A Fearless Museum Exhibit: A Post in Honor of World Refugee Day

Monday was World Refugee Day so it seems the past time to share one of the most meaningful museum experiences I’ve had in a long time. It’s taken me far too long to write about—but if you’ve been in conversation with me over the last several months, I’ve probably told you about it.

In April, my dear friend and colleague Katrin Hieke joined me for a weekend of museum-going in Berlin and she had scouted out exhibits that I never would have found.  One of them was at the Museum of European Cultures—a museum I couldn’t quite imagine. What would it be about? High culture?  Folk culture?

Here's how the museum explains its work:

The Museum Europäischer Kulturen is dedicated to collecting, researching, preserving, presenting, and raising awareness of artefacts of European everyday culture and human lived realities from the 18th century until today. As such, we transcend national and linguistic borders and facilitate encounters among different groups of people. Our work is characterised by the term ‘cultural contact’.

We continually seek to forge connections between our historical collection and current issues. An important aspect of this work is a close cooperation with respective interest groups, as well as facilitating an exchange with our visitors.

The staff, led by director Elisabeth Tietmeyer, have chosen to continually expand all of our perspectives on what “European culture” is.   Katrin had found that they offered Tandem tours, in German and Arabic, of the exhibition "daHeim:  Glances into Fugitive Lives" so we arrived just in time.  What’s a Tandem tour?  One of the refugees/artists who created the exhibit led the exhibition tour, joined by a museum curator and a translator.  Along the way, our small group not only conversed in German and Arabic, but English and Greek.

What was the exhibit?  It was the work of a small group of refugees, from all over the world, who were housed at a single hostel in Berlin.  Using the hostel bedframes as their primary material, they created extensive installations, along with art work on the walls and in smaller iterations, that explored their own experience as refugees coming to Berlin. The works were powerful in and of themselves,  but our guided tour made it even more so.  He Xshared the stories of creating the works and of individual refugee stories.  The group of creators became a cohesive group, and now, even after the exhibit is finished, meet every week to socialize.

The works depicted the often-harrowing journey, the German bureaucracy, families left at home and memories of cities destroyed.  And in every instance, our guide made the experience deeper, more personal, more real.  At the small bedframe, adapted with rockers to simulate the rocking of a boat, with a small iPhone-sized video of someone’s voyage, when he shared his own journey, we all fell silent, suddenly into a world unknown to us. So as humans, the exhibition touched Katrin and me deeply.  But there are also important lessons for us as museum people.  

Here’s a few takeaways:

• Be fearless.  This was a big exhibit with, I suspect, an unknown outcome when it began.  The staff had to trust its exhibition partners, the refugees themselves, and its own ability to explain and explore the content. 
• Let go of your “museum” voice.   We talk a lot about shared authority, but then, often, we resort to exerting control after we talk to an “advisory committee” and get their input. 
• Be about the now.  More than ever, the world needs more thoughtful, passionate voices exploring how we can make a better world together.  The long lead time for exhibition development often shoves us into irrelevancy. 
• Don’t just talk.  It’s pretty easy to talk about how museums should be relevant and how we should be more diverse.  We are still moving way too slow and need to pair institutional and personal action.   Last year at ICOM, the mayor of Lampedusa, Italy, where many refugees have come ashore, spoke about how history will judge all of us in receiving nations harshly for our lack of actions in the refugee crisis. We must do more.

Want to explore more about migration and cultural organizations?  Check out the free downloadable publication, The Inclusion of Migrants and Refugees: The Role of Cultural Organisations coordinated by Maria Vlachou and just released this week.

What AM I doing?

In a conversation with my great Take 5 colleagues the other day, we were talking about the shape of our days, our weeks and our months as independent professionals.  It's fairly often that I get asked questions about what I do, either by people interesting in becoming freelancers (by choice or not), people beginning their career and wondering how I got from there to here; and even people I met on airplanes, who ask things like, "so you pick the stuff on display?"  I thought I'd give a one-month (slightly longer) recap, to give a sense of what independent consulting means, at least in my case. Here goes:

In mid-July, I headed off to St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, where I'm in the final stages of an managing and curating an exhibit for the headquarters of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.  An exhibit in a police headquarters is a first for me, and I'm working with an enthusiastic group of volunteers and designer Melanie Lethbridge.  I love St. John's, so I always make sure that my time there includes not only the archives, but also some walks out and about. This time, an evening spent watching whales cavort off Cape Spear, the easternmost point in North America.  Plus, time planning a new book project with Jane Severs, checking out the new exhibit at the Rooms, and a lively lunch with Jane and Kate Wolforth, talking all things interpretation.

