ALERT: Blockbuster of blockbusters
Every so often you come across a piece of information, an experience, or even a museum website so inspirational when you least expect it, that it knocks your socks off and reaffirms life’s joy. This happened to me last night. On several levels.
· A powerful mission
· A tight measurable goal
· Emotional balance of love, wonder, and fragility
· Inspire and inform messaging
· Sure-fire recipe for enchantment
· People-to -people speak
· Radical interpretive thought
The time has never been more right for a wake-up call exhibit known as “The Secret Life of Earth: Alive! Awake! (and possibly really angry!)” which opened in October, 2019 in Baltimore at the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM). This discovery I made is, to me, the most important & exciting exhibit I have become aware of for quite some time. It should appear in every city on our planet. And, if there ever was something to rob and duplicate this is it. I sincerely hope the exhibit will be filmed and shared because the earth can’t wait for it to make the travelling exhibit rounds. The challenge is whether other museums and cities will tap into The Secret Life of Earth (TSLOE) thought processes and provide a similar experience for its citizens.
The TSLOE show aims to “inspire a deeper love and protectiveness of our planet through carving a personal path of amazement and appreciation for visitors -nourishment they can take for the rest of their lives.” WOW ! Anyone out there want to change the wording in their mission or goal statement after having just read this?
AVAM has expressed a definitive goal: it will be crystal clear to all visitors what the difference is between climate and weather and how our individual behaviour makes a difference. If they can accomplish this, then they really do need to share their interpretive design strategy with all of us.
Emotional balance of love, wonder, and fragility
Their promotional come-on states that the visitor can expect a combination of “a visual earth love fest with a crash course on the wonders and interdependent fragility on our one homegirl planet.” By offering plain language insight into the rapidly changing state of our earth and the disruption of the delicate balances all living things require, it certainly seems they are on the right track. Love, wonder and fragility are the operative pathways that emotionally wrap around the all too often reliance on numbers and charts.
The exhibit introduction states: “It is very hard to value, let alone cherish, anything without first really understanding and respecting its preciousness.”
TSLOE wants to accomplish this for their visitors of all ages, i.e. the earth’s passengers, by:
· portraying an invisible, interdependent harmony which all humans are totally dependent on
· using wise messages to INSPIRE AND INFORM earthlings (ex. Julia Butterfly Hill’s quote – “Why is everything good for our bodies, our communities, our world and our planet called ‘the alternative’? That means that everything BAD for us is the accepted norm.”).
· employing the role of muse to help stimulate ideas for the visitor (quoting W.B. Yeats: “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”)
What do you do, or would you do, at your interpretive site to illustrate the earth’s invisible interdependent harmony and world of magical things for the visitor?
AVAM Courtesy of Visit Baltimore web site
If you have been wondering how your agency can become more engaging and more of a change agent you should take a close hard look at AVAM’s approach. A past exhibition titled The Marriage of Art, Science & Philosophy had as its end goal to help the visitor “depart better equipped to perceive, receive and augment all the many wonders encoded into your everyday life.” They followed the quantum principle that dictated to cross out the old world ‘observer’ and put in its new world place ‘participator.’
Sure-Fire Recipe for Enchantment
As I ventured deeper into their web site (http://www.avam.org/stuff-everyone-asks/what-is-visionary-art.shtml) I encountered the title “Sure-fire recipe for enchantment,” and my intrigue meter spiked. I was not disappointed with their seven tenets for enchantment. Even though this is an art gallery perspective, one should be able to pull out applicable points, and I have initiated this process below. See for yourself:
1. Take one grand spirited theme that has inspired or bedeviled humankind from the get-go.
This nails down the role of designing the visitor hook. Use inspiration or bedevilment as a way to reconfigure how you link your “treasured heritage” whether that is plant, animal, habitat, or people related. Tap into the mental curiosity and relevance people seek.
2. Add the works of the world’s best self-taught artists-known and first time that have wrestled in their lives and art with some key aspect of that theme.
Are there any cultural “works” (i.e. dance, drama, music as well as art) that can be used to highlight inspiring (i) or bedeviling (b) natural processes OR vice-versa are there any natural “works” (e.g. biomimicry examples) that express/reinforce “i” or “b” cultural/technical processes?
