Museum 2.0

JANUARY 13, 2011

The best participatory projects are useful. Rather than just doing an activity, visitors should be able to contribute in a way that provides a valuable outcome for the institution and the wider museum audience. But it is political in a way that fits right in with the Museum’s mission and history. Yes, this activity is political.

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Participatory Museum Action Experiment 44

Museum 2.0

JULY 7, 2010

Most of my work contracts involve a conversation that goes something like this: "We want to find ways to make our institution more participatory and lively." We want to cultivate a more diverse audience, especially younger people, and we want to do it authentically." Audience development is not an exercise in concentric circles.

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Audience Museum Oakland Participatory 40

Museum 2.0

JULY 23, 2014

The Silk Mill is part of the Derby Museums , a public institution of art, history, and natural history. They invite people to participate: in design , prototyping , artifact interpretation , collections preparation , audience development. design inclusion institutional change participatory museum' It''s serious.

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Museum Product Participatory Community 53

Museum 2.0

JULY 1, 2011

I've now been the Director of The Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz for two months. The reason I was interested in this job is because last fall the trustees put out a new strategic plan with a vision statement that positions the museum as a thriving central gathering place around art, history, ideas and culture," she said.

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Museum History Arts Work 31

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. I''ve spent much of the past three years on the road giving workshops and talks about audience participation in museums. BROAD QUESTIONS ABOUT AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION 1. Yes and no.

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Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Visitors bond and bridge through participatory experiences at MAH. To apply the results of my analysis to produce a community-driven program design specifically for implementation at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (the MAH). You can download and read the full version of my thesis here.

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Museum Program Participatory Community 49

Museum 2.0

JULY 20, 2016

When we say we want our museum to be "audience-centered," what do we mean? They catered to different audiences. I never felt like I stumbled into the gallery where no one else dares to tread (as I often feel when I enter the dioramas in many natural history museums, or the period rooms of art institutions).

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Museum Audience Music Arts 20

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. Ze Frank is a participatory artist who creates digital projects that are explicitly about creating and enhancing authentic interpersonal connections. In other words: I have a lot to learn from him. What constraints and surprises will emerge?

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Museum Participatory Artist History 45

Museum 2.0

APRIL 10, 2013

The weather is hopefully the least of the reasons you should want to come work with us here at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. These are unpaid, part-time internships in which you will make a significant contribution to our work, and at the same time, learn a heck of a lot about participatory design and community engagement.

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San Francisco Participatory Artist Museum 23

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. BROAD QUESTIONS ABOUT AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION 1. Are there certain kinds of institutions that are more well-suited for participatory techniques than others? Yes and no.

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Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

They are hosting performances, exhibitions that morph over time, artists who work in practice-based media, who break the fourth wall with the audience, who invite participation, and who deliberately disrupt museum conventions. Throw in a few participatory elements, and suddenly you have visitors trying to arbitrate amongst themselves.

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Museum Arts Artist Participatory 50

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 29, 2012

Here's the short version (read the whole thing here ): The Museum of Art & History is committed to creating exhibitions that inspire our diverse audiences to engage deeply with contemporary art and Santa Cruz County history. It's a working document, and we mean to put it to work planning new projects with our partners.

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Museum Artist Participatory History 38

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. But that is only the jumping off point for the inquiry.

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Guatemala Movie Artist Award 93

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 23, 2014

They give high-energy, interactive tours of the Metropolitan Museum and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). When the opportunity to design my own two-hour museum adventure at the American Museum of Natural History presented itself, I jumped at the chance. Who is the audience for Museum Hack? Today on Museum 2.0,

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Museum Interview New York Interaction 55

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 16, 2013

Then again, Saturday was hardly normal at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. This past weekend, in conjunction with our exhibition about Ze Frank's current participatory project, A Show , we hosted " Ze Frank Weekend "--a quickie summer camp of workshops, activities, presentations, and lots of hugging.

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Reflection Community Museum Participatory 43

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. But we tried never to create an event without partners or audiences who were invested in what we were making.

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Museum History Arts Artist 47

Museum 2.0

MARCH 14, 2017

This is the second installation 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 MAH fundamentally has two jobs: we bring art and history out into our community, and we invite our community in. We want to break out.

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Public Museum Arts History 27

Museum 2.0

MAY 2, 2012

Today is my one-year anniversary as the executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. We went through a dramatic financial turnaround and redefined our relationship with our community through a series of experimental participatory projects and new programmatic approaches. 85% of our visitors attend through events.

