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 Participatory Artist History 45

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 2, 2015

The book is a deep account of repatriation of spiritual objects from museums to native people, written by museum people and Blackfoot people together. I hope this synopsis might inspire you to read their full incredible story. Going deep is a process of institutional change, individual growth, and most of all, empathy.

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Museum National Story Difference 20

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 8, 2014

A farmer says he has had the same ax his whole life--he only changed the handle three times and head two times. How does this question play out in museums? At the 2013 American Alliance of Museums annual conference, a group of exhibition designers explored authenticity in a session called Is it Real? Does he have the same ax?

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Artist Museum Washington Arts 55

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 9, 2020

If that is not your family story, think about that. What does this have to do with museums? It is why “Women artists” are “finally getting their due.” It is why in the great museum upheavals of 2020 no white male director of import ended up getting toppled. It seems an apt metaphor for the state of museums.

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Museum Artist Teach America 26

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

I''ve mostly seen museums employ one of two methods for formal community advisors: Create special "spots" on the board of trustees for certain kinds of community representatives. CON: can feel disconnected from the primary governance of the museum or can feel like a second-class board overall. I struggle with both these options.

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Community Story Museum Map 39

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 28, 2013

Earlier in 2013, I was amazed to visit one of the new “Studio” spaces at the Denver Art Museum. The Denver Art Museum is no stranger to community collaborations, but we’ve been dipping in our toe a little more deeply when it comes to developing permanent participatory installations. Some community artists even helped install the space.

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Denver Museum Arts Collaboration 35

Museum 2.0

APRIL 14, 2011

Dear Museum 2.0 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 ). This is a big change for me--professionally and personally--and I'm thrilled and humbled by the opportunity to take on this position in the city I call home.

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History Museum Arts Consultant 55

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 14, 2013

One of the greatest gifts of my babymoon is the opportunity to share the Museum 2.0 First up is Beck Tench, a "simplifier, illustrator, story teller, and technologist" working at the Museum of Life & Science in Durham, NC. As a person who works for a science museum, I work in an environment that supports play.

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Museum Roles Game Participatory 51

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 15, 2014

At the Inclusive Museum conference this summer, Dr. Rick West introduced this question through a tale of two museums. He described the National Museum of the American Indian--where he was founding director--as a multicultural institution, celebrating the diversity of Native peoples throughout the Americas.

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Museum Sweden Culture Celebrate 50

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 12, 2011

This week, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy released a new paper by Holly Sidford called Fusing Arts, Culture, and Social Change. Even as demographics change and public participation in the arts shifts away from these Euro-traditional formats, the money still flows down the old pathways. The title may sound innocuous.

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Arts Fund Artist Houston 52

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 1, 2012

That contemporary art museum is on the front of the LA Times again," she said. I can't believe that an art museum can be front page news in LA for days." He was mandated to turn the ship around financially and to expand the reach of the museum in the community. The discussion then shifted to the overall direction of the museum.

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Artist Museum Arts Director 52

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

This August/September, I am "rerunning" popular Museum 2.0 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. I''ve spent much of the past three years on the road giving workshops and talks about audience participation in museums.

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Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

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 Difference Participatory History 29

CauseVox

JUNE 9, 2021

The emails should include an emotional story , appropriate imagery, and a call to action that expresses urgency. Summit Dogs is a great example of how powerful livestreaming can be when you share on a variety of platforms, include personal stories, and include both asynchronous and live videos. Zoom to the rescue!

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Ideas Online Fundraising Charity 98

NTEN

JUNE 21, 2011

NTEN's Amy Sample Ward shares from her experiences at the Games for Change Festival. I'm at the 2011 Games for Change conference today and live-blogging a few sessions! The result was an 800 page book of narratives, pictures, stories, and much more that will now be part of the library's collection.

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Game Culture Change Museum 52

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

The result is that the resources we know most about tend to be limited to those in our respective silos, and stories about giant organizations. They often don''t have the bandwidth or the visibility to share their stories easily. Full disclosure: my museum is profiled in the latter.) I love these e-books.

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Examples Artist Arts Profile 37

Achieve

JUNE 21, 2015

Museum of Contemporary Art. The theme of MCON 2015 is “The Power of Influence: Art, Media, Business and Place” and an incredible lineup of speakers from the corporate, nonprofit and public sectors will share stories of the successes and failures they’ve encountered while changing the world. The Art Assignment.

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Chicago Museum Arts Influence 52

Museum 2.0

MAY 13, 2015

Visitors in front of the African Elephant Diorama at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC photo) This guest post was written by Karen Wise, Vice President, Education and Exhibits at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “I You’ve made it better without changing it.” Those words haunt me.

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Los Angeles Museum History Artist 20

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. They talked about community building.

