A few months ago, Mike Murawski, in partnership with LaTanya Autry of the Mississippi Museum of Art and The Empathetic Museum, created t-shirts to support a “Museums are not Neutral” campaign. Murawski wrote, “Museums have the potential to be relevant, socially-engaged spaces in our communities. Yet, too often, they strive to remain “above” the political and social…
This post is by Janine Okmin, Associate Director of Education at The Contemporary Jewish Museum, where she develops resources for schools and teachers, and trains museum tour guides. Formerly the Associate Manager of Learning Through Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Janine has led teacher workshops nationwide and in Taiwan. She has also developed programs…
What do museums have to say about, or learn from, recent events in Charlottesville? Museum leaders and professionals have shared statements condemning and consoling, from their position as community leaders. Bloggers and professional organizations have also shared resources, as museums take on the role of educators. Thankfully but not surprisingly, museums and museum professionals are advocates…
Museum educator Andrea Jones writes a blog called Peak Lab Experience – a blog I highly recommend reading. Like many of her posts, Museums, Can We Stop Letting Objects Control The Narrative?, published this week, made me think. In this case, the question it made me think about was: What is the role of objects in an institution…
Elizabeth Kaplan is a lawyer who lives in Louisville, Kentucky and a college friend of mine. When she visited Peoria recently I learned that she has taken her children to children’s museums all over the country. With this in mind, I interviewed Elizabeth for Museum Questions. We so often hear from colleagues; this post is…
For the past few months I have been working an article related to children’s museums, and thinking a great deal about the period from the 1960s to the 1980s, when children’s museums transformed from spaces with collections-based exhibits aimed at elementary school children into play spaces for the under-10 set. At first I understood this transformation as the…
Kate Baird is a museum educator at the Springfield Art Museum in Springfield, Missouri. She is also a founder of Placeworks, which offers art residencies and field trips at no cost to participating rural schools. Placeworks is a partnership of the Springfield Art Museum and the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, which is funded by the…
Because we live in a culture in which we primarily receive information written and shared by those who think just like us, I have spent the last two weeks immersed in a flood of media that deepens my despair at the world this election has cast us in to. Some day, it will be the job…
In March I had a conversation with an insightful colleague, Amy Boyle, an educator at the Guggenheim Museum. Amy suggested that open-ended interpretation might be problematic in a climate in which political discourse disregards facts, and candidates and supporters make up their own truths. I’m not sure I’ve captured the challenges and opportunities offered by this…
A few weeks ago, I walked into the Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum to find floor staff creating a clever string of “lights” made of construction paper and cardboard tubes. They wanted to hang it from our tree – a big, fake oak tree that sits just inside our lobby, and is one of the first things…
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
A catalog of museum experiences and impact
Thinking critically about museums and art galleries.
Experience Well-Crafted
Because nonprofit leadership is messy
Being a mom is so much more than simply “being mom.” It’s about still knowing yourself, finding time for the people you love, the things you love and knowing you would do anything for those who call you mom.
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
Thoughts on 21st Century museum leadership by Anne Ackerson and Joan Baldwin
Exploring museums, parks, cultural sites, and other informal learning environments…and every WMATA Metro station
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
Musings on the therapeutic, empowerment, and wellbeing-enhancing possibilities of the museum
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
Peer-populated resources for art history teachers
Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors
"There is no cure for curiosity." ~Dorothy Parker
thoughts on museums, content, design, and why they matter
