Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

Scene: a regional workshop on arts engagement. A funder is speaking with conviction about the fact that her foundation is focusing their arts grantmaking strategy on engagement. Engaging people actively in the arts. Any questions? PARTICIPATORY: can people get involved or contribute to it? Engaging new people.

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Participatory Museum Arts Culture 55

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 26, 2015

Designing A Participatory Hook for a Virtual Meeting. In a face-to-face training, I might do an exercise with sticky notes where I get participants to write down answers to a question or two related to the content on sticky notes. For this meeting, we asked two questions: What makes a meeting a good, productive use of your time?

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Facilitation Virtual Arts Participatory 50

Museum 2.0

JUNE 18, 2014

And it''s got me thinking about how we build energy and audience for the arts in this country. Barry Hessenius recently wrote a blog post questioning the theory that more art into the school day will increase and bolster future adult audiences for art experiences. If kids were checking out art supplies from the library.

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Arts Build United States Audience 47

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?" I thought the pinnacle of participatory practice was an exhibit that could inspire collective visitor action without facilitation. and "why?" to "how?".

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Participatory Museum Empowerment Facilitation 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

This post shares some of the most interesting questions I've heard throughout these experiences. Feel free to add your own questions and answers in the comments! BROAD QUESTIONS ABOUT AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION 1. 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

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 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

MARCH 3, 2010

As many of you know, I've been working for the past year+ on a book about visitor participation in museums, libraries, science centers, and art galleries. The Participatory Museum is a practical guide to visitor participation. The Participatory Museum is an attempt at providing such a resource.

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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 3, 2009

On Friday, I offered a participatory design workshop for Seattle-area museum professionals ( slides here ). We concluded by sharing the tough questions each of us struggl es with in applying participatory design techniques to museum practice. I love this question. First, what do the right questions look like?

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Technique Question Design Develop 50

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 7, 2010

Nina has written a fantastic book engagement called The Participatory Museum. A third argues that the project won’t be truly participatory unless users get to define what content is sought in the first place. Scientists design the test questions, steer the data collection, and analyze the results. Science has an answer.

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Model Activities Active Activism 98

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 25, 2018

For the past five years, each summer, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History has hosted MuseumCamp. Come share your projects, challenges, questions, wild successes and epic failures with creative changemakers from around the world. Develop compelling, powerful participatory offers and promises for your prospective partners.

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Community Participatory Museum Registration 31

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Visitors bond and bridge through participatory experiences at MAH. There were times when coordinating a fire art festival while researching social capital theory made me want to burn my computer. I learn a ton from her every day and wanted to share her thinking--and her graduate thesis--with you.

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Museum Program Participatory Community 49

Museum 2.0

APRIL 28, 2009

On Friday, I offered a participatory design workshop for Seattle-area museum professionals ( slides here ). We concluded by sharing the tough questions each of us struggles with in applying participatory design techniques to museum practice. I love this question. First, what do the right questions look like?

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Technique Design Question Develop 52

Museum 2.0

APRIL 15, 2015

"The arts are future-making." I wrote this down when Deborah Cullinan said it at a meeting of arts leaders about a year ago. We were discussing the potential for cultural organizations to have significant impact across communities: on planning, health, education, and quality of life. The arts ARE future-making.

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San Francisco Arts Design Marketing 20

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 15, 2014

When basketball players are offering more cogent commentary on racial issues than cultural institutions, you know we have a cultural relevance problem. Museums are a part of this educational and cultural network. Schools and other arts organizations are rising to the challenge. What should be our role(s)?

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Museum Blogger Cleveland Missouri 52

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 11, 2012

For years, I'd give talks about community participation in museums and cultural institutions, and I'd always get the inevitable question: "but what value does this really have when it comes to dollars and cents?" but I didn't have numbers to back it up. They all have in concert, and they build on each other.

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Audience Museum Participatory History 47

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 4, 2010

It's rare that a participatory museum project is more than a one-shot affair. Wikipedia Loves Art, Take One The first version of Wikipedia Loves Art first took place in February 2009. In contrast, the Wikimedians were focused on making cultural content digitally available online using as open a licensing structure as possible.