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Build Community Museum Artist 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 27, 2015

I have an unusual education for the director of an art & history museum: a degree in electrical engineering. You'll burrow down rabbit holes of gorgeous videos, cerebral reading lists, and provocative artist talks. I've filled some gaps in my cultural education through a career in museums: reading, looking, exploring, listening.

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Course Artist Museum Learning 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

For years, I've been fascinated and a bit perplexed by the Elsewhere Collaborative , a thrift store turned artists' studio/living museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. What values change in that not so subtle shift between people, things, and the common space shared between them?

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Collaboration North Carolina Museum Artist 36

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. They can contribute their own stories, objects, and creative work to exhibitions. Instead, they've been driven by community members who see the museum as a platform for their own creative pursuits.

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Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

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? In children's museums and science centers, this relationship is at its most extreme. And yet in the museum world, we still see interactives as being mostly for kids.

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Interaction Design Museum Participatory 47

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JUNE 14, 2010

The whole idea got started a year ago when James Leventhal who is Deputy Director for the Contemporary Jewish Museum asked me if I would design some trainings for the local arts community. My role changed from the “expert&# to guide on the side. Change needs to happen now or organizations risk playing a game of catch up.

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Social Media Media San Jose Social 99

Museum 2.0

MAY 29, 2013

At our museum, we''ve gotten better at communication up from the front desk to the office. Within just a week of its creation, the "MAH Stories" private Facebook group had proven itself as a ridiculous success. participatory museum professional development' Would it help with the basic problem we were trying to solve?

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Facebook Museum Participatory Adopt 55

Museum 2.0

MARCH 25, 2008

People tell stories. I'd love to see a museum offer temporary tattoos instead of stickers at entry. I spent about 5 hours in a busy tattoo studio (interesting how they are rebranding away from "parlor"), both times on Sundays, and my highly uninformed impression is that most of the people who walked in the door are not museum-goers.

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Museum Arts Artist Culture 23

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. Artists work incredibly hard to produce their work. And the crayon drawings on the fridge door in an exhibition of award-winning local artists? People will talk about what they are writing or making.

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Design Participatory Learning Instruction 45

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 5, 2016

When writing The Art of Relevance , I knew I wanted to share a bit of his story and the ways artists negotiate the relevance of their own work. But the changing tides of relevance that affect institutions affect content too—sometimes even more acutely. But we make those decisions and changes all the time.

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Arts North America Music Hawaii 20

Have Fun - Do Good

MARCH 4, 2006

Last Sunday each of us wrote a post to answer the question, “Who is your favorite artist (visual, dancer, performer, writer or musician) and why?” This is a project of the Getty Museum. (I If you know of more cool projects or individual artists using art for social change, I'd love to hear about them.

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Blogger Arts Change Azerbaijan 40

Museum 2.0

JULY 20, 2007

I read recently about an awesome project at the San Jose Museum of Art in 2001, Collecting Our Thoughts, in which visitors were invited to write the labels for an art exhibition (more another time). Now construct the story of an artifact: "This painting by Vermeer was completed in 1663. The artist made something funny."

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Museum Game San Jose Artist 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

This guest post, written by Philippa Tinsley, Collections Manager for the Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum (UK), describes the innovative Top 40 exhibition they mounted in the summer of 2009. In my experience, museum professionals aren’t big reality TV viewers.

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Museum Chart Picture Arts 23

Museum 2.0

APRIL 19, 2016

We champion causes through the partnerships we build, the programs we offer, and the stories we tell. Our museum has already had several requests to lend our support to bond measures that will be on the ballot in 2016. We invite people from community organizations and campaigns to use the museum as a platform to share their message.

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Policy Advocacy Create Museum 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 31, 2017

This is the eleventh 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. We had 2,000 t-shirts to give away, 850 balls to drop, and over a hundred artists, accordionists, salsa dancers, taiko drummers, and bubble ladies ready to go.

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Open Brain Press Museum 37

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. Short story: we learned a lot. It empowered our partners, deeply touched our visitors, and catalyzed real community change. What did we learn?

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Issue Childhood Community Create 45

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 30, 2017

I started my museum career as an exhibit designer. He is a genius designer out of central casting: an artist, mercurial, funny, emphatic, honest, unflinching, with a disarming weakness for babies. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is a giant in our field, just as Don himself is a giant in the world of museum design.

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Museum Blended Design Artist 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2012

Last week, I was in Minneapolis for the American Association of Museums annual meeting. Kathleen McLean led a terrific session called "Dangerous Ridiculous" about risk-taking in museums. Interestingly, at my museum, our team is naturally better at ridiculous than we are at dangerous. I found this idea really powerful.

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Reflection Columbus Museum Participatory 43

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

All weekend, we've heard uplifting stories about amazing work you all are doing to involve people from all walks of life in museums. There is no other museum conference going on somewhere else in the world today where professionals are sharing proud case studies and helpful tips on how to exclude people. We had to make a change.

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Museum Arts New Zealand Indianapolis 20