I am a huge believer in the power of participation to transform museums for the better. But, over and over, I’ve seen well-intentioned museum staff make lots of small decisions that they feel will protect their institutions, but add up to undermine their community engagement processes.
Or, my dreams for museums in a post-COVID world As I watch museums lay off thousands of highly qualified underpaid staff during this pandemic, I have been asking myself why I keep investing in museums. Museum staff are overwhelmingly white, straight, and able-bodied and museum leaders are overwhelmingly male. For centuries museums have told stories... Continue Reading →
Virtual exhibits should be social spaces that give visitors control over who they engage with, how they engage, and how much they engage. In this blog post, explore how to use the scholarship on social interaction design for virtual worlds to build virtual exhibits that connect visitors to each other and museum content.
I reached out to a bunch of talented museum professionals and asked them to tell me about their favorite virtual experiences of the year. Here's what they said...
As an exhibit developer, my job is to create exhibits that engage visitors. In order to effectively do my job, I need to know who my visitors are. Unfortunately, few museums understand their in-person audiences and even fewer institutions profile their virtual visitors.
Museums are undergoing a metamorphosis. Historically, museums have been primarily physical spaces. However, in response to the wave of COVID closures, an increasingly large number of museums have been creating virtual exhibits. Unfortunately, most virtual exhibits are not serving visitors.
Museums are physical locations where we make face-to-face connections with each other, objects, and exhibits. But, in this time of social distancing, how can museums support our communities? As the Chicago Museum Exhibitors Group (CMEG) pivoted our own programming for the museum community from in-person to online, we hosted a webinar that explored how diverse Chicagoland... Continue Reading →
Discover five ways to build engaging exhibits for teens based on neuroscientific and psychological research.
Hebru Brantley’s Nevermore Park schools both museums and instagrammable pop-ups on experience design.
This article was originally published on the National Emerging Museum Professionals blog. As soon as I graduated from my master’s program, I started avidly networking in order to find a job in the museum sector. However, as the months wore on and a year passed by, I felt extremely frustrated that my efforts had not... Continue Reading →
American Perceptionalism 