Walk the Talk: The Fearless Other Women in St. John's

We're on vacation in Newfoundland, Canada this week and as always, it's been a bit of a busman's holiday with a couple museum visits. My time here also included a great walking tour: The Other Women's Walk, created by Ruth Lawrence and presented/acted by Bridget Wareham, Wendi Smallwood, and Monica Walsh.

I was curious about what this tour would be like after reading about it in a local paper--so I walked down a few blocks from where we're staying and assembled with a group of about twenty.  Over the course of about an hour, we walked in and around Bannerman Park, learning the stories of women from the 1920s--and particularly, learning the stories of women for whom suffrage potentially meant little as they were working so hard to make a living, living on the margins. We met a sex worker, a cook, a factory worker and union activist, an Irish immigrant who found solace in another immigrant--a Chinese laundry worker, a teacher and our guide for the hour, a worker behind a bar.

As someone who thinks a great deal about historic site interpretation, and has been in many conversations about what you can say and what you can't say to visitors, I was struck by the power and frankness of the stories shared.  It was a fearless kind of feminism that I wish I saw more often in museums and historic sites.  I won't recap the whole tour, but here are just a few of the notes I jotted down:

• "I'm in a war every day fighting to stay alive."  A sex worker discussing the governor general's wife's war efforts during World War I as contrasted with her own life.
• In front of the historic Confederation building, the former seat of government "Here is where the laws are made to control us--laws made by men."  The bar worker after sharing a story of her own rape.  As we walked away from the building, she asked us to turn around. "That's stunning, isn't it?  That's [also] repression."
• "They think nothing of one who holds the needle."  Labor organizer, who also reminded us that we can choose where to spend our money.
• At a stop in front of a small monument to Shawnawdithit, the last living member of the Beokuk nation, we were asked to bow our heads in a moment of silence in her honor and "We'd do well to remember that we are guests on native soil."

Each stop was clearly based on research and directly related to a place (and their research is all credited on the project website).   It was a great reminder of how much history is there to be found and that all of our interpretation can go beyond the standard, great white man (and his supportive wife) still too often found in historic houses or the kind of walking tour focused on architecture (as we heard at the start, gently but firmly--if you're interested in those curved windows or the staircase, this is not the tour for you!).

I found it interesting that this was a performance--I'm used to projects like these that really encourage dialogue--and this didn't explicitly do so. Although in eavesdropping on my fellow participants, I found them relating the issues discussed to their own lives.  It didn't really give us a chance to talk to strangers, but I'm guessing many people continued those discussions in different ways after the walk.

The other aspect to the performance, as opposed to a more standard walking tour, is that every single piece of information wasn't included.  The creator, Ruth Lawrence, made sure all the information worked and moved a story forward.  And then three compelling actresses delivered--not just facts, but a sense of real women and real stories.

Kudos to all involved--I'll be thinking about this experience for a long time.

And a small shout-out to where I read about the tour:  The Overcast, Newfoundland's alternative newspaper, picked up at the Rocket Bakery, my absolute favorite place for coffee in St. John's.

2017's Baker's Dozen of Memorable Museum Experiences

Like 2016, 2017 brought me many memorable museum experiences--that's memorable in a good way. Of course, there were a couple that were memorable in the "oh, no" kind of way, but in a spirit of generosity, here's what I saw, experienced and felt last year that I find myself sharing with friends and colleagues. As I went through selecting photos, I realized there were many more places I could have included on this list. It's encouraging to see how many museums and historic sites are working hard to push boundaries, to think more deeply.

American-Swedish Institute, Minneapolis, MN
Last January, I spent a few days at the American Swedish Institute, helping them jumpstart an interpretive planning process.  This wasn't necessarily memorable because of exhibits I saw, but rather because of the commitment of board, staff leadership and staff.  They embraced new ideas, did all their advance reading (!) and took a memorable field trip off to a local global market to see what they could learn. They're a great example of building a learning culture inside a museum, for staff, not just for visitors.

Torbay History House, Torbay, Newfoundland, Canada
A tiny museum-to-be in Newfoundland, Canada reminded me of the vital place museums can play in communities. I conducted focus groups last winter with students, scouts, parents at the library and the community at large. Everyone had ideas for exhibits, programs, and ways to use a new building for the museum. When the plans had their public meeting this fall, it was one of the liveliest, in the very best way, discussions.  "Could we do this?"  "Oh, I like that," "What will happen here?"  A case study for how opening up a planning process from the start can lead to greater buy-in.