In late July, I was a keynote speaker at the Association of Midwest Museums conference in Minneapolis.  I got to meet tons of great people, share some ideas on creativity and innovation, hear other great ideas, eat some amazing food and see the American Swedish Institute's beautiful new building and their historic house (plus, a chance to walk my creativity walk with some on-the-fly, totally unserious, historic house tour-giving.)  I also got a chance to catch up with Barb Wieser, an American friend from Ukraine and attend an event at the Ukrainian Cultural Center.  A big shout-out to the fabulous Paige Dansiger who captured me (above) and other speakers with her great on-the-spot sketches.

In between, and during travel, I'm catching up on emails, attempting to write blog posts, checking in with various clients, and thinking about new work including writing proposals that may or may not come to fruition. Hopefully each trip home includes a bank deposit, but not always.  See risk, below. Plus of course, finding time to enjoy summer in the Catskills--it's beautiful up here.

A relatively quick turn-around and I was off to Concord, MA, where I'm working on re-interpretation of The Old Manse for the Trustees.  The Old Manse is an historic house with a fascinating complex story, and this trip was to begin the prototyping process.  I did a training session with interpreters and some actual prototyping. It's always energizing to get feedback from visitors directly. Whether prototypes are successful or not, it's a process worth embarking on to deepen our thinking and challenge our assumptions.  On that same trip, one dinner with Rainey Tisdale, planning for a trip to Columbus, as well as catching up on everythin; and another dinner with a former Fulbrighter to Ukraine.  On the way home, I visited Fruitlands, a museum I'd heard about forever but had never been to.  If you're interested in museums I visit, I actually, and nerdily, maintain a Google map of those visits.

Again, a quick turn-around at home, enjoying summer, my husband, and a homemade music festival (thanks Gohorels!); also working to line up three international museums for my Johns Hopkins course, International Experiments in Museum Engagement, starting this week. Stay tuned for more on that.  I also agreed to serve as a Fulbright reviewer and Rainey and I began work on a journal article together.  Farmers' markets, walks in the cool evenings, and appreciating other people's gardens, all a part of home.  Plus of course, bills and invoices, emails, and other writing, and a conference call or two.

Off to the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center with a day-long review of our work together over the last several years, an appearance on public radio talking historic houses with Shannon Burke and Cindy Cormier, and making final plans for the exciting new visitor experience next year. Back home again after three days.  The week at home included work on the Old Manse, writing final text and reviewing designs for the Constabulary exhibit, JHU course prep, and prepping for a one-day workshop at the Ohio History Connection with Rainey. Plus a small bit of work for my ongoing client, Context Travel, commenting on a Paris walk framework and and a phone call about a possible speaking engagement.

That week also brought the start of an exciting new project.  With Lithuanian colleague Vaiva Lankeliene I am conducting an assessment of cultural heritage needs in Ukraine for the British Council/European Cultural Foundation.  There's much to dig in on and plans to make for a research visit in October. Thanks heavens for Google Translate, also getting used as I try to read French materials for another project possibility.

That Sunday we had an all-too infrequent Take 5 meeting here at my house.  Carolyn Macuga made the trek up a day early, so we jampacked Saturday with the Bovina Farm and Studio Tour and the Delaware County Fair.  Take 5 is always a wonderful time to reflect on our work, individually and collectively. Haven't checked out our website or signed up for the newsletter?  I hope you'll find them both useful and thought-provoking.  We talked ethics, book projects, SEOs, interpretation, and as always, ended with an infused vodka toast (this time, sour cherry, cucumber and basil, or blueberry).

An early morning departure once again (coupled with the desire that I could both live in a beautiful place and close to an airport), off to Columbus, Ohio,  A meet-up with Rainey and a fascinating tour of the Columbus Museum of Art, a place that has embraced creativity as a key part of their mission, followed by dinner with Megan Wood, one of my former mentees. The next day, two half-day workshops at the Ohio History Connection, trying out Creativity Karaoke (amazing job, all of you!), and some deep dives into embedding creativity into an institutional culture.

Back home again, to a day full of phone calls (not as common as it once was thanks to emails): brainstorming ideas with a potential new client; talking to a professional considering career changes; catching up on prototyping at the Old Manse with Caren Ponty, one of last year's JHU students who is helping out with the project;  and trying to puzzle out the laws of Ukraine regarding museums with Vaiva. I juggled scheduling video interviews long-distance  for the Constabulary exhibit and trying to plan a few blog posts. Ended the day in a Newfoundland way by trying out one of the recipes for the Colony of Avalon's Colonial Cookoff--reasonable success with apple fritters.