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Museum Director Participatory Culture 55

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

SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

This argument became one of the foundations of The Participatory Museum. This is the participatory platform model. Instead of "doing the thing" directly, our staff make space for community members to do the thing--and to do so beautifully, proudly, with and for diverse audiences. Nine years later, I still believe this.

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Platform Impact Childhood Museum 31

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 15, 2014

Yet our posts contain similar phrases such as “21st century museums,” “changing museum paradigms,” “inclusiveness,” “co-curation,” “participatory” and “the museum as forum.” How do these issues relate to the mission and audience of your museum? We believe that strong connections should exist between museums and their communities.

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Museum Blogger Cleveland Missouri 52

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 3, 2019

I love alternative history novels. I was thinking I’d do a few alternative histories of museums for the first post of the last month of the decade. As I imagined a world without Nina Simon ’s Participatory Museum , I felt sad about all the visitors whose voices (and post-it note comments) weren’t honored.

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Museum Work Social Media History 21

Museum 2.0

MAY 24, 2011

When I worked briefly with the Balboa Park Online Collaborative to conceptualize a mobile phone-based game to connect visitors to the park to its cultural institutions and history, I knew Ken would be the perfect person to make it happen. They leave LOTS of room for the audience to ask their own questions and fill in their own answers.

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Lesson Game San Diego Design 49

Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2012

It was terrific to have a packed room and a long, open conversation (we split the session into half presenting, half audience discussion) about these issues. In particular, we had a great group of 15 talking about participatory history experiences on Sunday. Participatory art and co-creation on the rise.

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Reflection Columbus Museum Participatory 43

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 25, 2015

to experiment with different kinds of events (time of day, audience, size, type) and get a sense of how we can best program the space in the longterm. 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.

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Public Activities Active Activism 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 21, 2012

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. In the history gallery, we have some blended props and artifacts, and it's rarely clear what is and is not ok to touch. Focus on family audiences. This was amazing.

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Museum Denver Artist Milwaukee 49

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

FEBRUARY 20, 2015

” The following games are expanding the reach of various nonprofits and helping them connect with audiences in meaningful ways. government and encouraging participatory democracy. Kennedy (EMK) Institute to support it in educating the public about U.S.

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Game Tech Support Module 50

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

AUGUST 20, 2009

A Brief History of Hash Tags Chris Messina ( @chrismessina) is credited with starting hashtags and has written about how to make them most useful. The best example of educating and engaging is how the National Wildlife Federation is using the #nwf hashtag to engage its audience in watching wildlife.

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Twitter Foundation Effective San Diego 95

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. I''ve struggled with some of the "celebrity" aspects of having a big audience. I''ve never taken a break from blogging before.

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Museum Participatory Reflection Conference 35

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Over time the movement and arrangement of things trails a layered aesthetic that convey histories and narratives of changing communities passing through this unfolding three-story artwork. Tags: participatory museum guestpost Unusual Projects and Influences.

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Collaboration North Carolina Museum Artist 36

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 28, 2010

Every once in a while I come across a project I wish I could have included in The Participatory Museum. an exhibition produced with schoolchildren at the Wallace Collection in London, is a lovely example of co-creation that demonstrates the multiple benefits of inviting audience members to act as partners in arts organizations.

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Children Museum Create Project 46

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

A national election is the ultimate participatory project. I realize as I write this list that we do invite certain people to participate in these conversations, but not our onsite audience. Who's really going to read the fine print to find out why? There are multiple potential levels of involvement available.

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Product Build Museum Arts 51

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 31, 2012

We will also offer a half-day series of workshops on July 10 for a wider audience for $50. We're working with participatory online artist Ze Frank on an exhibition at the MAH this winter that features the missions, creations, and explorations of his current web series, A Show. Registration will be $150 and by application only.

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Professional Develop Museum Arts 35

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 16, 2010

It's not topic-specific; I've done these exercises with art, history, science, and children's museums to useful effect. This museum was unusual in that the lobby area had a high concentration of pop art meant to appeal to a wide audience. Read about the Human Library in chapter 3 of The Participatory Museum by searching that term here.)

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Museum Technique Taiwan Social 41

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 asked the whole group to brainstorm communities/constituencies who they thought could make a stronger connection with art, history, and culture. Six goals for MAH community programs.

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Program Community Design Museum 49

Museum 2.0

MAY 29, 2009

Two weeks ago, I conducted a participatory exhibit design workshop with staff at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. You have an audience need and an institutional value, and now you just need a verb that connects them. Tags: participatory museum professional development.

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Slides Process Video Open 20

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. Our programming isn't for target audiences.

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Build Community Museum Artist 20