Museum of European Cultures, Berlin, Germany
German colleague and friend Katrin Hieke met me in Berlin for a whirlwind weekend of museum-going. I envisioned the Museum of European Cultures as a dusty place, but far from it.  We took a Tandem (two languages, but actually closer to four) tour with a curator and a refugee artist of the exhibit da Heim: Glances into Fugitive Lives. Read my full post to understand why it was so meaningful, important, and deeply emotional.  It was the kind of exhibit and community collaboration I wish we could all strive for.

Creativity Workshop with local museums, Lutsk, Ukraine
This spring, Rainey Tisdale and I made a week-long, fast-paced trip to several Ukrainian cities to celebrate the Ukrainian publication of Creativity in Museum Practice.  As always, it was great to see friends and colleagues, but the time I particularly remember is at a museum in Lutsk, in western Ukraine, where museum workers and students jammed into a too-small room as enthusiastic workshop participants to learn how to build their own creative practice.  Their team efforts on developing exhibits on some social aspect of Soviet life, for an audience of teenagers, were judged by university students.  The combination of laughter and nostalgia combined with remembered fears and uncertainty was quite astonishing (and surprising to our Ukrainian colleagues as well). My relationship with Ukraine now goes back 8  years, and I continue to appreciate colleagues' progress in still-challenging times. A reminder that change is always possible.

Kigali and Murambi Genocide Memorials, Rwanda
I think about the day of these visits often. Rwanda is a spectacularly beautiful country and so the 1994 genocide seems almost unimaginable.  They tell a recent, still unresolved story, and in both cases, also serve as the final resting place of thousands of Rwandans killed by their neighbors. It challenged my ability to do my work (how can I make a real difference?) but at the same time, reinforced the importance of the work of Coalition members, and that a starting point for real change is empathy.

This Ever New Self: Thoreau and His Journal exhibit at Morgan Library, New York, NY
In this exhibit, words, rightly so, took center stage.  Thoreau's words felt fully contemporary.  The thoughtful design and curation really made the objects, including those journals, matter.  I found deep resonance in his words with my work at the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience this year.

Tea Plantation Workers Museum, Kandy, Sri Lanka
This museum is up a long, long way into the Sri Lankan highlands, deep into the tea plantations. One of the great gifts of my travel, particularly this year, is to learn about histories I knew nothing about. The Tea Workers story is one of colonialism, of identity, of nationalism, of persistence, and of family--and I found it all in this tiny museum.  The lesson from here?  Seek out tiny museums to learn about the people and places you're in--go beyond being just a tourist visiting the hot spots.

Casa Azul, the Frida Kahlo Museum, Mexico City
A number of years ago, I heard someone from this museum speak at an AAM meeting, and I've been interested in going ever since I got the chance. It was worth the wait and lived up to my expectations. First, it's a really beautiful and spectacular place, full of amazing objects that provide deep sense of Kahlo and her work; second, we visited on Day of the Dead weekend, so it was even  more thrilling with a huge altar installation; third, the way the house integrates inside and outside felt calm, even on a crowded day.  And lastly, the visit also included a fascinating exhibition on Kahlo's clothes tocusing on how she used clothing to both hide and step forward.

Museum of Popular Art, Mexico City
I actually didn't get to see very much of this museum, as we were only at a reception there. But there was a spectacular addition to the reception:  illuminated walking hand-made giant creatures making their way through the park to the museum. I had done a session on getting out of your comfort zone at the CAMOC conference, inspired by Annemarie de Wildt's ever-active Facebook page; and she demonstrated the value of that notion immediately, as she waded into great conversations in bits of English, Spanish and French, with the makers.  Creativity and curiosity flourished together in a memorable evening.  How can you inspire the same in your visitors to get them outside their comfort zones?

Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (Municipal Museum), the Hague, the Netherlands
I approach technology in museums with some skepticism.  I know, that's a blanket statement, but I want to technology to be a tool, not the means, and that doesn't happen often enough.  My dear friend Irina Leonenko, her son Nikolai, and I bicycled off to this museum and I found a total surprise. In the museum's Wonderkammer you receive an iPad to explore a whole series of rooms, answering clues and collecting objects.