What's the point of this crazy narrative?

First, if you want to be a freelancer, think about what risks you really are comfortable with.  Everyone does it differently, but for me, it means serious multi-tasking (hence why I find typos in these blog posts!)  and more than a bit of risk. There's risk in bidding new projects, and continual uncertainty in a financial sense.  I love the challenge of all that, but it's not for everyone.

Second, reflect. I've spent more time this year reflecting on my own process and the ways in which I connect with clients and audiences.  The better I understand my own process, the better I can present my work to clients.

Third, gratitude.  My career has been a complicated, sometimes surprising and circuitous line of choices, but along the way, Drew and Anna, mentors, mentees,  Rainey, my Gang of Five, other colleagues, and clients have all helped me think more deeply about the work I do, how we might do it together and what risks we might take.  I try and pass my own experiences and knowledge forward, when people ask, but I will say, honestly, the thank-yous really matter.  I'm always willing to find time for coffee or a drink to meet new people, but I've been surprised this year when I made time for a couple young professionals who never followed up with a thank-you email.  Gratitude does matter.

Fourth, network, but gently.  I don't want to be in your face or in your social media feed constantly, but I do want you to think that I'm around, that I'm doing interesting things and that you might have a good project for us together. There's a ton of advice out there about your social media presence--I just blunder my own way and I know fellow consultants who have none, but make your own decisions about it.

Fifth, keep learning.  My work is predicated on my ability to learn new things:  new tools to help me work efficiently (hello, Slack), new ways of thinking about our work (on a regular basis, hello Nina Simon),  new places to understand (hello, Latvia),  new perspectives (hello #museumsrespondto Ferguson tweetchat) and new challenges (hello, Ukrainian cultural policy).  I still think of myself as an Emerging Museum Professional, because I always think I have more to learn.

If you're interested in working with me or pondering through a new project together, be in touch!

Reflective Power

Last week I got to do something I rarely get to do--and I find few museums do either.  Over the course of two days, amidst bits and pieces of the ongoing project, the core staff at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center and I got a chance to reflect on our journey through the reinterpretation of the house, now at the three year mark and nearing completion next year.

I've written often about our work at the Center often, and I know it has resonated with many of you. We've made progress and had great wins, but we also had places where we would have done things differently.  I'll share more specifics about what we learned later, but this is just a post to encourage everyone to squeeze out that time to be reflective about your work, with your colleagues.  How to start? We tried to think about the path of the project which involved diving back into computer files saying, "when was that meeting?" and saying, "Remember when we thought that was a good idea?"

We began the process just with individual note-taking but then decided that a big flip chart map (above, just one piece of what we finally created) was the way to go, helping us think visually about the path, the lessons learned and what we might do differently.

Doing this before the full end of the project meant that it served as a bit of a reward--a chance to appreciate our work together, and to gather our energies for the final push.  If there's one lesson I learned, it's that a thoughtful, creative, interpretive planning process has the potential to transform an organization.  That transformation is not just the story we tell to visitors, but in this case, it has contributed to creating a culture of ongoing learning, of creative problem-solving and one of engaging visitors in a continuous feedback and evaluation loop.

If you want to hear a bit more about the re-interpretation you can listen to Shannon Burke, Cindy Cormier and me on WNPR's "Where We Live." 

A giant bouquet of appreciation to all my colleagues at Stowe!  Below, Shannon, Emily, and Maura embrace our continuous learning over lunch last week, and get a lesson in Pokemon Go from Charlotte, age 9.

Team Detective: What's Your Team's Spirit?

I'm an avid mystery reader, which I always thought of as leisure, unconnected to work.  But I've been thinking that there is a connection.  Part of any consultant's job is to go into a place and size up the situation quickly.  I'm not looking for footprints or the dog that didn't bark in the night, but I am looking for how a team works together.  I want to find the spirit of an organization as it looks to change in some way.  The changes might be big or small, but my work is almost always with organizations where change is in the wind--and change never happens with one person, it always happens with a team.

There's a great deal of research about teams:  you need introverts and extroverts,  you need leaders, it should be non-hierarchal and on and on.  Every team is different but here's my outsider's view on what helps a team move towards change.

