Museum 2.0

JANUARY 30, 2013

Earlier this year, I was fascinated to read the account of a participatory project at the Morrison County Historical Society in Minnesota, in which community members were invited to write essays about “what’s it like” to have various life experiences in the County. How do we get the history of the poor?

History 51

History Museum Minnesota Participatory 51

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 18, 2011

The Santa Cruz Surfing Museum recently loaned us some fabulous surfboards that tell the co-mingled history of surfing and redwood trees in Santa Cruz. We decided to approach the label-writing for these boards in a participatory way. We can certainly write a decent label based on this activity.

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Participatory San Diego Museum History 48

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

In the spirit of a popular post written earlier this year , I want to share the behind the scenes on our current almost-museumwide exhibition at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, Santa Cruz Collects. This exhibition represents a few big shifts for us: We used a more participatory design process. We had some money.

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Participatory Museum History International 44

Museum 2.0

JUNE 25, 2014

Two years ago, we mounted one of our most successful participatory exhibits ever at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History: Memory Jars. Two years later, this project is still one of the most fondly remembered participatory experiences at the museum--by visitors and staff. He creates a visual representation of his story.

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Participatory Evaluation Project Museum 52

Museum 2.0

APRIL 2, 2014

Beck''s project is unusual because he deliberately resurrected a mostly-defunct participatory platform: sheet music for popular songs. In his thoughtful preface to this project, I reconnected with five lessons I''ve learned from participatory projects in museums and cultural sites. Constrain the input, free the output.

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Participatory Arts Music Learning 52

Museum 2.0

APRIL 14, 2011

As of May 2, I will be the executive director of the Museum of Art & History at McPherson Center in Santa Cruz, CA (here's the press release ). Because of the increased workload I expect in the months to come, as well as the likely possibility that we will start a Museum of Art & History blog, I'm lowering my Museum 2.0

History 55

History Museum Arts Consultant 55

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 25, 2015

For the past two years, I''ve been working on a project to activate the concrete space adjacent to our museum as a vibrant, community plaza. We are hiring a temporary contract curator to activate the plaza this summer with 25+ cultural events. creative placemaking design Museum of Art and History programs public space'

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Public Activities Active Activism 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 22, 2012

Imagine you've just been tasked with developing an innovative, future-thinking national museum for your country's history. Blueprint is the story of a group of people who tried to create a Dutch Museum of National History (INNL). The early participatory projects are terrific. Where would you start?

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Museum History Netherlands Create 36

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 13, 2011

The best participatory projects are useful. Rather than just doing an activity, visitors should be able to contribute in a way that provides a valuable outcome for the institution and the wider museum audience. Yes, this activity is political. But it is political in a way that fits right in with the Museum’s mission and history.

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Participatory Museum Action Experiment 44

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Visitors bond and bridge through participatory experiences at MAH. To apply the results of my analysis to produce a community-driven program design specifically for implementation at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (the MAH). You can download and read the full version of my thesis here.

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Museum Program Participatory Community 49

Museum 2.0

JUNE 24, 2010

The new building was designed to meet neighborhood needs--not just in the content covered, but in the inclusion of spaces made for particular kinds of activities sought by locals (i.e. She did several things over the course of the tour to make it participatory, and she did so in a natural, delightful way. The exhibits are exciting.

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Museum Participatory Model Seattle 51

Museum 2.0

JULY 23, 2014

The Silk Mill is part of the Derby Museums , a public institution of art, history, and natural history. It''s clear from the diversity of activities, the professionalism of the scaffolding, and the forms of access that they are serious about inviting meaningful participation in the Re:Make project. It''s serious.

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Museum Product Participatory Community 53

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 11, 2012

We just started to try to live up to that vision, partnership by partnership, activity by activity. It also feels amazing to see some of my theories validated in this way--that giving people the opportunity to actively participate does really transform the way they see the institution and themselves. It feels pretty amazing.

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Audience Museum Participatory History 47

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 21, 2012

We decided to show a selection of Danny's lists in a hallway surrounded by a participatory element where we invite visitors to contribute to new lists on evocative themes ("Things we forget," "The best feelings in the world," etc.) that we selected during prototyping.

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Participatory Difference Analysis Museum 39

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 16, 2013

Then again, Saturday was hardly normal at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. This past weekend, in conjunction with our exhibition about Ze Frank's current participatory project, A Show , we hosted " Ze Frank Weekend "--a quickie summer camp of workshops, activities, presentations, and lots of hugging.

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Reflection Community Museum Participatory 43

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 28, 2011

We've been offering a host of participatory and interactive experiences at the Museum of Art & History this season. I loved Jasper Visser's list of 30 "do's" for designing participatory projects earlier this month. Different activities need different levels of materials to appear "open for business." It's just fun.

Design 45

Design Participatory Learning Instruction 45

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

This simple participatory project invites visitors to contribute their own small objects in little alcoves in our bathrooms. We have seven participatory elements in our current exhibitions on three floors, ranging from voting to talkback walls to an in-depth "make a memory jar" craft activity.

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Museum Difference Examples Participatory 47

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 25, 2011

Good Pitch is an effort that brings documentary filmmakers together with a wide range of partners in distribution, financing and outreach for activism. But that is only the jumping off point for the inquiry.

