museum work in 2007 I have written or supervised the development of many teacher manuals to accompany exhibitions, conducted dozens of teacher workshops, and written countless justifications for how this or that exhibition or program met required educational standards. The longer I worked in museums the less I believed statements like: in engaging with Exhibition X, students will meet standards 1, 3, and 5.4 of the social studies curriculum, and standards 2 and 6.7 of the science curriculum. I had no doubt that students would derive educational value from a visit to the exhibition, but more and more I saw the experience as one of discovery, play, social interaction, and conversation, and less in terms of specific learning goals mandated by the local school system. Yet I continued to write formal education goals into grant proposals, letters informing schools of upcoming programs and exhibitions, and presentations to teachers and curriculum supervisors. I did this in order to gain funding and to attract school audiences; if anything I had to do this more and more over the years as outside funding became more necessary for our work and as school budgets for field trips were reduced.

I don’t regret any successes my colleagues and I had in attracting more funding and more school children. Evaluations required by the grants we were awarded showed that visitors were gaining rich and varied experiences from the exhibitions and programs we developed. Still I wish I had pushed back a bit more in my compliance with the demands of standards-based education. I regret that I did not find more ways to communicate the role of museums as unique and special environments for learning and enjoyment. Though they may have classrooms, museum teachers, and lesson plans, museums are not at their roots alternative schools. They are specially designed spaces that encourage engagement with three dimensional objects and/or activities; that move people through time and space; that involve graphic design, lighting, staging, and social interaction. In many ways they are more like theater than school, but more on that another time.

New Ways of Thinking About Museum Learning

Recently, several excellent resources on learning research have helped clarify and reshape my thinking on the formal/informal distinction in museum education.

In John Bransford et al, How People Learn I found a compendium of scholarship on learning. I have known and admired Bransford’s work for years, since working with him on the development of components on cognition for the Psychology Exhibition.

"Thinking in New Ways" Discovery Box based on Bransford's research. Psychology Exhibition.

The studies discussed in Bransford confirmed for me that for the individual, learning is the same experience neurologically, psychologically, and cognitively, whether it happens in a formal or informal setting. In a classroom, in the back yard, in a kitchen, or in a museum, the process, as it happens in the brain, is the same. The neurons are firing, the synapses are connecting, and learning occurs. Bransford says that all learning is transfer; it is change – we gain new information, or expertise, or skills. The conditions that promote learning are also the same, whether in a formal or informal environment. We learn best when we can relate something new to what we already know. Learning is enhanced (or inhibited) by context, by prior knowledge, also by communication with others, by discussion and scaffolding. I have concluded that the line drawn between informal and formal learning is not especially useful; it is the environments (museum or kitchen) in which we learn, and the methods (testing, memorizing, tasting, touching, etc) we use, that are formal or informal, not the learning process itself. This may have been clear to many readers before, but something clicked for me when I understood this distinction.

An everyday informal environment for science learning

Museums as Intentionally Designed Spaces

A second publication, Philip Bell et al, Learning Science in Informal Environments provided another “ah ha” moment. The report, published in 2009, summarizes and organizes current research on learning science in informal settings. Chapter 5, “Science Learning in Designed Settings,” contrasts everyday informal environments, such as the back yard or the kitchen, with environments such as museums that are “intentionally designed for learning about science and the physical and natural world.” The report provides many examples of intentionally designed spaces for science learning – science museums and centers, aquariums, zoos, environmental centers and their designed components. I think the same claim can be made for art, history, or other types of museums. All museums are intentionally designed spaces for learning about their particular facet of the human experience. Using an impressive array of current research, Bell and colleagues show that all kinds of learning (change) can happen in spaces designed for this purpose. In the case of science museums, visitor research shows that this can range from the aquisition of new science content to broader kinds of transformation - developing enthusiasm and excitement about science and the natural world; becoming familiar with scientific thinking and reasoning; a reinforced sense of identity; a sense of communion with nature.

An intentionally designed informal environment for science learning: The Rotating Faces encourage exploration of psychological research on facial expression of emotion. Psychology Exhibition.

I wish I had come to this concept of museums as intentionally designed spaces for learning much earlier in my career. It might have provided insights for persuading educators and policy makers that museums have a unique role in the range of experiences that can be called "educational." The concept resonates with me because it

shifts the focus away from thinking that there are different learning processes, and promotes a more seamless understanding of human learning;
places the emphasis where it belongs in museums - on manipulating space - light, color, graphics, objects, specimens, language, activities - working with three dimensionality and considering how it affects visitor engagement, learning, and enjoyment.