Experimentation

As a consultant, I don't believe that I come with the answers.  I come with questions and the idea that together, we will puzzle out answers.  One way that happens is through experimentation.  Above, Matt Montgomery, Chief Marketing Officer at the Trustees,  becomes a docent as he leads us through a prototype of an Aeolian harp activity at the Old Manse in Concord.  And below,  Girl Scouts tag what matters to them at Juliette Gordon Low's Birthplace (she's the founder of Girl Scouts) in Savannah.  Experimentation accomplishes several things.  It builds team confidence together (and good humor) and it jump-starts a learning process.

Cast a wide net in your experimental process.  The tags are an inspiration from your friendly Museum Anarchist, and I'm definitely stealing Jeanne Vergeront's idea of a designated reader to share with colleagues.

Visitor and Community Centered

The strongest teams understand that interpretive change is not about protecting your turf.  They understand that museums and historic sites exist for community benefit.  Strong teams have a desire to understand their visitors and their communities.  They have empathy for different perspectives and are interested in learning what visitors have to say.  Last week at the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace we asked scouts what they wanted to see or do, before their experience began.  "Be inspired!"  said several.  What a tremendous challenge those girls have set for us.

Trust and Fear

Below, staff from the Trustees trust that Matt and his group will not lead them astray in a prototype experience, as they are asked to close their eyes and listen.  Trust isn't always this literal, but change is scary, no question and the more teams can build trust together, the better.  At a mid-point in the interpretive planning process at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, we began one meeting by talking about our fears for the project. There were many as the change is big. They ranged from lack of funding to timeline to what would current visitors thinking.  Talking about all those fears somehow made them better.  The team had enough trust in each other to share them, and sharing didn't make them go away, but I think it did make them feel less of a burden and we've continued to be attentive to them as interpretive planning moved forward. 

Everybody has a Voice and Everybody Listens

Last week, sitting in Lisa Junkin Lopez's sunlit office in Savannah, I worked with a team who, I think, felt all their voices mattered.  Ideas tumbled out, they built upon one another.  On my second day there, I was stopped in the hall by the head of maintenance, who had been off the day before. She'd read this blog and we had a great conversation about sounds, listening and meaning-making. Ideas come from everywhere, so it's important to create an environment where everyone feels that their contribution can build something stronger.  

This also means understanding differences of all types on a team, and listening to and respecting those differences.

But What About Dysfunctional Teams?

I'd love to say that every client is a dream team, but unfortunately not. Here's a couple things I've observed that will slow down your team's ability to cope with change.

• Body language:  arms crossed, eye rolling, unwillingness to participate in small group activities.  We all should know better.
• "We already do that, we've already done that, that will never work."  No need to say more.  That never moves anything forward.
• Unclear decision-making process.  That's frustrating for everyone, and that's a place where a leader needs to lead.
• Perfectionism.  It sounds trite, but perfect is the enemy of good.  We work in places with so many variables, including our many visitors.  We need to do our best, but honestly, we cannot perfect visitor experiences for every visitor because every visitor brings so much to the visit.

How's your team culture?  (and, in a brief commercial, if you want to talk interpretive change at your organization, be in touch!)

Listen Up! Part Two

I've been doing lots of listening lately. Dave Lewis' guest post last week had me thinking about the sound of museum missions, and this week's work with the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace reminded me of the power of voices in this case, Girl Scout visitors sharing their desire to be inspired (and bringing back my own memories as they sang "keep new friends....")

When I think and talk about community engagement, there are a few inspiring projects I share on a regular basis -- and as it happens, one of them is about sound as well. Kelly Armor of the Erie Art Museum just updated me on the museum's Old Songs, New Opportunities project. The goal of the project is to help refugee women gain employment in childcare and to help them preserve their traditional cultures. The museum, in partnership with other local organizations, deeply understands that everyone in a community is an asset and has something to contribute. In this case, by sharing their traditional songs and culture. It's a great, joyful, meaningful project that holds so many lessons for museums of all sorts about the ways we can build bridges together with the community. The project is currently embarked on a campaign to produce a CD about the songs. Learn more (and support it) here.

And as I watched the Old Songs, New Opportunities video, I found myself re-watching this piece by journalist Christopher Livesay, about the community of Riace in southern Italy. It's a tiny community that sees refugees and migrants as community assets, a way to help rebuild a rural community. The sounds here are many--those of many languages, those of new Italian speakers, and the sounds that make up any thriving rural community.

But it's not just about the sounds, it's about the listening. At one point, the mayor says, showing off a woman's needlework, "Everyone says migrants bring nothing but trouble, but look what beautiful things she brings." It's not easy of course: there's government support and not enough jobs, but there is a sense that this community is building a new future together, in the same way that the Old Songs project is as well.