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Wikipedia Arts Museum Images 40

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JANUARY 18, 2011

Establish local networks of individuals and organizations using social media to help build stronger organizations and more participatory societies. The debriefing question encouraged us to reflect on points of connection and reciprocity. Experience with Middle Eastern Culture and no experience. Some Connection Points: Learning.

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Network Build Yemen Morocco 95

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 2, 2013

Proposals involve sculpture, performance, participatory-projects, videos, and installation that use and respond to the museum’s collection. This past July, artist Guillermo Gómez proposed to restore a piece of art. Both objects and art-objects would be part of this continuing transformation and evolution.

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Artist Museum Proposal Participatory 49

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. To that end, our exhibitions are full of participatory elements. How do community members make your institution better? Visitors can comment on how we can improve or what they would like to see.

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Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 9, 2011

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. The area that houses the Creativity Lounge also shows art. But Lisa questioned this. People love petting zoos.".

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Museum Arts History Columbus 51

Museum 2.0

MAY 21, 2014

I''ve now been the executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History for three years. I''m open to any questions you want to share in the comments. We work hard to name and build our culture in many ways. Participatory work can be very labor-intensive. Naming our goals and our culture.

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Museum 2.0

MAY 2, 2012

Today is my one-year anniversary as the executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. It’s been a wild and wonderful year—without question, my most challenging and stimulating yet. I'm open to any questions you want to raise in the comments. The possible determinism of cultural geography. I feel lucky.

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Museum Director Participatory Culture 55

Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2012

But we've just compiled all our attendance data for the past year at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (our fiscal year ends on June 30), and several people have written to me asking for the numbers behind our turnaround. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. actively sought out community needs to respond to.

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Museum History Arts Artist 47

Museum 2.0

APRIL 4, 2012

Museums have been grappling with this question for years ( here's a 2007 roundup of such projects ), most aggressively in zoos and natural history museums where staff hope to inspire conservation and in history/concept museums that focus on civic engagement and activism. The largest was a "wish canopy" that hangs above the entire gallery.

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Story Participatory Museum History 47

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

AUGUST 29, 2006

I met Janet Salmons many years ago while I working on various arts and technology projects in New York State for the New York Foundation for the Arts. I started in the Cornell University Center for Theatre Arts , where I founded and directed two programs: Cornell Theatre Outreach and the Community-Based Arts Project.

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Arts Community Online Intergenerational 50

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

MAY 9, 2012

Our curator writes labels about licking the art. 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. Merilee Mostov and the Columbus Museum of Art. Participatory art and co-creation on the rise.

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Reflection Columbus Museum Participatory 43

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? Major research studies by the NEA and others demonstrate that adults well into their 60s are highly motivated to participate actively with cultural experiences.

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Interaction Design Museum Participatory 47

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 5, 2008

Reason #258 I'm glad to live in California: Cultural Connections. Cultural Connections is a group of museum professionals who meet up a few times a year and host excellent programs on a variety of topics. I was captivated by Chris Alexander 's story about participatory online/onsite efforts at the San Jose Museum of Art (SJMA).

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Case Study Participatory Studies Museum 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

What does the word "participatory" mean to you? This isn't just a rhetorical question. The various definitions of participatory projects can lead to confusion and misunderstandings. The scientists control the process, steer the data collection, and analyze the results.

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Public Research Participatory Report 36

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 25, 2015

We are hiring a temporary contract curator to activate the plaza this summer with 25+ cultural events. 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. It''s an exciting, intense, educational time.

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Public Activities Active Activism 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 14, 2013

We recruited folks and designed software that texted them five times a day for thirty days, asking one question, "Rate your mood 1 (low) to 10 (high)." I wholeheartedly believe it has the power to advance science (and art and cultural heritage) through the power of play. The project blew away our expectations.

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Museum Roles Game Participatory 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. The chairs were cast-off art, reclaimed as art, available for people to take off the hooks and use. What kind of an art institution is this? The question drives the work.

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Process Share Philadelphia Arts 20

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.

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Participatory Museum Blackboard Game 51

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 3, 2010

Like many people in the arts, I'm interested in new models that help people combine mission-driven work with an entrepreneurial spirit. I learned new vocabulary and questions to ask myself and others, but the exercise itself felt a bit frustrating and haphazard. readers, who I see as potential co-conspirators).

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Structure Model Social Profit 31