Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 17, 2012

When I started this blog in 2006, I made a multi-media introduction to the concept of "museum 2.0" Venue as content platform instead of content provider: the museum becomes a stage on which professionals and amateurs can curate, interpret, and remix artifacts and information. The museum gets better the more people use it.

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Museum Artist Remix Professional 47

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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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

DECEMBER 1, 2010

Is that a Zen graffiti artist? Marnie asks a great question about the organizational structures needed to actualize abundance: So, if we are building organizations on the abundance of goodwill, energy and eager hands — and if we are thinking of ourselves, organizationally, as platforms for change rather than agents for change.

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Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 2, 2013

George Scheer is the director and co-founder of Elsewhere Collective, a fascinating "living museum" in a former thrift store in Greensboro, NC. 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.

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Artist Museum Proposal Participatory 49

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

AUGUST 28, 2019

Last week, I talked a bit about the structural issues inherent in our systems and how they may play a part in our access issues. Museums, like all professional fields, are spaces policed by unwritten norms and regulated by our credentialing systems. What are some other access barriers? Wait, what? Well, not just you.

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Accessibility Museum Classes Stats 30

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. We actively seek participation and develop structured opportunities for visitors to collaborate with us. Last month, a couple came in and asked if they could stage a pop up tea ceremony at the museum.

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Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 25, 2012

Stacey has been collaborating with local artists to produce a series of content-rich events that invite visitors to participate in a range of hands-on activities. The event involved over fifty artists throughout the building helping visitors make their own paper, write poems, stitch books, etc. Loved" and "Made" were the most popular.

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Activities Active Activism Participatory 50

Museum 2.0

MARCH 28, 2012

At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH), we've started experimenting with a "community first" approach to program development. We had about thirty participants ranging from MAH trustees to artists, educators to architects, moms to grandfathers. It was an evening meeting with beer and chips.

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Program Community Design Museum 49

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

FEBRUARY 12, 2009

The conventional wisdom on museum memberships is that they are "one size fits many" programs whose primary benefits are free entrance to the museum and insider access to exhibition openings. But what about all the other people who love your museum? Want to know how the Brooklyn Museum is answering this question?

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Museum Audience Program Artist 24

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 15, 2012

We've gotten a little more organized at The Museum of Art & History , and we've now released opportunities for summer internships. These are unpaid part-time and full-time opportunities to help design public programs, develop new uses for the museum, perform visitor research, and pursue unusual projects.

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Museum Participatory Arts Attitude 34

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

APRIL 2, 2014

There are many artistic projects that offer a template for participation, whether a printed play, an orchestral score, or a visual artwork that involves an instructional set (from community murals to Sol LeWitt). Beck talks about this in the context of learning to play music as a young artist. There are twenty songs in Song Reader.

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Participatory Arts Music Learning 52

Museum 2.0

APRIL 19, 2016

Our museum has already had several requests to lend our support to bond measures that will be on the ballot in 2016. We reviewed a handful of existing policies from other institutions (local and national, museums and not), discussed their attributes, and started drafting/stealing/reworking with a Google doc. How did we create it?

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Policy Advocacy Create Museum 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

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 24, 2011

This post features an interview with Sarah Schultz, a museum staffer at one of the institutions Light profiled in the book (the Walker Art Center). Guard staff who are willing to let an artist step between two panes of glass to perform. A crew that has the capacity to build a sign at the last minute. It's inherent in what we do.

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Arts Interview Teen Artist 46

Museum 2.0

MARCH 9, 2009

I once asked Eric Siegel, the Director of the New York Hall of Science, why museums are rarely innovative shining stars on the cutting edge of culture. He commented that as non-profits, museums are built to survive, not to succeed. Unlike startups and rock stars, museums aren't structured to shoot for the moon and burn up trying.

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Model Business Los Angeles Museum 55

Museum 2.0

MARCH 8, 2011

Last month, artist and game designer Nikki Pugh led an utterly charming, often hilarious community residency at the City Gallery in Leicester, UK. I wanted the details of the residency to be shaped by the people who got involved with it, so it needed a structure with an edge that could be pushed against in different directions.

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Interview Museum Badge Game 37

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

Audience segmentation and research has become a hot topic in museums, especially when it comes to crafting appealing offerings that are customized to different kinds of visitors. I sat down with Kristen Denner, Director of Membership and Annual Fund, to learn more about the program's development and the museum's goals for its future.

