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

JUNE 1, 2010

You can join the conversation in the blog comments, or on the Museum 2.0 Like many museum and library professionals, I am enamored of the idea of cultural institutions as “third places” – public venues for informal, peaceable, social engagement outside of home or work. This is the only post written by me, Nina Simon.

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Place Discussion Culture Museum 41

Museum 2.0

JULY 1, 2011

I've now been the Director of The Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz for two months. But the point is that the MAH, like just about every other museum in the known universe, was content to define the museum experience as something removed from the outside world, a rarefied church-like space of refined artistic reflection.

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Museum History Arts Work 31

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 9, 2010

Jasper Visser and his colleagues at the not-yet-physically-open National Historisch Museum of the Netherlands have impressed me with their innovative, thoughtful approach to developing a dynamic national museum. Last weekend my museum presented itself at the Uitmarkt in Amsterdam. Tags: Museums Engaging in 2.0

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Museum Comment Experiment Participatory 34

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. No small task for a museum exhibition.

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Story Participatory Museum History 47

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

MAY 29, 2013

At our museum, we''ve gotten better at communication up from the front desk to the office. I doubt this would be the perfect solution for every organization, but it really is amazing how quickly it has changed the nature of cross-institution communication at our museum. Connectedness builds staff culture.

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Facebook Museum Participatory Adopt 55

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. Or “I love the MAH because it is a truly participatory space where diverse groups can enjoy, express themselves, and learn from/about/with others.”

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Public Museum Arts History 27

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 1, 2012

Particularly in an age of cultural and political division, Bedoya argues that leaders in the arts need to responsibly and boldly intermediate among many voices, using a combination of ethics and aesthetics to make policy and artistic decisions. If you care about how participatory art experiences can shape civic processes, read Bedoya's post.

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Arts Museum Artist Tucson 45

Museum 2.0

JULY 20, 2010

Last week, I gave a talk about participatory museum practice for a group of university students at UCSC. During the ensuing discussion, one woman asked, "Which audiences are least interested in social participation in museums?" So what's a museum to do--especially one that is funded to encourage youth and teen participation?

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Teen Social Museum Participatory 49

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

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

Sure, I admire cultural organizations that have a strong mission to change education or diversify access or transform the role of art in everyday life, but I'm an insider. The election season, as well as a recent research study on museum membership, has change my perspective on this.

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Product Build Museum Arts 51

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

For years, I've been fascinated and a bit perplexed by the Elsewhere Collaborative , a thrift store turned artists' studio/living museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. By calling ourselves a museum, we respond to those cultural institutions that have separated practice from production, exhibition from process, and work from play.

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Collaboration North Carolina Museum Artist 36

Museum 2.0

JUNE 18, 2014

And for the first time in my adult life as an American, that seems significant. For most of my life in America, pro soccer was considered something risible and vaguely deviant, like picking your nose in public. I got into museum work because learning happens in many places and many ways. It''s World Cup time. It''s exciting.

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Arts Build United States Audience 47

Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2008

There's a tag applied to many Museum 2.0 Posts under that tag tend to examine non-museum things, from malls to games to ad campaigns , and draw some design lessons for museums from their foreignness. What aspects of that socialness are desirable in museums (and how might we mirror buses or trains to promote them)?

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Participatory Design Museum Childhood 20

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. Lessons Learned 3: This is not a museum talking (what a relief!) And widely accessible.

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Lesson Game San Diego Design 49

Museum 2.0

APRIL 15, 2015

We were discussing the potential for cultural organizations to have significant impact across communities: on planning, health, education, and quality of life. But I couldn''t fully imagine how a museum or an arts center could embody it. A fitness trail for urban life. Last week, I got to see Deborah''s vision in action.

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San Francisco Arts Design Marketing 20

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

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

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

This month we’ve been thinking about “What is a museum?” (I'm I’ve been visiting museums my whole life. I’ve worked in them my whole adult life. Does that make me the best judge of museums? People are the defining characteristics of museums. Shaelyn Amaio, a museum worker, agreed, as do I.

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Museum Place Life Ohio 36

Museum 2.0

MARCH 21, 2011

Recently, I've been doing a lot of workshops with cultural professionals around the question of developing authentic relationships between institutions and visitors. This expresses itself most powerfully in museums when we talk about building relationships with visitors over time. How often do we remember to put out that second stool?

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Relationship Museum Game Personal 46

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Unsurprisingly, some of my favorite museums are small, funky places run by iconoclasts—but that’s not useful to most professionals who work for organizations in which they have little control over size or leadership matters. Third, you need to align your idea with institutional culture. It’s nice to have both.

