Think of a time that you didn’t feel welcome. As a woman who is the soon-to-be-wife of a woman who prefers buttons and a collar over scoop necks and pencil skirts, the inevitable wedding suit shopping experience loomed in my future. We went together. For moral support. We knew nothing about suits. A gorges? What’s that. No one dared approach us. They stared, wondering why we were in this foreign land. We asked a gentleman to help us find a grey suit. He asked us what size the gentleman for which we were shopping was. Upon learning the … [Read more...]
The Possibilities of a Children’s Art Museum
Last weekend my daughter and I spent the morning at the National Zoo. She turns three later this summer and this was our fifth trip to the zoo since the weather turned nice this spring. Every visit is so different from the last one, even when our path is the same. I never know where she will decide to spend her time. This weekend it was the Amazonian House (a fortuitous side trip that started on the hunt for a potty). Kira was enthralled by the blue frogs, snakes, river fish and stingrays. And I loved discovering how few things she naturally … [Read more...]
Museums in the Digital Age
Sebastian Chan is director of digital and emerging media at the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and a Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Leaders Fellow. Watch the following clips and add your voice to the discussion, using the comments below to weigh in with your thoughts. In this clip, he talks about the convergence of street, markets and institutions and how that affects and is affected by the notion of "quality art." Here he discusses the challenge faced by institutions as culture becomes … [Read more...]
Global, local, and the visitor we can’t see.
Editor’s Note: This is one of a series of posts from guest bloggers discussing topics from this week’s Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Leaders. Leaders from around the world are coming together to discuss issues that are critically important to the cultural sector − how do we create and articulate our value, what is global and what is local today and what is the role of arts organizations in society. Museums today are visitor-oriented. We study our visitors, survey them, collect zip codes IP addresses, research … [Read more...]
Time to lose control
An interesting piece in The Art Newspaper on art museums' recalcitrance - as a field - in embracing all things digital. This reluctance is ascribed in part to museums' inherent conservatism and object-oriented practice. Not a Cassandra, the author's tone is hopeful and catalogs progress made by several museums and commercial galleries. Museums have a long history of exercising total command over their content. That’s over. “Museums in the future will still be reliable sources of information, and a curator will continue to be the authority on a … [Read more...]
Leaders in co-creation? Why and how museums could develop their co-creative practice with the public
This paper explores increasing co-creation in museums as a means to creating better, more relevant and innovative programming and exhibits. Using performing arts examples and business literature, Govier argues that collaborative development and co-creation should be pursued with more in mind than audience development/engagement or educational programming and outreach. While the research focuses on the application of these concepts for museums, the ideas are relevant to all arts and culture organizations. Found via Nina Simon's summary … [Read more...]