Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 29, 2009

It's my "artistic rendering" of one of the most inspirational participatory projects I know of--the Bibliotheek Haarlem Oost book drops. Too often, cultural institutions design participatory projects that require visitors to learn new tools or make sacrifices to contribute. Or, so I thought.

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Participatory Project Library Netherlands 40

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

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Visitors bond and bridge through participatory experiences at MAH. Assess and Respond to Community Assets and Needs If you want to activate community engagement in your programs, you first need to work together with your communities to determine their diverse needs, assets and interests.

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Museum Program Participatory Community 49

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 15, 2009

Over the past year, I've noticed a strange trend in the calls I receive about upcoming participatory museum projects: the majority of them are being planned for teen audiences. Why are teens over-represented in participatory projects? The other three are cultural, and I'm not sure how accurate they are.

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Teen Participatory Experiment Museum 24

Museum 2.0

APRIL 26, 2018

The whole second half of the article was dedicated to our work: Smaller museums can be especially scrappy in finding ways to connect with the community. It’s something that any museum, of any size, can work toward. I'm also always interested in how the national media portrays changes in the cultural sector.

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Audience Washington Museum Intergenerational 49

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 25, 2011

Note From Beth: Yesterday, I attended a convening called “ Beyond Dynamic Adaptability ” for arts organizations about cultural participation in the arts. Together, Fox and Fledgling developed an intensive outreach strategy through more than 500 community screenings. But that is only the jumping off point for the inquiry.

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Guatemala Movie Artist Award 93

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

Granted, I live in an increasingly narrow world of people who are exploring these topics and want me to work with them, but I still learn a lot from the questions and struggles I hear from colleagues and people who comment on the blog. Are there certain kinds of institutions that are more well-suited for participatory techniques than others?

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Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

Museum 2.0

JULY 1, 2011

But the point is that the MAH, like just about every other museum in the known universe, was content to define the museum experience as something removed from the outside world, a rarefied church-like space of refined artistic reflection. Her blog, "Museum 2.0," is one of the leading forces working to remake the museum experience.

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Museum History Arts Work 31

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

Granted, I live in an increasingly narrow world of people who are exploring these topics and want me to work with them, but I still learn a lot from the questions and struggles I hear from colleagues and people who comment on the blog. 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

Media Cause

AUGUST 9, 2021

Within Media Cause’s Creative, Brand, and Design team, one of our favorite things to do— besides creating incredible work for our clients—is sharing inspirational and educational resources with each other: articles, POVs, webinars, classes, books, case studies, blogs, tutorials, cheese. Community is key: working with, not for.

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Design Experiment Nonprofit Collaboration 52

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 24, 2012

To that end, our exhibitions are full of participatory elements. They can contribute their own stories, objects, and creative work to exhibitions. Community members, artists, and organizations increasingly see our museum as a place where they can advance their own goals, and so they approach us. Evergreen Cemetery Board Game.

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Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 30, 2013

Earlier this fall, I read this headline: "Stanford study: Participation in a cultural activity may reduce prejudice." When the music video was focused on Mexican culture, the researchers found that the white and Asian participants demonstrated a decrease in prejudice against Latinos, both immediately after the activity and six months later.

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Measure Arts People Museum 47

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 15, 2012

I'm personally most excited about the two types of interns who will be reporting to me: Community Research interns, who will start developing a methodology for us to use to understand how people in Santa Cruz connect with arts and culture experiences and what role the museum can play in satisfying their interests.

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Museum Participatory Arts Attitude 34

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. Over the past seven years, this exploration has been undertaken by a staff of artists and more than 35 creators each year participating in our residency program.

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Collaboration North Carolina Museum Artist 36

Museum 2.0

MAY 29, 2013

Sarah and some of her colleagues in visitor services feel disconnected from the work that happens "upstairs" in the office and in our creative project development. Any place with people working different schedules in different parts of the building suffers from it. Would enough people use it to make it work?

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Facebook Museum Participatory Adopt 55

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

NOVEMBER 11, 2006

The above powerpoint is from 1999 and excerpted from day-long workshops I used to lead when I worked at NYFA and design and ran a program called "KIT: Knowledge in Technology - Technology Planning for Arts Organizations." He defines participatory culture as a culture: 1.

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Social Network Network Guide Participatory 50

Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2012

It happened because we: partnered with local artists and community organizations whose passion and generosity made it possible for us to create incredible events. We created programming specifically targeted to families with young kids and adults looking for casual, intriguing, affordable cultural experiences on Friday nights and Saturdays.