The first step of that re-shifting of our museums' focus from what we have to give, to what we can make together, is becoming deep listeners and observers--and that always involves getting outside of your museum doors.

Image: Old Songs, New Opportunities graduates at the Erie Art Museum

Writers at Home

While I was in Latvia I got a chance to some homes of writers and artists.  I remain struck by the reverence and affection that these houses seem to occupy in the post-Soviet world--different than in the United States in some ways. I'm always trying to puzzle out why and what lessons it might provide as many historic houses are rethinking their focus and approach.

One difference, of course, is that post-Soviet countries don't have all those houses of capitalist industrialists or political figures.  There's the Tzar of course, and some big palaces, but small towns and cities don't have those historic houses of Mr. So-and-So, who founded the So-and-So Widget Company.  Those houses are tough places to find compelling stories.  But artists and writers houses have stories already, both dramatic and homely; inward and outward looking.

So there are fewer homes, but more of these memorial museums, as they are called. I wonder whether literature is valued somewhat differently in places other than the United States Does that make it possible for people to make more direct connections with writers' homes? Does that mean that our educational system is sadly missing the chance to create new generations who care about literature and historic houses?

I'm also always puzzling about the role of creativity and narrative in such places.  As it happens, some of these places I visit, like in Latvia, are the homes of people unknown to me.  But why do I still feel connected to them?  In Jurmala, I visited the newly restored home of Aspazija, a noted Latvian poet and writer.  The best of these writers' houses have a welcoming sense to them somehow, a sense that we are not paying guests, nor tourists, nor supplicants, but rather friends coming to visit (and below, I did get to visit with friends and colleagues!)

At Aspazija's house, as in other writers' houses, attention is given to the feel of the house, but also to words as in this small exhibition of her work where books are displayed and text banners appear on the ceiling.

I also appreciate houses where you too are encouraged to embrace and build your own creative spirit. These places, around the world, go beyond the idea of "memorial museum," to the idea of a memorial being a living place. At her house, there's a library/community gathering space, used on a regular basis--and as well, currently a small exhibit where young people's drawings are exhibited.

Readers, tell me about your favorite writer's house?  Is it different than other historic houses?  Why? And what can other historic houses do to enhance that spirit of creativity and a sense of welcome?

Cross-Pollination

One key element of creative practice is expanding and diversifying your information input.  This might mean reading different magazines (like the one in the doctor's office you'd never pick up), expanding your online reading beyond the usual websites or blogs, going somewhere new for coffee, meeting new people--basically just expanding your world in every way you can.  If you do that, there's a strong chance that cross-pollination will generate new and enhanced ideas.

I got to live that very example last week.  Rainey Tisdale and I were invited to present at the Longwood Gardens' Graduate Symposium on Daring Dialogue.  For those of you who haven't been, Longwood is a premier public garden, outside Wilmington, Delaware (but in Pennsylvania) and every year, the small cohort of graduate students take on the planning of a symposium (and do a fabulous job on every detail!)

I don't know much about public gardens, and even less about horticulture.  I've visited them (most recently to see the Frida Kahlo show at the New York Botanical Garden) but I certainly wasn't aware of the issues that concern their field and how it might intersect with museum work.

But over the course of great meals, conversation and presentations, with colleagues and students from the United States, Canada and the UK,  I got the chance to learn about their work and ways in which we face similar issues and yet others that are very different.  I learned about the dearth of young horticulturalists (and the fascinating work being done by YoungHort in the UK);  I heard Nayra Pacheco's story of visiting a public garden with her father and then concrete strategies for engaging communities from her perspective as a community activist, important strategies valuable to both museums and gardens.  Guina Hammond shared the way West Philadelphia's Mantua Peace Garden is a place of civic engagement, a place where the issues of poor health and access to resources begin to be addressed.

In small groups, we talked about the issues of raising tough issues when you're not yet walking the walk.  What happens, for instance, when you talk pesticides, but still use them; or when you discuss climate change but your large, expensive to heat conservatory is still a key feature?  How can we become places for thoughtful dialogue around these issues? (and no surprise, Sarah Pharoan of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience made an eloquent and passionate argument that included yes, we can and the how of doing so). Can we make the case for just beauty as a reason for our existence? As Paul Redman, Executive Director of Longwood said, must public gardens do more. Our conversations continued and flowed, even talking about what gardening-related movies worth seeing and books worth reading, causing all of us at our dinner table to haul out our smartphones to look up movie titles and make notes of books.