Several things I really liked: the tablet was just the activator and each room encouraged different kinds of learning and participation.  We danced in time to a Mondrian painting, learned about glass making and identified tools, listened to tales of dragons and digitally put ourselves in historic costume.  But then, in a way hard to explain, we found ourselves in the large center gallery space, with tiny objects, and we used the objects we'd collected to design our own exhibition and digitally, our tiny selves entered the gallery, cut a ribbon and enjoyed the space.  I can imagine going back again and again, as every time the experience would be different.

We Have a Dream exhibition, Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
It was pouring rain in Amsterdam, and as I crossed a street, I saw giant images of Gandhi, Mandela and Martin Luther King.  Curious (and wet), I ducked into the Nieuwe Kirk, a spectacular space, to find an exhibit that looked at three giant figures of the 20th century.  The exhibit had few objects (although I appreciated Gandhi's bicycle in this cycling city) but the graphics, including text, were eye-catching and direct. The exhibit encouraged us to think about these men as not just historical figures, but as people who continue to inspire, even including contemporary heirs, such as the Black Lives Matter movement.

Terezín Memorial, Terezín, Czech Republic
Terezín is one of the founding members of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience and was the site of our 2017 European members meeting so the site and the chance to meet our members are inextricably linked.  The entire site represents layers and layers of history--from an 18th century fort to a "model" detention camp for the Nazis to a museum and almost uninhabited town today.  The education staff at Memorial have created a number of programs for young people, for whom Nazism is distant history, to help them understand that those lessons carry forward to today.  We all felt warmly welcomed by all the staff, despite the site's cold and chilling history. It didn't require much imagination to see where those railroad tracks led; but at the same time, the creative spirit of those in the camp was very much in evidence.  The lesson for me here?  Embrace the complications.

Loja das Conservas, Lisbon, Portugal My last one is not actually a museum, but provided the best kind of museum-like experience.  Loja das Conservas is a store created by the canned fish association of Portugal and selling only canned  fish (conservas). If you're like me, white tuna in water is your idea of canned fish, you're in for a surprise.  But what made it like a museum?  Great graphics, and interpretive labels explaining each producer's work and history. We had a chance to sit down with a glass of wine and sample different products (as part of a great Context travel walk), with a very helpful staff member who explained the different types, and even got our non-fish eater to try a bit! I felt welcomed, had a great time,  learned something, and brought souvenirs home.  Just like a museum, right?

That was my year!  A shout-out to ICOM because my membership card provided free admission to many of these places.  I'm looking forward to another year full of big challenges, thoughtful museums, and incredible colleagues.  Stay tuned.

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!

A Newfoundland Tale: Social Media Made Me Do It

I know there are lots of people in the history museum field who are really interested in physically trying out elements of the past--what people wore, how they lived, what they made, but that's never been precisely my thing.  But this past weekend I tried versions of 17th and 18th century recipes in my own kitchen and I thought I'd share what made me do it, and what I learned.

The Colony of Avalon, perched on the eastern edge of Newfoundland, Canada, was established in 1621 by Sir George Calvert (the First Lord Baltimore) and is one of the best preserved early English colonial sites in North America.  It happens to have, as you can see at the head of the post, a spectacular location. I visited a few years ago, a friend is on their board of directors, and the museum was a participant in last fall's International Experiments in Community Engagement course I taught for JHU Museum Studies, working with my graduate students. All of those things made me pay more attention to it:  I followed their Facebook page and began to see them regularly in my Instagram feed.

This is the second summer of their experiment--the Colonial Cookoff.  Each week, from their reproduction period kitchen, they post a recipe and invite you to try it.  They share their results on social media and invite you to do the same, with the chance to win a weekly prize.  I entered the Twice and Thrice Challenge this week, making apple fritters and ginetoes and sharing my results on their Facebook page.  Apple fritters, pretty easy;  ginetoes, strange, bagel-like lumps with basil, mostly a failure. My ginotoes, top picture; experienced colonial cook ginetoes, bottom picture.

What made me do it?

• Encouragement from my friend Jane.  A personal connection remains the one of the most important way to encourage involvement at your organization.
• A website that made it seem fun.  There was historical information, but the whole site is written in a lively, accessible voice that shared failures and successes.  Not too much detail and very welcoming.
• The fact that I'd been connecting with Avalon all summer long through their Instagram feed. It's there that I got to see, discoveries they'd been making that day (not months or years later), appreciated the enthusiasm of archaeologists for a day (even in less than ideal weather), and wondered about the connections between what was being found on site and the recipes I was reading and experimenting with.   

