Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2013

Last week, my museum hosted Hack the Museum Camp , a 2.5 day adventure in which teams of adults--75 people, of whom about half are museum professionals, half creative folks of various stripes--developed an experimental exhibition around our permanent collection in our largest gallery.

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Museum Arts History Professional 49

Museum 2.0

JUNE 24, 2010

Last week, I visited the Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle. I've long admired this museum for its all-encompassing commitment to community co-creation , and the visit was a kind of pilgrimage to their new site (opened in 2008). I'm always a bit nervous when I visit a museum I love from afar. What if it isn't what I expected?

Museum 51

Museum Participatory Model Seattle 51

Amy Sample Ward

JUNE 21, 2011

Ruth Cohen – American Museum of natural History. Jason Eppink – Museum of the Moving Image. Ruth Cohen – American Museum of natural History. For years we have been producing digital media to fulfill our mission of educating the public about science and history.

Game 140

Game Culture Museum Change 140

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

Museum 2.0

JUNE 12, 2013

TCG is the industry association for non-profit theaters, the way AAM is for museums. Given TCG''s multi-year Audience (R)evolution initiative, I took the opportunity to write a new talk about what revolution has looked like at our small museum in Santa Cruz. We heard again and again that the museum was cold and uncomfortable.

Museum 55

Museum Learning History Arts 55

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 6, 2014

MuseumCamp is an annual professional development event at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History in which teams of diverse, creative people work on quick and dirty projects on a big theme. We encouraged teams to think like artists, not researchers. You can comment on the projects too and share your own ideas.

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Experiment Impact Social Museum 52

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 13, 2010

On October 20, a young woman named Kate will move into Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry and live there for a month. This post is not about the Month at the Museum concept or implementation. Instead, this post focuses on a fascinating aspect of Month at the Museum: the video applications. That will come later.

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Museum Contest Video Chicago 34

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 29, 2012

Last month, MAH curator Susan Hillhouse and I sat down and wrote an exhibition philosophy for our museum. In particular, we want exhibition collaborators--artists, researchers, historians, collectors--to understand our goals and how we intend to steer the exhibition development process.

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Museum Artist Participatory History 38

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?" Over the past four years, I''ve been running a small regional art and history museum in Santa Cruz, CA. and "why?" to "how?".

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Participatory Museum Empowerment Facilitation 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 9, 2011

She is a fabulous and thoughtful artist. Two weeks ago, we inaugurated a Creativity Lounge on the third floor of our museum. 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.

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Museum Arts History Columbus 51

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 12, 2012

This is a picture of the largest temporary exhibition gallery in the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. This winter, my museum is trying an experiment called Work in Progress. This winter, my museum is trying an experiment called Work in Progress. Our next exhibition is opening in here in two days. And even scarier?

Work 40

Work Museum Artist Arts 40

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.

Museum 45

Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 3, 2012

But Vi doesn't work in a science museum. Beth Harris and Steven Zucker, who are well known in museums for their excellent Smarthistory website and podcasts. Beth Harris and Steven Zucker's content about art history is social and dialogue-based in format. the way the best museums do.

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Learning Free Museum Online 55

Museum 2.0

JULY 23, 2019

Me with a friend As I keep saying, I’ve been to a few museums of late. In reflecting on the sample, I’ve made some broad reflections on museum workers and visitors. Our visitors often see museums as a genre, not unlike hospitals or libraries. But, while adjacent, museums differ from formal classrooms in numerous ways.

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Museum Participatory Interaction Classroom 35

Museum 2.0

MARCH 11, 2015

I''m not sure how well this is working for us in museum-land. As our culture explodes in embracing creativity across the professional/amateur spectrum, museums have two choices: we can sharpen the line. If done poorly (uncritically), it turns the museum into yet another place to watch cat videos. we can embrace the embrace. #1

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Professional Artist Museum Arts 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.

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Build Community Museum Artist 20

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. Visitors can comment on how we can improve or what they would like to see. 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

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. George will respond to comments on this post and is also reachable here.

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Collaboration North Carolina Museum Artist 36

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 History exhibits with hundreds of objects and no coherent story.

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Los Angeles Museum History 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 can identify artworks by famous artists. Diane is teaching me how, when, and why artists use the word.