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Project Museum Teen North Carolina 22

Museum 2.0

APRIL 22, 2008

Why discuss gifting on Museum 2.0? One of my greatest interests is the "p articipatory museum," in which there is substantive, unfacilitated visitor-to-visitor interaction. When I heard the tollbooth story, I started thinking about gifting as a model for participatory experiences in museums. Gifting extends your message.

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Gift Participatory Museum Model 23

Museum 2.0

MARCH 24, 2010

This is the third in a four-part series about writing The Participatory Museum. When I decided to write a book about visitor participation in cultural institutions, I knew I'd do it in a way that reflected the values behind the book itself--transparency, inclusion, and meaningful community participation.

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Participatory Museum Process Experiment 33

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 20, 2008

Early in the life of this blog, I stumbled into a taxonomy of how social platforms work that I call the hierarchy of participation. When I talk about the hierarchy, I use the theoretical construct of an issue-based museum exhibit. At level one, the museum preaches to visitors about the issue. with the issue.

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Poll Interaction Museum Social 22

Museum 2.0

JUNE 10, 2010

I spent last week working with staff at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) on ways to make this encyclopedic art museum more open to visitor participation across programs, exhibitions, and events. While there, I was lucky to get to experience a highly participatory exhibition that the MIA mounts once a decade: Foot in the Door.

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Participatory Museum Arts Artist 46

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 23, 2010

Yesterday, I had the delightful opportunity to participate in the 3six5 project , a yearlong participatory project in which 365 people write 365 journal entries for every day of 2010. Participating in this made me wonder: could a museum or library run a project like 3six5? I promise a very different window into my life.

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Participatory Project Museum Journal 34

Museum 2.0

MAY 8, 2013

Like a lot of organizations, my museum struggles with two conflicting goals: The museum should be for everyone in our community. At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History , we''re approaching this challenge through a different lens: social bridging. Museum of Art and History programs social bridging'

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Museum Social Arts History 55

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

Maybe it's a live music concert, or a museum visit, or a play. Museums and other venues are offering special programs for teens, for hipsters, for people who want a more active or spiritual or participatory experience. Imagine this situation: You go to an arts event, one of a type you rarely or never take part in.

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Arts Museum Music Calendar 50

Museum 2.0

JUNE 2, 2010

This year, the American Association of Museums annual conference was in Los Angeles (my hometown). I hosted two sessions, one on design for participation and the other on mission-driven museum technology development. He started with museums as a "place to go"--to see things, consume experiences. In this case, a heck of a lot.

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Slides Museum Los Angeles San Jose 22

Museum 2.0

MAY 15, 2008

Radiolab does what I hope all great museum exhibitions can do--take a deep topic and make it compelling on many levels. We have a show coming up right now about synthetic biology, where engineers are building life forms that are new to existence, new to the history of life. Which brings me to museums and how we present content.

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Conversation Arts Museum Voice 20

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 28, 2007

Welcome to the second in the four-part series on comfort (and its boundaries) in museums, a day late but just as tasty. I came out of it truly amazed by the power of the museum—not just to elicit laughter, but also to induce bizarre and voluntary acts of silliness in front of and with strangers. By sending people on missions.

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Program People Museum Lecture 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 14, 2008

As one designer commented to me after last week's colloquium on museums and civic discourse, it feels fake, even condescending, like we're handing out little "talk back opportunities" just to give visitors something to do. Tags: participatory museum usercontent inclusion. It just requires different linkages. All of you.

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Question Museum Participatory Voice 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 6, 2019

Dear friends, This is my last post as the author of Museum 2.0. I'm thrilled that Seema Rao is taking this blog and museum community into its next chapter. You can find all my archived Museum 2.0 Today, I want to share a bit about what Museum 2.0 When I think of Museum 2.0, I started the Museum 2.0

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Museum Reflection Participatory Attitude 27

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 25, 2008

Why do you care about and or work in museums? I don't work in museums because I love them. When I visit a new city, I don't clamor to visit museums. And while I'll visit museums out of professional (and occasionally personal) interest, I don't do it because of a deep emotional connection. And check out the comments.

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Museum Alternative Education University 29

Museum 2.0

JUNE 29, 2010

We share an abiding interest in exploring the community-enhancing roles of libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs), especially in terms of the practice of hospitality and service within the institution. Nina's research keeps finding that the right kind of constraints work to produce a better participatory museum experience.

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Place Discussion Library Museum 30

Museum 2.0

MARCH 6, 2019

While I originally wrote this post to advocate for more participatory practice (i.e. letting museum visitors contribute and collaborate in museums), I now see this as a crucial issue also for more democratic and inclusive practice (i.e. Other person: "But doesn't that erode museums' authority?" Me: "Sort of."

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Authoring Share Museum YouTube 44