And what are the takeaways, particularly for small museums?  I think three primary ones.  Make it fun; make it now, not then; and keep at it!  Instagram and Facebook posts that come weeks (or months apart) and only feature boring photos of people sitting at an event, or only inviting you to an event, will never hack it.  You'll never get me to spend a Friday night making ginetoes that way!

Should Museums Be More Like Constables?

I'm working on an exhibition for the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Historical Society, in St. John's, NL.  I've been digging deep into their archives to learn more about the two hundred year history of the force, but a few weeks ago, I found some materials that I thought held some important lessons for museums.

I found a file containing a series of reports from 1948 from outport communities all over Newfoundland.  This was a critical time for what is now a province, because the vote about whether or not to become a part of Canada was drawing near.  It seems not far away, but as you'll see, it was still a time when those communities were often cut off by weather and bad roads.   These monthly reports were generally titled, "Economical and Social Life of the District,"  and were written by the local constable to be submitted to the chief constable in St. John's.

Here's a few excerpts:

In Corner Brook, in January, "the economical condition is quite good, and people in the main are employed gainfully and there is no report of able-bodied relief.  However, the herring fishery during the month is not nearly as good in previous years..."   and in February, the health of that community was "good during the month and there was no serious illness; there was however, a series of colds with no ill effects."

From Gander in February, "The Social aspect of the community remains more or less unchanged. However there has been some activity in connection with the various churches and the British Red Cross...the Gander Public Library is also filling an important position in the life of the community and is also increasing its services to the public..."

February was a quiet month in Ferryland, "There were no dances or parties of any kind held during the month" and the economy was bad, "Quite a number of men from Ferryland, Calvert and Cape Broyle are applying for relief."   In Trepassey, the weather was so bad that "the roof blew off Leonard Hachette's house and was beaten into matchwood."  As the bad weather continued there, "the men are complaining very much of having no food for their cattle.  There is no hay or oats anywhere in my territory as there is no boats running from here to town they cannot get food."

Spring finally comes that year, and the constable in Clark's Beach reports in April, "There have been no seals taken this month.  The people are all getting their fencing done for planting their vegetables...a card party and supper was held in the C.E. school at Salmon Cove and it was well-patronized by all."

Every month, the constables also took the political temperature of their towns around the issue of confederation or not, even though, said one,  "it's difficult to say."

What do I think museums can learn from these reports?

I can't tell you the number of times I've heard museum staff, board and volunteers say, "but no one comes, no one is interested."  That's because, I believe, you're not interested in them.  What would happen if you regularly spent time at a board or staff meeting talking about the social or economical conditions of your community?  Could you then learn about concerns--and equally importantly, learn about the parts of your community that you, as an organization don't connect with in any way?

I'm also struck by the empathy shown in these reports.  There's a real understanding of how and why relief is needed, of what benefits a community, and of the challenges and successes of community life.  That comes from attentiveness to the places we live--and all the people who live there too.  Our work can and should be a reciprocal process--that's how we can become essential parts of community life.

Images
Top:  Constables and community member, RNCHS collection
Bottom:  Adults in kitchen, Pools Island, Bonavista Bay, Gustav Anderson Photo Collection, The Rooms.

Surprise! Looking Back at 2015

Like most bloggers, I spent the last few weeks contemplating my year-end post. So much time, in fact, that the year ended! I was lucky enough to ring in the new with Drew, Anna and thousands of Romans and visitors to Rome overlooking the Coliseum. But now, time for some reflection. I visit lots of museums, so many in fact that I keep track on a google map (2014 and 2015 combined). I realized that the one thing I wanted most in a museum or historic site visit was to be surprised. So here, in roughly chronological order, are the museums, exhibits and historic places that surprised me or made me feel a sense of joy and importance in our work. I've written about some of these, but others are thought of and shared often in person but I just didn't find the time to write about.

Sherlock Holmes at the Museum of London
One of the smartest, most clever exhibits I'd seen in a long time, as befits the master detective. I loved the way historic objects and images were used to tell the story of Holmes in London. The place became real, but so did those 19th shoes used to explain Holmes' observation skills, and of course, that blue coat worn by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Dennis Severs House, London
Like magic. Entering at night, by candlelight, visiting in silence, voices rustle away as you enter a room. What is going on in this 18th century house? It was thrilling to see a historic house as an artistic creation by a single individual, with the ability to transport us to a different time with no more bells and whistles than candlelight, a room in disarray and a subtle sound track.