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Guatemala Movie Artist Award 93

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 18, 2012

When talking about active audience engagement with friends in the museum field, I often hear one frustrated question: how can we get adults to participate? The common museum knowledge on this issue is that adults are timid, that we have lost some of the wonder, impulsiveness, and active creativity of childhood days.

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Interaction Design Museum Participatory 47

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

We can change that by embracing participatory culture and opening up to the active, social ways that people engage with art, history, science, and ideas today. The first way we open up is by inviting active participation. How can we use our artifacts to activate important conversations about the future of our communities?

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Museum Open Charlotte Participatory 55

Museum 2.0

MARCH 20, 2013

This week, the Santa Cruz Weekly's cover story is about my museum (the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History ) and the work we have done to make it a more participatory, community-centered place over the past two years. Perry describes me as the "conductor" of a community-programmed orchestra.

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Story Georgia Participatory Museum 31

Museum 2.0

APRIL 26, 2018

One that has found remarkable success is California’s Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. This list doesn't include many approaches that I see transforming museum audiences, like political activism, multilingual programming, intergenerational events, or cultural festivals. What does this list have in common?

Audience 49

Audience Washington Museum Intergenerational 49

Museum 2.0

APRIL 4, 2012

Museums have been grappling with this question for years ( here's a 2007 roundup of such projects ), most aggressively in zoos and natural history museums where staff hope to inspire conservation and in history/concept museums that focus on civic engagement and activism. They also had activities.

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Story Participatory Museum History 47

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

Originally posted in April of 2011, just before I hung up my consulting hat for my current job at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. In 2008 and 2009, there were many conference sessions and and documents presenting participatory case studies, most notably Wendy Pollock and Kathy McLean''s book Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions.

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Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 30, 2013

Earlier this fall, I read this headline: "Stanford study: Participation in a cultural activity may reduce prejudice." I eagerly read about a new social psychology research study in which whites, Asians, and Latinos engaged in a simple collaborative activity--making a music video together. I wanted to know more.

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Measure Arts People Museum 47

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 23, 2014

They give high-energy, interactive tours of the Metropolitan Museum and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). We interacted with the art and with each other through dynamic photo challenges, kinesthetic activities, and conversations. A new company in New York, Museum Hack , is reinventing the museum tour from the outside in.

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Museum Interview New York Interaction 55

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 24, 2012

To that end, our exhibitions are full of participatory elements. We actively seek participation and develop structured opportunities for visitors to collaborate with us. the most powerful evidence of it happening is when our active role as designers/facilitators becomes invisible.

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Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

Museum 2.0

APRIL 10, 2013

The weather is hopefully the least of the reasons you should want to come work with us here at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. These are unpaid, part-time internships in which you will make a significant contribution to our work, and at the same time, learn a heck of a lot about participatory design and community engagement.

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San Francisco Participatory Artist Museum 23

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 14, 2011

It was Friday, a few hours before the drawing activity, and my colleagues were worried that it would be too challenging for people to draw the icons and landmarks selected. We often avoid drawing as a community art activity because visitors can get really judgmental of their own abilities, and our staff just felt that this might be too hard.

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Participatory Classroom Help Artist 43

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 9, 2010

Recently, I was giving a presentation about participatory techniques at an art museum, when a staff member raised her hand and asked, "Did you have to look really hard to find examples from art museums? History Museums OPPORTUNITIES - History museums are in many ways the best-suited for visitor participation.

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Museum Difference Participatory History 29

Museum 2.0

MAY 10, 2011

It's my second week as the Executive Director at The Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz, CA, and boy is my everything tired. I'm also making the 2011-2012 budget, getting to know our terrific staff and volunteers, and starting up a few small participatory projects to launch us into being a more community-driven institution.

Museum 53

Museum History Participatory Arts 53

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

I've seen this line of questioning almost completely disappear in the past two years due to many research studies and reports on the value and rise of participation, but in 2006-7, social media and participatory culture was still seen as nascent (and possibly a passing fad). In 2008, the conversation started shifting to "how" and "what."

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Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 8, 2016

Last week I was honored to be a counselor at Museum Camp , an annual professional development event hosted by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH). Each year they bring together diverse, passionate people for a sleep-away camp for adults where they learn together through active, creative workshops and activities.

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Causes Change Museum Social 50

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

This argument became one of the foundations of The Participatory Museum. This is the participatory platform model. Our staff could never produce all this activity on our own. And it puts the MAH at the center of the web of activity, as a valued partner and platform provider. Nine years later, I still believe this.

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Platform Impact Childhood Museum 31

Museum 2.0

JULY 23, 2019

Today, I wanted to think about participatory elements, something so essential to this blog. With this in mind, when we produce participatory experiences, while our impetus is to serve our power users with extra content or “check for understanding” interactives, there are so many other ways to use interactives.

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Museum Participatory Interaction Classroom 35

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 29, 2012

Here's the short version (read the whole thing here ): The Museum of Art & History is committed to creating exhibitions that inspire our diverse audiences to engage deeply with contemporary art and Santa Cruz County history. We see our visitors as partners in actively interpreting and exploring exhibition content.

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Museum Artist Participatory History 38

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

There are many participatory kiosks that are functional black holes--visitors make videos or draw pictures or write stories, drop them in a slot, and. Such participatory activities would be seen as a waste of time. This sounds ridiculous, but it’s the way many museums approach participatory projects. nothing happens.

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Participatory Museum Rate YouTube 35