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Course Artist Museum Learning 20

Museum 2.0

JUNE 8, 2010

This guest post was written by Rebecca Lawrence, Museum Educator, Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center in Pennsylvania. You can join the conversation in the blog comments, or on the Museum 2.0 The Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center (SLHC) is a small museum located in Pennsburg, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

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Place Museum Discussion Pennsylvania 27

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. This story starts in 1960s, though of course, the story of the Blackfoot people and their dealings with museums started way before that. The museums were not.

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Museum National Story Difference 20

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. Please share yours in the comments. Artists work incredibly hard to produce their work. I keep visitor comments in my office. All of them are cheap, mostly simple, and occasionally, dangerous.

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Design Participatory Learning Instruction 45

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

Museum 2.0

JULY 26, 2010

From a museum perspective, I think there's a lot to learn from these venues' business models, approach to collecting and exhibiting work, and connection with their audiences. This list is by no means exhaustive: please add your favorites (especially non-American ones) in the comments. Machine Project (Los Angeles, CA).

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Culture Alternative St. Louis Los Angeles 49

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. Please share your questions or comments! Excited to open. but not quite yet. We lined up press. We shifted staff schedules.

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Open Brain Press Museum 37

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. 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. multiple times per week.

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Public Activities Active Activism 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2011

Lots of museums these days have video comment booths to invite visitors to tell their stories, but how many of those booths really deliver high-impact content? Last week, I talked with Tina Olsen, Director of Education and Public Programs at the Portland Art Museum, about their extraordinary Object Stories project.

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Story Interview Museum Audio 53

NTEN

JUNE 21, 2011

The speakers for this panel include: Tracy Fullerton - Electronics Arts Game Innovation Lab Ruth Cohen - American Museum of natural History Elaine Charnov - The NY Public Library Jason Eppink - Museum of the Moving Image Syed Salahuddin - Babycastles Elaine Cohen: The New York Public Library 100 Years of the flagship library in New York.

Game 52

Game Culture Change Museum 52

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

If not, please share a comment and let's talk online. All weekend, we've heard uplifting stories about amazing work you all are doing to involve people from all walks of life in museums. But museums do exclude people. Our Story I came to the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History four years ago. All the time.

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Museum Arts New Zealand Indianapolis 20

Museum 2.0

JULY 7, 2010

It requires trading a certain history for an uncertain future--a nerve-wracking prospect no matter the situation. I don't know - and I hope you'll share your thoughts in the comments. Two institutions I see making this "or" choice in exciting ways are the Brooklyn Museum and the Oakland Museum in California.

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Audience Museum Oakland Participatory 40

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

I've spent much of the past three years on the road giving workshops and talks about audience participation in museums. Feel free to add your own questions and answers in the comments! The Museum 2.0 For more on the differences among different types of museums (with examples), check out this post.

Question 49

Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 19, 2015

One of my favorite comments on the first post in this series came from Lyndall Linaker, an Australian museum worker, who asked: " Who decides what is relevant? Community First Program Design At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History , we've gravitated towards a "community first" program planning model.

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Teen Museum Voice Collaboration 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 17, 2007

You can use it to create your own narrative experience, and you can also allow other users to comment on and add their own commentary to the images. there may be some great opportunities for collaboration for museums, too. They are committed to making this technology accessible (and free!) to educators permanently.

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Story Online Artist Museum 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 8, 2010

Nell will be responding to comments on this blog and can also be reached here. A Community-Based Approach to Collecting and Cataloging CUL is a replicable model for community archives that accepts every piece of print media from a certain area without making quality or importance judgments, going back as far in history as possible.

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Chicago Library Public Culture 48

Museum 2.0

MAY 5, 2009

I just returned from the American Association of Museums (AAM) annual meeting in Philadelphia. I led two sessions, one on visitor co-created museum experiences, and the other on design inspirations from outside museums. what is the value of the exhibition experience to non-participants, that is, regular museum visitors?

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Slides Participatory Museum Children 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 4, 2007

If anyone out there is considering creating an industry catch-all site for museum-related content, I highly recommend Gamasutra as a model. Can museums afford to indulge in this kind of fantasy? It drives me nuts when I’m in a museum that has made a half-hearted attempt to thematically connected galleries or exhibits.

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Game Storytelling Lesson Museum 20