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One Simple Question to Make Your Work More Participatory

Museum 2.0

Wes is an artist, and this is his first time running a museum exhibition development process. This is the question I ask myself anytime I'm working on something with a participatory intent. How can people--staff, volunteers, community members--help make this project better? I said to him: I can't really answer that question.

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The Participatory Museum, Five Years Later

Museum 2.0

This week marks five years since the book The Participatory Museum was first released. I thought the pinnacle of participatory practice was an exhibit that could inspire collective visitor action without facilitation. Since 2010 I have seen, again and again and again, how valuable human facilitation is to the participatory process.

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What Could Kill an Elegant, High-Value Participatory Project?

Museum 2.0

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. A Dutch friend volunteered to go snap the library.

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Guest Post: Community and Civic Engagement in Museum Programs

Museum 2.0

Visitors bond and bridge through participatory experiences at MAH. The program is an experimental playground that bridges artists, students, chefs, comedians, hairdressers, bartenders, dancers, wrestlers and even tattoo artists to produce a community-led event. Cardboard tube orchestra at Radical Craft Night.

Museum 49
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Why Are So Many Participatory Experiences Focused on Teens?

Museum 2.0

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? Museums are not in the business of giving anyone who wants one a soapbox.

Teen 24
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Want to Co-Create an Exhibition on a Hot Issue? Introducing the Community Issue Exhibition Toolkit

Museum 2.0

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. We saw casual visitors volunteer to become foster parents. Short story: we learned a lot.

Issue 45
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Ze Frank Takes Over (My) Museum

Museum 2.0

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). He is an authoritative artist of the social web with a slew of accolades and a suite of diverse projects under his belt.

Museum 45