Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

In the spirit of a popular post written earlier this year , I want to share the behind the scenes on our current almost-museumwide exhibition at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, Santa Cruz Collects. The content focuses on the question of WHY we collect and how our collections reflect our individual and community identities.

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Participatory Museum History International 44

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

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. 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! The Museum 2.0

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Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

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

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

OCTOBER 30, 2013

My biggest question for these social psychologists is this: how do we apply their lessons to our work? As we start the process at our museum of updating our permanent history gallery, one of our specific goals is to increase intergroup understanding in our community. Direct questioning.

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Measure Arts People Museum 47

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

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

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

JULY 23, 2014

The Silk Mill is part of the Derby Museums , a public institution of art, history, and natural history. A strong participatory process is not a loosey-goosey, open the doors and do whatever strategy. It''s not a question of the participatory process being unidirectional, something that we are doing for you the community.

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Museum Product Participatory Community 53

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. Despite its long history, few researchers studied the use and impact of citizen science until the 1980s.

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Model Activities Active Activism 98

Museum 2.0

JULY 11, 2012

I get excited about a lot of things in my work at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. And to cut to the end of the story first, yes, we are creating a project together, yes, you can participate, and yes to whatever other questions this brings up in your head. Photography, video, audio, text, origami, mail art.

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Museum Participatory Artist History 45

Museum 2.0

APRIL 21, 2011

I'm reaching the end of my consulting days, with just one more day on the road before I dedicate myself to Santa Cruz and The Museum of Art & History. On Monday, April 25, I'll be participating in an online video chat with Andrew Taylor and James Undercofler to explore new business models for arts organizations.

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Arts Model Wisconsin Business 26

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?" And the next time someone questions the benefits of letting audiences actively participate, send them to Santa Cruz.

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Audience Museum Participatory History 47

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. I disagreed, and the puzzle stayed.

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Museum Arts History Columbus 51

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. design new programs with a focus on history. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

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Museum History Arts Artist 47

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 15, 2014

Schools and other arts organizations are rising to the challenge. Artists and arts organizations are contributing their spaces and their creative energies. Yet our posts contain similar phrases such as “21st century museums,” “changing museum paradigms,” “inclusiveness,” “co-curation,” “participatory” and “the museum as forum.”

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Museum Blogger Cleveland Missouri 52

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 23, 2014

They give high-energy, interactive tours of the Metropolitan Museum and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). They were “preaching the museum gospel” in NYC via alternative tours at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I imagine that there are a lot more presumed barriers to break down at an art museum than a science museum.

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Museum Interview New York Interaction 55

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

OCTOBER 23, 2018

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. Short story: we learned a lot. We wrote a toolkit about our process. What did we learn?

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Issue Childhood Community Create 45

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 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. Participatory work can be very labor-intensive. QUESTIONS ON MY MIND: As we grow, how can we do as much growing as possible outside the museum''s walls?

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Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 19, 2012

We're looking for an Exhibitions Manager to join our team here at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. Some of the big questions on my mind include: If we change exhibitions more frequently, will it drive more repeat visitation? Will it give a sense of energy and change?

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Participatory Museum Blended History 32

Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2012

Our curator writes labels about licking the art. Attendees brought up questions about how they can get more involved with financial discussions in their institutions, how we can change the ways we approach fundraising, how we can think about earned income differently. Merilee Mostov and the Columbus Museum of Art.

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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? There are many participatory experiences that appeal primarily to adults, and they are designed distinctly for adults.

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Interaction Design Museum Participatory 47

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. It is incredibly rewarding work. I feel lucky.

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Museum Director Participatory Culture 55

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. There was no specific instruction with the dots.

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Story Participatory Museum History 47

Museum 2.0

MARCH 21, 2012

I used to think these were easy questions to answer. Art, however, does not come to museums pre-hardened. At the museum of art and history where I work, we are grappling with the question of how to help people enjoy themselves while keeping the art and artifacts safe. This was amazing.

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Museum Denver Artist Milwaukee 49

Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2017

This is the ninth 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. The “we” isn’t always staff; in most cases, our staff work with community partners in a participatory, co-creative model. We develop the ideas.

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Develop Artist Participatory Blended 20

Museum 2.0

JULY 31, 2013

You''re in for a treat, with upcoming posts on creativity, collections management, elitism, science play, permanent participatory galleries, partnering with underserved teens, magic vests, and more. Thank you for sharing your ideas and case studies and comments and questions. I''ve never taken a break from blogging before.

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Museum Participatory Reflection Conference 35

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 25, 2015

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. But in the case of Abbott Square (the plaza in question), we''re building something new. creative placemaking design Museum of Art and History programs public space'

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Public Activities Active Activism 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 16, 2010

I spent last week in the glorious country of Taiwan, hiking, eating, and working with museum professionals and graduate students at a conference hosted at the Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts. It's not topic-specific; I've done these exercises with art, history, science, and children's museums to useful effect.

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Museum Technique Taiwan Social 41

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)." He''ll be able to watch how certain activities evolve into coordination and what kinds of histories the people who most easily coordinate have in common.

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Museum Roles Game Participatory 51

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. Note: you can view these photos of the exhibition on Flickr here.)

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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.

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Build Community Museum Artist 20

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 13, 2010

Why the Video Contest Worked Video contests are one of the most challenging kinds of participatory projects to pull off. Nothing warms my heart like seeing outtakes of a guy trying to scale the walls of MSI, or a man spinning a yarn about his family's long history sleeping in museums. Overall favorite. Museum staffers.

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Museum Contest Video Chicago 34

Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2011

Last week, I talked with Tina Olsen, Director of Education and Public Programs at the Portland Art Museum, about their extraordinary Object Stories project. They designed a participatory project that delivers a compelling end product for onsite and online visitors… and they made some unexpected decisions along the way.

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Story Interview Museum Audio 53