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Interview Director Museum Arts 46

Nonprofit Tech for Good

DECEMBER 14, 2022

For example, if you join a modern art museum, there is a good chance you won’t have to pay admission to other modern art museums. Family Lifetime memberships – When a donor joins an organization like the YMCA or a museum, can you extend the membership to the entire household. This can include museums, archives, galleries, etc.

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Donor Sponsor Accessibility Music 345

Museum 2.0

JULY 7, 2010

As Peter wrote: If someone enjoys Arts Event A because it’s social, informal, energetic, fun, and hip, why should we expect her to also enjoy Arts Event B if B is individual, formal, quiet, serious, and traditional (at least in its presentation, if not artistically)? Dias de las Muertos or Chinese New Year to attract new audiences.

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Audience Museum Oakland Participatory 40

Museum 2.0

APRIL 23, 2009

Like many people who've worked in science centers and interactive experience museums, I've always been perplexed by the fact that hands-on workshop audiences top out around age 14. They are more than just workshop spaces--they are member institutions, like museums. Isn't this one of our dreams for museums?

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Museum North Carolina San Francisco Structure 24

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. The Museum 2.0 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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Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

Payne," member of the incredibly popular Santa Cruz roller derby team, wants to pitch a partnership with our museum. Yes to the Big Read with the library, yes to the Burningman artists who want to show their giant kinetic sculpture in the lobby, yes to projections on the side of the building. It's a Saturday night when I get the email.

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Phase Library Museum Homeless 38

Museum 2.0

JUNE 27, 2008

The VSA has replaced their keynotes with structured group dialogue. But the VSA has taken an intentional approach to these structured conversations with the goal of putting the (arguably) best part of conferences—the side conversations and hallway discussions—front and center. My first reaction was skepticism.

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Studies Associations Houston Museum 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 17, 2007

The Turner Prize was launched in 1984 by the Tate Britain to reward young British artists, and has had controversial effects on both public perception of contemporary art--and the artists themselves. First, the competition's structure. British artists under 50 can be nominated by, well, anyone (even you).

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Artist Arts Museum Celebrate 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

As artistic director Abe Burickson described their work to me, I imagined Theseus walking deeper into the labyrinth towards the Minotaur. He spoke of the audience as providing a challenge, a challenge like any other artistic constraint. The goal was to create work that is moving for her and a compelling artistic challenge for us.

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Arts Artist Audience Project 20

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

JUNE 6, 2008

On June 4, we opened The Tech Virtual Test Zone , a new 2000 sq ft gallery at The Tech Museum of Innovation featuring exhibits on the theme of art, film, and music that were originally developed in Second Life by a community of creative amateurs. Some museum pros have been puzzled by this. or to start their own.

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Virtual Tech Lesson Develop 21

Forum One

DECEMBER 13, 2023

Forum One partnered with the Museum to launch their new brand to the world. This work not only included launching a new website but also revitalizing the American Jazz Museum brand as a whole. It also won the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture a Silver Vega Award!

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Celebrate Award Colorado Museum 68

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

Forum One

DECEMBER 13, 2023

We partnered with the Museum to launch their new brand to the world. This work not only included launching a new website but also revitalizing the American Jazz Museum brand as a whole. It also won the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture a Silver Vega Award!

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Celebrate Award Colorado Museum 46

Museum 2.0

JUNE 16, 2020

Andrea has been a leader in the museum technology field. We are seated on a legacy of more than 25 years of comprehensive contributions to the museum education field, including formative and summative evaluations of how our exhibitions and engagements with various communities have performed.

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Museum Detroit Arts Leadership 22

EveryAction

MARCH 16, 2017

American Edmonia "Wildfire" Lewis is considered the first woman of Native American and African descent to achieve international fame as a sculptor at a time when artists of color were hardly celebrated and slavery was still legal. Gentileschi is remembered, however, as an accomplished Baroque artist whose trials did not define her art.

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Story Angola Sierra Leone History 133

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 13, 2009

Earlier this year, the New Museum and Creative Time commissioned a traveling piece by artist Jeremy Deller called "It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq." I saw It Is What It Is twice at the Hammer Museum. Why would I want to talk about Iraq on a visit to an art museum? Even for me, the barriers were too high.

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Iraq Challenge Museum Library 28

Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2007

This week, we consider Chapter 11 of Elaine Gurian's Civilizing the Museum , "Function Follows Form: How mixed-used spaces in museums build community," but first, a short and relevant note about my writing process. Museums are naturally tuned to some of these but not all. short streets and frequent opportunities to turn corners.

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Museum Los Angeles Arts Children 20