3. Spice the exhibition text with insightful quotes, lyrics, factoids and humour on diverse aspects of that same exhibition theme-interweaving timeless, global wisdoms.
text treatment -what we don’t need Credit: Bill Reynolds,2019
Perhaps this seems the most obvious spice technique, yet I continue to witness interpretive signage, displays and media without drawing on timeless muses for easily digestible quotes and humour to entice & engage the visitor. Warm, relatable and approachable is what we need.
4. Integrate key historic, scientific and social justice underpinnings of each theme via the well researched exhibition text and dynamic creative partnerships.
Utilize historic, scientific AND social justice elements not just one of them. To help make academic findings visceral and to correct misinformation, a joint approach works more effectively by speaking to the whole person and providing relevance to the human life story.
When the educational STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program focus becomes STEAM to incorporate the Arts, it unleashes the solution-finding power of the head-heart combination. If you are wondering whether these fields of art and science are ripe for collaboration take a journey into the SciArt magazine (https://www.sciartmagazine.com/october2019contents.html) by reading an article titled Ideation to Actuality: Comparing the Creative and Scientific Processes.
5. Call up anyone (appropriate to theme) you or staff have long admired and invite them to come take part in some way that is a new delight to them too.
Why not choose this novel approach and reach out and invite participation and guidance from a desired mentor – nothing ventured nothing gained.
6. Top with community - based programming that makes a difference i.e. theme-related film series, festivals, conferences, plus fab ops for grassroots community play. Never bore - enchant.
The take home for me on this one is looking for a way to incorporate grassroots community play which probably means you need to invite your grassroots communities to participate in the program design. Founded in 2008, Guerilla Science is on a mission to revolutionise how people connect with science through transformative experiences, where science belongs to them and where science is celebrated as an intrinsic part of human culture. Check their level of play out at https://guerillascience.org/
7. Stay true at all times to AVAM’s seven founding education goals, definition of Art, definition of Visionary, and founding Mission Statement.
Cross checking your program against your mission and goals is fundamental and critical to stay on track with your institutional values.
AVAM outdoor sculpture gallery Credit AVAM web site
The genesis for this museum and education centre in the mid 80’s was the brainchild of Rebecca Alban Hoffberger who, at that time, was the Development Director of a psychiatric program at Sinai Hospital called People Encouraging People, Inc. Art therapy was in vogue. I find it noteworthy that the human catalyst for this museum was non-traditional.
People to People Speak
Visionary and AVAM founder Ms. Hoffberger valued the use of artists’ personal bios that concentrated on the simple facts of the artists’ lives and their creative visions all told in their own words. Translation: non-artspeak! What a great way for galleries to embrace the fact that people connect to people.
Hats off to Ms. Hoffberger for breaking the orthodox interpretive mould. The broad application here is to be on the lookout for naturalist, scientist or curator speak, and replace these perspectives with people-to- people speak. We need to share authors’ and artists’ joyful words about their relationships with all aspects of natural and cultural heritage to elicit the personal connections within our visitors. As with visionary art, the emphasis is on process not mere artifact. Hoffberger has said that “A good museum does more than just have objects that stand there on pedestals. The great ones are all muse-based, connecting viewers to the heart of inspiration.”
Visionary art refers to art produced by self-taught individuals, usually without formal training, whose works arise from an innate personal vision. From a natural history viewpoint there have always been individuals without formal scientific training enthralled with how nature works or how nature simply IS. Are they the equivalent to visionary artists? Might the average person find the work of these “characters” engaging as an entryway down the scientific path?
On another level, our profession can take a page from the visionary artist playbook: don’t listen to everyone else’s traditions - invent your own. Rather than focusing shows on specific artists or styles, AVAM sponsors exhibitions with titles such as Wind in Your Hair and High on Life. The museum's founder, takes pride in the fact that AVAM is "pretty un-museumy".
How can we incorporate some radical interpretive thought processes within our hallowed halls and along our pathways?
TSLOE is interested in inspiring creativity – not necessarily in art at all but more in the way people think. “If you look at the dance between sci-fi and the practice of technology and the artificial world now – we're in a time when advancement is very fast. What's nice [about art] is that more people are invited to the party than ever before." The words of AVAM Founder and Director Rebecca Alban Hoffberger.
AVAM has been described as out of the ordinary and out of this world. This museum wants to celebrate the gift of intuition. As Einstein said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
Let’s invite our visitors to a party where we provide gifts to honor intuition and celebrate self-exploration, then we can light some candles that guide us to factual knowledge and reason.