Two cross-pollination take-aways for me.

One, beautiful spaces matter.  It was quite amazing to be able to walk into the conservatory at breaks. To look, to smell, to appreciate beauty.  Imagine what all our conferences would be like if we could do more of this.

Two, how could history museums think more like seed-sharing programs?  Over dinner, Mark Stewart of the Toronto Botanical Garden and I got talking about seed libraries and seed sharing programs that send seeds out with community volunteers, in the hopes that participants will plant seeds, grow something, and return seeds to be grown the next year by new people.  But what if people don't return the seeds, I wondered.  "It doesn't matter,"  he said.  At least one person always does, and those seeds are enough to start all next year.  It's a kind of generosity of spirit that I think we can use more of.  I'm not quite sure how and what I might dream up for a history museum to do this way, but I'll definitely be spending a bit of incubation time, as my own, oft-neglected flowers come up this spring.

Okay, one more.  Any event that puts people in conversation together is a wonderful thing.

What am I doing in Latvia?

Late last night, I arrived in Riga, Latvia, waking up this morning to the view above from my home for the next two weeks. Building from a chance conversation I had when I stopped over here in fall, 2014, I'll be facilitating a series of workshops for colleagues here on topics that include creativity in museums, community engagement and more.

I'll write more as I go along about my partners and sponsor, but this post is just a quick reflection on how grateful I am to have these experiences. In talking about the upcoming trip with a colleague a couple weeks ago, he said, "how great! You get to go into people's offices!" And then went on to explain that what he really meant was that this experience, and my others in Ukraine, give me the rare chance to see museums not as a tourist or visitor, but to understand the challenges, the dreams, the creative successes that we might only see from the inside--from that staff office.

But even if you're not headed to Latvia--you can do the same. Try a day at work when you change offices with a co-worker. Does it shift your perspective? Do a one day job exchange with a colleague. What do you learn? Go work somewhere else for the day or take the time to go have coffee with someone in a related but not exact profession. Embrace curiosity as a key element of your work--I have, and the results have been amazing.

One goal of this two weeks is to write frequent, if brief blog updates, so stay tuned. If you're so inclined, you can also find my visual note taking on Instagram as @lindabnorris.

 

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Border Crossing, Part 2

In this continuation of her earlier post on the crossing (or breaking) of museum borders, Andrea Jones takes a look at one border the museum world is often reluctant to cross:  who does what.

Educators Designing Exhibits

At the Accokeek Foundation (AF) we are a relatively small organization with a staff of educators, farmers, and other administrators that help us pay the bills and keep us afloat. We have no curators, trained historians, or scientists. In addition, we don’t have the budget to contract with an exhibit design firm to create the present-day exhibits that we needed for our Green History initiative. We had no choice but to cross the boundaries between educator and exhibit developer/designer.

But, the absence of experts actually gave us more freedom – not less. I’ve been to numerous conference sessions and workshops (one given by our own Linda Norris!) touting the benefits of prototyping. Our exhibits are a step beyond prototyping in that they are never really that permanent. They are just in a continual state of tinkering. We learn as we go.

We were particularly proud of our DIY exhibit “Underspace: The Science of Soil.” We commandeered an old storage shed and turned it into an immersive space that made dirt look pretty darn cool.

When visitors pull back the curtain, they suddenly enter a portal to the underground.

As we tend to take for granted what’s in the soil beneath our feet, we wanted people’s journey underground to look magical. After all, there are more living organisms in a tablespoon of soil than people living on earth! That’s pretty fantastical. We wanted our visitors to have a new appreciation for soil because (and you may have never heard of this environmental problem) healthy topsoil is disappearing by the day, due to heavy use of fertilizers, commercial development, over-plowing, etc.

In our quest to bring a sense of wonder to soil we brought our best crafting skills to bear. We used cardboard, plastic bags, yarn, lots of fluorescent paint, and black lights to transform our little shed into the most groovy “soil rave” you could imagine. The black lights were also a great way to hide the fact that this exhibit was extremely low budget (total cost around $300).

“Underspace” in daylight – not so impressive

“Underspace” under blacklight – wow!

On one side, we represented the vibrant, diverse life within healthy soil. On the other we recreated unhealthy soil, due to human causes.

Organic matter (compost) is being broken down by bacteria and mycorrhizae on the healthy side.

To top it off, we enlisted the help of a sound designer friend (shouts out to the very generous Erik Spangler!) to make recordings of the soil on our site (along with other organic sounds) to create a soundscape for Underspace. I was surprised how much the piped-in sound helped to create a truly immersive space.

