Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 1, 2012

Last week, Douglas McLellan of artsJournal ran a multi-vocal forum on the relationship between arts organizations and audiences, asking: In this age of self expression and information overload, do our artists and arts organizations need to lead more or learn to follow their communities more?

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Museum 2.0

MARCH 4, 2015

This week marks five years since the book The Participatory Museum was first released. Across the museum field, the questions about visitor participation have gone from "what?" I thought the pinnacle of participatory practice was an exhibit that could inspire collective visitor action without facilitation. and "why?" to "how?".

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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. This post shares some of the most interesting questions I''ve heard throughout these experiences. Feel free to add your own questions and answers in the comments! The Museum 2.0

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Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Visitors bond and bridge through participatory experiences at MAH. There were times when coordinating a fire art festival while researching social capital theory made me want to burn my computer. I learn a ton from her every day and wanted to share her thinking--and her graduate thesis--with you.

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Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 30, 2013

My biggest question for these social psychologists is this: how do we apply their lessons to our work? We have some strategies for tackling this: convening diverse content advisors, incorporating anti-bias educational approaches in our design, developing participatory opportunities for visitors to connect past to present.

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Measure Arts People Museum 47

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 2, 2013

In this post, George grapples with the challenges of balancing the care for a museum collection with that of contemporary artists-in-residence who are constantly reinterpreting it. Every Saturday, the curatorial team at Elsewhere , a living museum in downtown Greensboro, NC, reviews the project proposals of its artists-in-residence.

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Artist Museum Proposal Participatory 49

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

This post shares some of the most interesting questions I've heard throughout these experiences. Feel free to add your own questions and answers in the comments! BROAD QUESTIONS ABOUT AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION 1. Are there certain kinds of institutions that are more well-suited for participatory techniques than others?

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Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

APRIL 15, 2015

"The arts are future-making." I wrote this down when Deborah Cullinan said it at a meeting of arts leaders about a year ago. Deborah''s vision for the arts leading the way to stronger future inspired me. But I couldn''t fully imagine how a museum or an arts center could embody it. A fitness trail for urban life.

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Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

George is a stranger I met last week at SFMOMA’s new show, The Art of Participation:1950 to Now. The Art of Participation provides a retrospective on participatory art as well as presenting opportunities for visitors to engage in contemporary (“now”) works. Here are two pictures. The first one is me. DO message clearly.

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Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 23, 2018

We partnered with foster youth, former foster youth, artists, and community advocates to create an exhibition that used art to spark action on issues facing foster youth. This project wove together many different participatory threads. Short story: we learned a lot. We wrote a toolkit about our process. What did we learn?

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Issue Childhood Community Create 45

Museum 2.0

JULY 11, 2012

I get excited about a lot of things in my work at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. That's how I felt when artist Ze Frank got in touch to talk about a potential museum exhibition to explore a physical site/substantiation for his current online video project, A Show (s ee minute 2:20, above).

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Museum 2.0

MAY 22, 2013

Negotiated agency" strikes me as a really useful framework in which to talk about visitor/audience participation in the arts. Negotiation" implies a respectful relationship between institution (or artist) and user. Sometimes the negotiation can be exploited for artistic means. The museum invites art-making in the elevator.

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Game Artist Museum Participatory 40

Museum 2.0

JULY 23, 2014

The Silk Mill is part of the Derby Museums , a public institution of art, history, and natural history. In the fall of 2013, they launched Re:Make , an ambitious project to redevelop the museum, live, on the floor, with a mix of staff, guest artists, and community members. And it leaves me with just one question. It''s serious.

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Museum Product Participatory Community 53

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 9, 2011

She is a fabulous and thoughtful artist. It's a little living room in a lobby area that invites people to lounge on comfortable chairs, leaf through magazines and books related to art and Santa Cruz history, and generally hang out. The area that houses the Creativity Lounge also shows art. But Lisa questioned this.

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Museum 2.0

MARCH 21, 2012

I used to think these were easy questions to answer. Art, however, does not come to museums pre-hardened. At the museum of art and history where I work, we are grappling with the question of how to help people enjoy themselves while keeping the art and artifacts safe. Engagement with local artists.

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Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2012

But we've just compiled all our attendance data for the past year at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (our fiscal year ends on June 30), and several people have written to me asking for the numbers behind our turnaround. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. design new programs with a focus on history.

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Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 24, 2012

I like to ask myself this question periodically, challenging myself to find substantive ways for visitors to contribute to our museum. To that end, our exhibitions are full of participatory elements. How do community members make your institution better? Visitors can comment on how we can improve or what they would like to see.

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Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 15, 2014

Schools and other arts organizations are rising to the challenge. Artists and arts organizations are contributing their spaces and their creative energies. Yet our posts contain similar phrases such as “21st century museums,” “changing museum paradigms,” “inclusiveness,” “co-curation,” “participatory” and “the museum as forum.”