This discussion has implications for much of the new thinking in museum work - from visitor-generated exhibitions, to online museums and exhibitions, to a re-discovery of the value of museum programs - all topics of other recent museum blogs. It also suggests that museum educators may have even more substantive roles to play in the design of museum experiences, especially as they continue to become knowledgeable about visitor research. And while writing those justifications for how Exhibition X will address (not necessarily meet) STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) and STEAM (add Art) standards, how about building a new vocabulary (one I never had) that provides some nuance; that illustrates how museum environments and methods are powerful and full of impact in and of themselves.

Museums are in trouble

2011-07-12T13:11:00.002-04:00

The government shutdown in Minnesota is now in its second week, with no end in sight, closing the Minnesota Historical Society and its museums, libraries, and historic sites throughout the state. But as a colleague from Minnesota writes. “Actually, I think what Minnesota is facing now is just one version of what other states, cities, and the country are facing.”

A report from the American Association of Museums released in April 2011supports this observation. The results of an online survey sent by AAM to 2300 museums in February 2011 (with almost 400 museums responding) indicates that that over 70% of American museums are in some kind of financial stress, "from moderate (39%) to severe (14%) or very severe (18%) –with very severe stress defined as 'the very worst I have seen in at least 5 years.'" The chart below reveals some of the reasons for the gloomy assessment: almost all funding streams are in a downward trend. The reduced level of government support is particularly troubling, and has been reinforced by recent announcements of funding cuts for NOAA and proposed cuts for NEA and NEH.

Changing landscape of funding streams

Change from 2009 to 2010. Red=decrease; Blue = increase

The report also includes a useful breakdown of the kinds of measures museums are taking to address the budget crunch. IDEA provided the graphic below.

Between them these two charts provide an unsettling picture of the financial malaise of museums during The Great Recession. Just last week we were all disappointed in the very low number of new jobs created during June – just 18,000 when economists were hoping for over 90,000. If you look at the chart above, you can see these national statistics writ small in the museum world: most of the budget-saving measures listed, from hiring freezes to staff lay-offs to postponment of projects, affect museum job seekers, current employees, and prospective consultants.

My Minnesota colleague continues, “The course corrections that began in many museums in 2008 probably need to continue; they were understandably jettisoned as soon as things seemed to be easing up.”

AAM is addressing these challenges with an active Advocacy program, and it ran multiple Career Café sessions at the conference in Houston in May. Its opening general session was entitled “Tough Economy, Tough Choices.” But should there be more serious discussion of the implications of the recession at our professional meetings? I just received the conference program for the ASTC (Association of Science-Technology Centers) conference in Baltimore this October. There are a number of sessions on marketing, governance, and fundraising, but no indication of the widespread problems described above. One promising thread found in both the Houston and Baltimore programs – increased discussion of the public value of museums. What are your thoughts – do we need more attention to the larger questions of the economy, the common good, and our place in it? Or is more discussion a waste of time? What if the AAM program next year really focused on these questions? After all, AAM 2012 is in Minneapolis/St. Paul!

Cultural commons held hostage by Minnesota budget feud

2011-07-05T18:17:00.002-04:00

If you go to the home page of the Minnesota History Center you’ll see announcements for events in July and August –Tuesday night concerts, a history pub crawl, museum theater – as well as information about current and future exhibitions. But look at the upper left-hand corner and you’ll see a diagonal banner:

CLOSED!

And across the top of the page:

The Minnesota Historical Society, its museums, historic sites, library and programs are closed temporarily due to the State of Minnesota government shutdown.
Check back for reopening information. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Navigating the website is a bit dicey too – there are notices on various pages that some of the usual services such as ticketing, scheduling, etc. will not be available due to the government shutdown. The museum reportedly receives over half of its operating revenue from the state.

On July 3 The St Paul Pioneer Express had a number of articles about the build-up to the shutdown, and related articles about the impact on various segments of the community. The list of articles begins “Horses and Drivers at Racetrack Might Decamp,” goes on to discuss some facilities that have negotiated exceptions – including the Minnesota Zoo and the logging industry – and ends with headlines about the effects on health and community services.

Is there something amiss when the list of articles begins with the racetrack? I’m glad the Zoo has found a way to stay open. But where is some slight expression of dismay at the loss of all the exhibits, programs, and events over the long weekend (and possibly beyond) afforded by the Minnesota Historical Society, with its dozens of historic sites, museums, and parks across the length and breadth of the state?