Unlike traditional exhibits, ours was created in about one month. The design process was a steep learning curve and the exhibit required continual adjustments after it opened. The first hurdle was the herculean task of translating the researched information about soil into a visible, 3D exhibit. How real should it be?

What about scale? How big should a rotting banana be compared to fungal mycorrhizae? We settled on a quasi-real notion of the underground world. We decided that exacting accuracy could take a back seat to stimulating interest. For example, if we didn’t make bacteria large enough to see, then we excluded a hugely important level of the ecosystem. We created these little round boxes to represent a zoomed-in perspective, but the scale was still not quite perfect.

Another thing about rushing – we didn’t adequately consult experts before transforming the research into a visual representation. One of our farmers (who is well-schooled in soil science) entered the exhibit and pointed out that our differences between healthy and unhealthy soil were too stark, too extreme. Our unhealthy side has zero bacterial life. “That would be impossible,” she said. “The bacteria activity would be lower, but not disappear completely.”

Polly Festa, farmer at Accokeek Foundation

In our quest for clarity (an educator’s tendency) we had created a contrast that was a bit too exaggerated. This was a good lesson. We may not have curators, but we do have farmers. We added bacteria to the unhealthy side and amended the text.

We learned to make better use of the expertise we had. This year, when we re-launch the exhibit, I’d like to consult with a soil scientist in our network. At the end of the day, we still have to make decisions about trade-offs and balances in the realism of our representation. But more voices will result in a fuller discussion and ultimately a more informed decision-making process.

On one final note, I would like to underscore the advantages we had in engaging the entire Programs Department in building this exhibit. Our part-time interpreters' contributions were a huge asset in exhibit development as well as in the actual construction. Not only did they lend their creativity but they became more invested and learned more content than if we had just planned a traditional training.

The process of creating the exhibit created a powerful learning experience for all those involved.

Granted, it’s not realistic to involve hundreds of people (the weekend visitors) in building something like this. I don’t think it’s scalable in that way. But I started to think of our young, part-time staff like a group of long-term visitors. After all, there are many of them that come and go on to bigger and better things. If we can involve them in projects like these and make a real impact on their perspectives, they could potentially take our lessons with them in their future careers.

There will always be a place for the high cost, slick-looking exhibit within the museum landscape. But I want to encourage small museums to take on projects such as this. Why do we have to look slick like the big guys? Sometimes the DIY aspect is exactly what is attractive to a visitor. It’s really about the ideas and the creativity you bring, not the dollars. Thinking across boundaries is something small museums are often forced to do by virtue of having small staffs and tight budgets. But perhaps we can think of these constraints as a strength – as permission to step outside of our comfort zones and defy categorization.

Boundary Crossing in Museums

In the first of two guest posts, Andrea Jones, Director of Programs and Visitor Engagement, Accokeek Foundation in Maryland reflects on what pushing out interpretive boundaries at a colonial farm to become more relevant and meaningful. Stay tuned for part 2!

Creativity is often described as “thinking outside the box.” But have you ever contemplated just how arbitrary these boxes are? While teaching high school anthropology, I learned that the concept of race doesn’t even really exist, biologically.  (Mind = blown!) It’s all a spectrum of physical attributes that are categorized differently all over the world. Yet, from an early age I was conditioned to check the “Caucasian” box on every required form. Consequently, the cultural concept of race affected my identity in a profound way.

Lots of other boxes are arbitrary, too. And today’s society increasingly questions those definitions as more voices are heard. Are there more genders than just male and female? What is an American? Is Pluto a planet?

Boxes can be comforting and useful since they help us to understand the world around us, but they are also limiting. They don’t honor the complexity of life and the myriad possibilities that exist when boundaries are crossed.

Looking at categories as arbitrary human creations is a powerful way to shift your perspective and unlock creative new approaches to interpretation 

in museums.

Here are three boundaries [two in this post, one to come] we crossed at my museum (Accokeek Foundation) and how crossing them helped us to increase our relevancy and challenge our thinking.

First, what is Accokeek Foundation (AF)? AF is a partner of the National Park Service on Piscataway Park just south of Washington, D.C., in Maryland. We steward and interpret 200 acres of this park, including two farms. One of these farms, the National Colonial Farm, has used living history for over 40 years to interpret the lives and techniques of middling tobacco-growers in the colonial era. 