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Museum History Arts Artist 47

Museum 2.0

APRIL 15, 2015

We were discussing the potential for cultural organizations to have significant impact across communities: on planning, health, education, and quality of life. Over three days, 52 artist teams erected experimental projects along San Francisco''s biggest thoroughfare. They were heading to work, going home, running errands.

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San Francisco Arts Design Marketing 20

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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Arts Museum Artist Tucson 45

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 31, 2012

Ever wish for a low-cost, energizing professional development experience where you can work intensely with diverse colleagues in a risk-tolerant environment? I've always loved helping run events where participants can really work together on something meaty and challenging. You Can't Do That in Museums Camp - July 10-12, 2013.

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Professional Develop Museum Arts 35

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 9, 2011

She is a fabulous and thoughtful artist. You can learn more about her work here. The same day we opened the Creativity Lounge, we opened new exhibitions throughout the building, including a paper collage show in the 3rd floor lobby by local artist Lisa Hochstein. Lisa was thrilled that her work was on display at the museum.

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Museum Arts History Columbus 51

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

What if they used a design thinking process to not only get feedback from grantees but as a way to develop a more agile way of working? I was thrilled to work with the Brainerd Foundation staff to help design and facilitate a design lab using techniques based on Luma Institute methods earlier this month.

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Design Strategy Facilitation Advocacy 50

Museum 2.0

APRIL 14, 2011

I have been looking for a way to transition to working in Santa Cruz instead of traveling constantly. The best way I can really push my own participatory practice and thinking is to operate an institution and work with a community I care about over time. I wanted to be part of that, and I can't wait to get started.

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History Museum Arts Consultant 55

Museum 2.0

MAY 21, 2014

LinkedIn has a new feature where people can congratulate each other on work anniversaries. Seeing so many cheerful one-liners in my inbox made me think about how different my work situation is today than the last time I reflected on it in public in 2012, at my one-year anniversary. Participatory work can be very labor-intensive.

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Museum Director History Teen 49

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 18, 2012

Major research studies by the NEA and others demonstrate that adults well into their 60s are highly motivated to participate actively with cultural experiences. There are many participatory experiences that appeal primarily to adults, and they are designed distinctly for adults. But I don't think that theory holds up.

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Interaction Design Museum Participatory 47

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 14, 2013

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. 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

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? For this reason, I see history museums as best-suited for participatory projects that involve story-sharing and crowdsourced collecting (e.g.

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Museum Difference Participatory History 29

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. It''s an exciting, intense, educational time. multiple times per week. or all of the above.

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Public Activities Active Activism 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2012

Ellen shared the brilliant work at Conner Prairie to make finances transparent to all staff. And I talked about some of the challenges of finding the right income and expense models for a museum that operates more like a community center than a traditional cultural institution. Participatory art and co-creation on the rise.

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Reflection Columbus Museum Participatory 43

Museum 2.0

APRIL 29, 2015

When I became the director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History four years ago, I took this work with me. We had incredible success transforming our institution into a vibrant cultural center. Right now, we're working hard to empower Latino residents to see themselves in our museum. Our visitors are about 8% Latino.

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Build Community Museum Artist 20

Have Fun - Do Good

NOVEMBER 2, 2006

In his post Andrew asks, How do professional arts organizations foster and encourage participatory practice in our communities, and is that part of their job? Or are we working along a spectrum of cultural opportunities that demands we focus even more narrowly on our point in that spectrum?

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Arts Web Wisconsin Social 40

Museum 2.0

MARCH 28, 2012

We had about thirty participants ranging from MAH trustees to artists, educators to architects, moms to grandfathers. We asked the whole group to brainstorm communities/constituencies who they thought could make a stronger connection with art, history, and culture. It was an evening meeting with beer and chips.

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Program Community Design Museum 49

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. We've continued to do this for future exhibitions.

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Participatory Museum Blackboard Game 51

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

Looking closer, I saw that each seat had its own handwritten label, telling the story of the Philadelphia cultural institution from which it originated. They were there for artist talks. It opens up new conversations about the work of art in our communities. I left Temple Contemporary energized and inspired by their work.

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Process Share Philadelphia Arts 20

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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Artist Museum Project Public 39

Museum 2.0

MAY 19, 2010

Darcie described the Centre Pompidou in Paris as a place where she is surrounded by working artists, where things change frequently, and where she feels as a visitor that anything can happen. How can cultural professionals encourage feelings of complicity among visitors to our institutions?

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Community Museum Participatory Relationship 21

Museum 2.0

JUNE 10, 2010

I spent last week working with staff at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) on ways to make this encyclopedic art museum more open to visitor participation across programs, exhibitions, and events. While there, I was lucky to get to experience a highly participatory exhibition that the MIA mounts once a decade: Foot in the Door.

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Participatory Museum Arts Artist 46