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Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 1, 2014

It made me dig up this 2011 interview with Tina Olsen (then at the Portland Art Museum) about their extraordinary Object Stories project. They designed a participatory project that delivers a compelling end product for onsite and online visitors… and they learned some unexpected lessons along the way. So what did you do next?

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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? Aren't art museums less open to participation than other kinds of museums?" I was surprised by her question.

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Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2017

This is the ninth in a series of posts on the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History ( MAH )'s development of Abbott Square , a new creative community plaza in downtown Santa Cruz. Working with creative people taught me to think like an artist: observe, explore, dive in, look out. The question is not, “what do I want to do?”

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Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2012

Our curator writes labels about licking the art. Attendees brought up questions about how they can get more involved with financial discussions in their institutions, how we can change the ways we approach fundraising, how we can think about earned income differently. Merilee Mostov and the Columbus Museum of Art.

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Reflection Columbus Museum Participatory 43

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? There are many participatory experiences that appeal primarily to adults, and they are designed distinctly for adults.

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Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

The chairs were cast-off art, reclaimed as art, available for people to take off the hooks and use. They were there for artist talks. What kind of an art institution is this? It encourages process-driven performances and art projects. It takes the kind of risks that a university art gallery should take.

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Museum 2.0

MAY 21, 2014

I''ve now been the executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History for three years. Over the past three years, we''ve tripled our attendance, doubled our budget, and, most importantly, established deep and diverse relationships with community members, artists, and organizations across Santa Cruz County.

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Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 25, 2015

The ideal candidate has a good grasp of our local artistic assets in Santa Cruz County, a knack for participatory placemaking, and enthusiasm about putting on a show. But in the case of Abbott Square (the plaza in question), we''re building something new. multiple times per week. It''s literally a project in concrete.

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Museum 2.0

AUGUST 14, 2013

We recruited folks and designed software that texted them five times a day for thirty days, asking one question, "Rate your mood 1 (low) to 10 (high)." We ran with it and have since generated data about decision-making, cooperation, competition and negotiation for scientists (and also some artists) to play with.

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Museum 2.0

APRIL 16, 2008

I've written before about the inspiring work that the Brooklyn Museum of Art is doing with their community-focused efforts. Click is an exhibition process in three parts: The Museum solicited photographs from artists via an open call on their website, Facebook group, Flickr groups, and outreach to Brooklyn-based arts organizations.

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Museum 2.0

APRIL 29, 2015

These are the slides and notes for the talk I gave at the American Alliance of Museums conference on Monday, April 27 about the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. When I became the director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History four years ago, I took this work with me. We exist for people who live in Santa Cruz County.

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Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2011

Last week, I talked with Tina Olsen, Director of Education and Public Programs at the Portland Art Museum, about their extraordinary Object Stories project. They designed a participatory project that delivers a compelling end product for onsite and online visitors… and they made some unexpected decisions along the way.

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Story Interview Museum Audio 53

Museum 2.0

JULY 9, 2009

That discussion has traditionally focused on visitors' ability to distinguish real artifacts from props and the question of whether an experience with a reproduction is lesser than, equivalent to, or superior to engaging with "the real thing." The participatory element employs an accessible speculative question.

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Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 13, 2010

Why the Video Contest Worked Video contests are one of the most challenging kinds of participatory projects to pull off. She approached the question "why should I be picked" in a way that was smart, thoughtful, creative, and lovely. In general, I liked videos made by artists, but some got overly poetic. Overall favorite.

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Museum 2.0

JUNE 12, 2012

It made me think in ways that I haven't before about the relation of art--as expressive culture--to democracy. It is multi-disciplinary, incorporates diverse voices from our community, and provides interactive and participatory opportunities for visitor involvement. Note: you can view these photos of the exhibition on Flickr here.)

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Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 22, 2012

What happens when a formal art museum invites a group of collaborative, participatory artists to be in residence for a year? Will the artists ruin the museum with their plant vacations and coatroom concerts? Will the bureaucracy of the institution drown the artists in red tape? No, this is not a reality TV show.

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Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

On September 10, the Whitney Museum of American Art started offering a new membership called "Curate Your Own," in which members select one of five specialized "buckets" of benefits in addition to core admission and discount benefits. People want to experience art in quite individual ways. The "insiders" are another example.

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Museum 2.0

MAY 5, 2009

Visitor Co-Created Museum Experiences This session was a dream for me, one that brought together instigators of three participatory exhibit projects: MN150 (Kate Roberts), Click! which followed a very strict formula that frustrated some participants who wanted to be treated like artists, not contributors to a data experiment.

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Museum 2.0

JUNE 27, 2008

Joe explains some of the planned intentional dialogue events: First, for the opening night dinner, we hired a local dance company that is putting together pieces about visiting museums, punctuated by an actor/dancer asking provocative questions to the group. At each table there will be an envelope with questions inside.

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