Hope you enjoyed the first round of tantalizing tweets that we selected from the first 6 months of EID twitter posts (June-Dec 2020). This represents the second grabbag of inspiring projects that we thought were worth sharing across and among interpretive disciplines. Our intent is to stimulate curiosity, generate new ideas and provide you with additional resources. We hope these tweets act like a delightful pack of dynamite periodically exploding within your cranium. Please let us know your reaction and even better did this inspire you to join our twitterpage?
In keeping with the medium of Twitter you will see article headings with highlights accompanied by cursory synopses and minimal analysis. Hopefully we whet your appetite and you click on the article heading out to expand your horizons.
Tweets Exploring INNOVATION:
Takeover Day - Kids in Museums
Takeover Day happens when museums, galleries, historic homes, archives and heritage sites in England invite young people to take over jobs normally done by adults. What a fabulous concept to counter mis-perceptions and engender this kind of feedback: “I don’t think museums are boring and old anymore.” For children and young people, Takeover Day is a unique chance to learn outside the classroom to develop new skills and discover what it’s like to work behind-the-scenes at a museum. Not For Profit organizers, Kids in Museums (KIM), report that youth participants gain a critical sense of ownership and connection with their local museum and heritage.
credit: KidsinMuseums
Explore a 5,000-Year-Old Welsh Tomb Recreated in Minecraft | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine
Gaming to the rescue: heritage engagement for generation digital. Thanks to an enterprising archaeologist and his 11-year-old daughter, would-be tourists can now explore the Bryn Celli Ddu henge and burial tomb via “Minecraft.” Certainly a development idea not limited to archaeology - any young gamers in your town looking for work experience or a practicum?
Ticket Mate Fund - Design Museum
Pay it forward! Great concept to assist free ticket sponsoring for charities. A great opportunity to help new visitors less fortunate have access to your event and spread the love while building awareness of your site, with the museum’s new pay it forward scheme in partnership with local charities that distribute free tickets in the local community.
LOVE THE WEB EXTENSION OOO. (all year round -not just Halloween). Reaching people where they are, is what they accomplish by bringing the mini-museum to the people. Watch their web site video and this YouTube about their co-founder Amanda Schochet: How bumble bees inspired a network of tiny museums | TED Talk. Claiming to be the FIRST distributed museum, MICRO has and is building a fleet of six-foot-tall, vending machine sized museums. They are supported by Science Sandbox, a neat group whose overall purpose is to unlock scientific thinking in people - future critical!
Bound to supply you with endless pop-up location ideas in your community.
credit: Micromuseums
Tweets on ADVOCACY
This is a hands-on activity guide to help you take a closer look at the monuments in your city or town by asking questions about art and justice in public spaces, and propose your own ideas for a monument. Community engagement with collective memory aspect of heritage - we need more catalysts like this -bravo! Monument Lab is a public art and history studio based in Philadelphia. Monument Lab works with artists, students, educators, activists, municipal agencies, and cultural institutions on participatory approaches to public engagement and collective memory.
credit: MonumentLab
Museums and a greener future (pressenza.com)
Major applause for the Horniman Museum - bold enough to revisit its mission and reason for being. Their previous mission had been about promoting an appreciation of global cultures and natural environments, which felt rather weak in the light of what was happening in the world. Is it time your team relooked at your mission?
The new manifesto aimed at speaking out and shaping a positive future for the world we all share. The founder, Frederick Horniman, was a Quaker whose parents were active in the anti-slavery movement and penal reform, so there was an ethos of engagement in vital issues at the heart of the institution. They were among the first museums to create a detailed Manifesto for Change in January 2020 by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, along with the appointment of a dedicated climate and ecology action officer.
Museum Facades Are New York City’s Latest Canvas for Art - WSJ
Lawrence Weiner, a conceptual artist who uses language as his medium created a piece that emphasizes our shared humanity, with the phrase, “All the stars in the sky have the same face.” displayed boldly in English, Hebrew and Arabic on the exterior wall of the Jewish Museum. Exterior walls are being seen as the ultimate canvas, particularly for work that challenges norms and speaks to a broad audience. EID coaches are in total agreement with this concept - our buildings should express our mission. Interpretive design advocates that interior/exterior treatments should be integrated as part of the visitor experience.
credit:Liz Ligon The Jewish Museum
Immersive walks through sidewalk staging highlight the "absence that becomes recognized." Read how Walking Cinema creates stories you can move with, while exposing a neighborhood’s character and uncovering small details that "crack open huge questions." Author Michael Epstein and founder of Walking Cinema says, “Our sidewalks are critical spaces now, and I think our museums should be spending more time on them.” Organizations like Micro and The Floating Museum are helping push forward the concept that museums should work outside their walls more often, particularly in communities of color where museums are rarely located. Taking this technique beyond an urban museum, can you see how a nature trail could utilize trail staging to highlight the "absence that becomes recognized?” Has this stimulated you to uncover small details that "crack open huge questions?"
How to use the Kids in Museums Manifesto to plan for reopening - Kids in Museums
If you are looking for a child friendly checklist for your facility then look no further as KIM has prepared an overall parent-derived good practice guidelines in a manifesto. In addition, they have added a COVID re-opening component: from pre-visit FAQ's, to specific ideas like pens for touch screens, outdoor picnic marquees, outdoor play in car parks, opening your cafe for BYO lunch space, providing sanitizers at low levels, and even a film describing how to social distance for sight loss clients.
Tweets on STORYTELLING:
The Anchorage Museum is undertaking radical new forms of research, practice, placemaking, and public art to tell the story of the climate crisis. Great work to be proud of! Bringing community changemakers and creatives together for critical thinking & city placemaking projects: large scale graphic design installations beyond museum walls. Is your centre reaching out to be part of the conversation?
credit: Anchorage Museum
How to Use Storytelling to Build and Engage Audiences – American Alliance of Museums (aam-us.org)
National Geographic Museum is presented as a mini case study: Stealth education, building stories around objects, and providing behind the scenes access to "experts" - always a good interpretive formula. Don’t have a roster of professional explorers at the ready? Don’t worry, here’s what all museums can do. “Look into your own staff,” suggests Wesley Della Volla, former Director of Live Events and Experiences at National Geographic. “Your colleague down the hall may be a registrar of a collection or a curator…and to people on the outside they’re a rockstar…Have them elevated, give them a chance to talk about the work they do. Look into your internal talent and find how you can help them shine.”
From the immortal animated character Porky Pig "Th-th-th-that's all folks!" (until next time)