Using History to Teach Environmental Science

Along the east coast, where we are, you can’t throw a stone without hitting a butter churn or a spinning wheel. There is no shortage of historic farms to get your colonial fix. And frankly, the hey-day of this kind of interpretation seems to have passed. We decided it was time to look outside of the discipline of colonial history in its purest form. It was time for a remix.

One day a visiting mom said to her child, “See, aren’t we lucky we have electricity and cars, and all the things we have today?” I thought about what she said. Yes, life was definitely more convenient. But through the lens of environmentalism, all of the convenience has come at a great cost.

Coal burning plant with mining in front.  Photo:  Getty

What if the colonial era was a starting point for the story of the most challenging environmental issues today?

Instead of considering 1770 (our chosen interpretive year) as a time just before the American Revolution, what if we used this snapshot in time to look at family habits in an era when people were more directly connected to each environmental choice they made?

Today, water comes out of our bathroom sink – but from where? How much energy does it take?

"Hidden from view" water treatment plant     Where does water come from?

How does that compare to colonial times? The typical middling colonial family knew exactly how much energy (physical energy) it took to haul water from a nearby stream or well. They used it judiciously – approximately 4 gallons/day per person (according to our estimates). Today, each American uses between 80-100 gallons/day. That is a 2,000% increase in water use.

Most of us are completely disconnected to the “secret life of water” because of today’s complex infrastructure, urbanization, and increased job specialization. We don’t know how much energy is used in treatment plants and how little fresh water is readily available as the population swells and the climate changes.  By combining two disciplines, we can look at scientific issues with an eye towards understanding changes in human behavior through time.

In an initiative we call Green History, we rotate themes on the farm every 6- 8 weeks or so: Energy Conservation and Climate Change; Water Conservation; The Health of Soil; Food Waste; etc. Our first-person colonial interpreters invite visitors to join them in activities that act as conversation starters around the theme. For example, they help to carry water using a yoke to help our colonial family do laundry or water plants.

It’s hard work. But instead of leaving visitors with the shallow understanding that “life was hard back then,” we try to redirect that assumption to a bigger question:

“What is more important, convenience or conservation?

Can we have both?”

Colonial interpreters are trained to start dialogues designed to get visitors talking about this question, to help them draw comparisons between colonial life and their lives.

The interpretation is not designed to romanticize the past. Although colonial people used less water, they also did not have the benefit of current-day sanitation afforded by convenient water – sanitation that saves lives. It’s complex.

Seeing history through the lens of science has been a hugely impactful perspective-changer for our institution, as well as for me personally. But I’d be lying if I said it’s been easy to thread the needle, given that visitors expect a purely historical experience.

We work continually to try out different scripted conversation starters to help get visitors to think of themselves as current-day environmental decision-makers, while surrounded by the past. Part of the challenge is branding ourselves as an institution known for this kind of interpretation so that people are attracted to the experience because of its environmental conscience – rather than colonial history alone.

Time Traveling from Present to Past

The Colonial Era, as a specific category of history, was another boundary crossed. We wanted to completely erase that famous question that is often asked in history class: “What does this have to do with me?”

Each of our Green History themes includes a small hand-made exhibit that draws attention to a current-day environmental issue. This issue is then brought to life in the past on our colonial farm. Visitors usually encounter the current-day exhibit first, which provides a great way to frame their experience in 1770.

Since most of these exhibits are staffed by an interpreter, the area becomes a center for questions that you can’t ask a first-person colonial character.

During our Food Waste theme, we created sight rare to most colonial farms – a bicycle rigged to a compost tumbler. The odd contraption was meant to draw people in to talk to our staff member about compost.

They could take a spin on the “Hot Rot” (as we called it) and also play a compost sorting game to win $2,200 in fake money (the cash value of the food wasted by the average American family of four each year).  

Visitors were then invited back to 1770, to help the Bolton family to do some fall food preservation. The living history interpreters on the farm taught visitors preservation methods that have been lost in recent generations (pickling, drying, repurposing apples into apple butter, etc.).

The characters also make efforts to communicate something deeper – the true value of food when you are the human who has grown it from seed. Wasting is not so easy when agricultural plants are precious and cared for over many months.

This past to present boundary crossing is an explicit way for our visitors to connect history to their lives. It gives a fuller picture of a specific current-day issue – that it didn’t just pop up out of nowhere. These problems are the product of many thousands of decisions made by everyday people over time.

It also becomes obvious how RECENT some our environmental problems are. Food waste has increased by 50% since the year I was born (1970!). The brevity of the problem actually gives me hope that the trajectory of this course can be altered. We want to pass on this feeling of hope and empowerment that the context of history provides. The future of history is not inevitable.