I haven't visited the other sites, but I'm a longtime fan of the museum located in Minnesota's capital city. When I was Project Director of Invention at Play, and we were in the early development stages in 1998, one of the first places our exhibition team visited was the History Center Museum, both to view the exhibitions and to pick the brains of their exhibit developers. Among them was Dan Spock, now the Director of the Museum at the History Center. Since that first visit I’ve been delighted and impressed repeatedly by the efforts of the Museum to create innovative history exhibitions that engage visitors with good scholarship and with carefully prototyped hands-on components and activities. Some of my favorites: exhibits that make railroad cars and labor disputes participatory experiences; Minnesota A to Z – an alphabetical display of the Center’s broad and deep collection; Home Place Minnesota, one of a number of “object theaters,” multimedia combinations of sound, film, artifacts, lighting, and moveable sets that provide an immersive experience for abstract concepts. I haven’t seen the Mill City Museum, created out of the ruins of what was once the world’s largest flour mills (Gold Medal) on the Mississippi River, but have heard glowing reports of its use of the site to communicate the interrelated history of flour milling, the river, and the economy of the region. Minnesota 150, developed to commemorate the 150^th anniversary of statehood in 2009, was one of the first efforts by a major museum to use crowdsourcing to make the initial selection of content for the exhibition. A few years ago, the Museum held its ground when there were protests from the community about its inclusion of images of same-sex couples in an exhibition about marriage in Minnesota.

Today, July 5, in the online version of the Minneapolis Star Tribune , you can a click on an article that tells you what’s open and what’s closed. It’s understandable that many health and human service programs will continue to operate, including medical services, food stamps, and the like. But other decisions seem more arbitrary. The Courts will be open, and you can still get a marriage license. But electronic signs on highways are dark and most rest areas closed. The Minnesota Historical Society, including the History Center and all of MHS’ other sites, libraries, and museums, remains closed. There's a brief article announcing the cancellation of the first of the free Tuesday evening concerts at the History Center, a 15 year tradition.

Even if it weren’t a leader in the history museum field, the temporary closing of The Museum at the History Center should be a cause for concern in our community. How many other similar closings are in the cards? And why is there not more public comment when this happens?

Readers interested in more background on the state of funding for all museums can find an interesting post on IDEA-AAM reports most museum revenues falling.

Introducing this blog

2011-06-26T18:50:00.004-04:00

You’re at a dinner party with museum colleagues. All kinds of questions and observations filter across the table and around the room. What did you think about the most recent conference? Why do most museums seem to avoid edgy and groundbreaking topics? Is government funding driving our approach to museum education? Why is University X opening a new museum studies program when our job market is so weak? Are there ethical considerations in accepting funding from some sources and not others? How does this play out in the world of global museum projects?

I’ve created this blog as a space where we can discuss openly and frankly, but also in a constructive way, issues that we talk about among ourselves but don't necessarily air in public. Why do these discussions need to be more widely shared? Because these issues are important. We have intense thoughts and feelings about them. We need the support of colleagues to have the confidence that what we are thinking may have merit; that the questions we are asking are being asked by others; that while we must be respectful of other people and ideas, we do not have to be as timid as the field seems to be in the discussion (and perhaps by extension, the exhibition) of sensitive and difficult issues.

At the recent conference of the American Association of Museums in Houston (May 2011), I was inspired by the sessions at which Thought Leader Lewis Hyde presented his ideas. During a conversation sponsored by The Museum Group, Dr. Hyde spoke about the difference between antagonistic and agonistic modes of thinking and discussion. Antagonism, as he says in his recent book, Common as Air, “pits enemies against one another, each side trying to destroy or silence its opponents; agonism, on the other hand, is a conflict among equals, and while some will be more persuasive, none are silenced, all are in play.” (p. 228)

This blog is intended to be a place of agonistic discussion. A place where differing ideas are considered by equals, and where a serving of disagreement may be considered nourishing. A site where widely differing ideas may be sampled or set aside, enjoyed and/or critiqued. To put it bluntly- I'd like to host a stimulating dinner party, but not a food fight.

I'd like to hear from readers the questions about the museum field they think are important but sensitive and not widely enough discussed.

My experience at the recent AAM Conference in Houston is a case in point. I liked the way that AAM addressed the tanking economy and the resulting dearth of museum jobs head-on, with a large number of Career Cafe sessions. This concentration of programs communicated real concern for members, in my view. Did the sessions on the future of museums also look carefully at the impact of a worsening economy on our survival? Perhaps some of you who attended those sessions would like to comment. The conference also took a leap into the global museum community with a China track, the acceptance of signature sponsorship from Saudi Aramco, and with simultaneous interpretation of at least some sessions in Mandarin and Arabic. If there was substantive discussion of the political and social implications of international initiatives, however, I missed it. As someone who has worked in a number of countries and cultures, I appreciate and endorse the significant values of global collaboration. But are there areas where we should be cautious? Are there ethical issues to be considered? Human rights concerns? Are there any professional standards for both individual and institutional work abroad? Should there be? I hope that some of you who are working on these kinds of projects will share your thoughts. Do you discuss these issues with your colleagues? Have you developed protocols and standards for your own work? Let's begin the conversation.