The Battlefields of the First World War, France
I would not have believed you if you told me one of my memorable historic site visits this year would be a visit to battlefields, on a chartered bus guided tour with college students, but it was. Why? First, a good, lively guide, with good knowledge and ability to judge his audience. Second, the people I was with. Watching students take in the enormity and waste of war in direct ways. Third, the physical places themselves. To walk in a trench now softened and green, to see a bomb crater, to read the names and names and names at a memorial. And lastly, to have a bit of meaning-making come full circle. We stopped at the Beaumont-Hamel Memorial, commemorating the first day of the Battle of the Somme when an entire Newfoundland regiment was virtually wiped out. The centennial is approaching and there are many commemorative efforts underway in Newfoundland. This summer, at a small outport town. I happened to have a conversation about visiting there. "You did?" said an older man, "my father lost an arm there." All of a sudden that battle was even more real, echoing down the years.

Museum Karel Zeman Prague
"Why do I make movies? I'm looking for terra incognita, a land on which no filmmaker has yet set foot, a planet where no director has planted his flag of conquest, a world that exists only in fairy tales." Karel Zeman

Pure joy. Just steps away from the Charles Bridge, the museum focuses on the work of pioneering Czech animator Karel Zeman. Using the hand-drawn early 20th century animations as a design starting point, combined with hands-on activities that explain the special effects, this museum turned our group of serious adults into a group deep into serious play. A perfect match of creative content, design and interpretation.

Context Travel Walks in Berlin, Prague and Budapest
Context Travel has been a great client for three years now and as result I've been on a number of their scholar-led small group deep dives into art and history. With them I've learned about art in the Vatican, Revolutionary Paris, the Golden Age of Amsterdam and even the food of Istanbul. But this year, four walks in these three Central European cities really stood out for me. The walks were on Jewish history and the Berlin Wall in Berlin, and the Communist era in both Budapest and Prague for three main reasons: a strong sense of place, even when some of the elements of a particular place had vanished. As I stood at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, a great docent helped us understand that the site had once been surrounded by the buildings in which the bureaucratic apparatus of Fascism functioned as a killing machine. Two, a sense of real people's history.

It was on the same walk that I first encountered artist Gunter Demnig's Stolpersteins, or stumbling blocks. The size of a cobblestone, these brass plaques are installed in front of the former homes of Nazi victims with just a simple name and date. You can now find them in many European cities-I saw them most recently in Rome last week.

But the most important factor in making these walks memorable were the docents' own stories. It always a fine line to work between over sharing and just right, but I'll long remember the story of one docent's brother participating in the 1968 protests, another sharing his story of being brought up in West Berlin when it seemed the height of teenage rebellion to go piss on the wall after a night of drinking. In Budapest, our docent, raised in Romania, helped us compare personal lives under regimes.

National Art Museum, Kyiv, Ukraine

Two exceptionally smart exhibits here last spring demonstrated the value of deep thinking about museum collections and the history of how museums have thought about the objects they hold. Heroes looked at art in the museum collection categorized as "hero" from Lenin to poets to heroic workers while another exhibit examined those works that had been blacklisted by various regimes and the roles (sometimes heroic and sometimes not) that museum staff played in categorizing and sometimes safeguarding such works. We have much to learn from examining our own histories. The museum's innovative director, Maria Zhadorzha, departed at the end of 2015; I only hope the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture has the initiative to name an equally talented director to lead the museum's exceptional team.

The Exploratorium, San Francisco and The Oakland Museum, Oakland
Paired together for two reasons: one, the same trip west, but two, places whose reputation precedes them. It's great to see that places you read about live up to their reputations. Great experiences both places but at the Exploratorium the surprises were how welcoming the exhibits were to adult experimentation and play and how they're expanding beyond the physical sciences to take on more complicated topics. In Oakland, the talk-back labels were genius, and visiting on a Friday community night showed that museums can attract broad segments of visitors, if they really make an effort.

The New Founde Land pageant, Trinity, Newfoundland
This seemed possibly hokey to me, and parts of it were. But the other hand, a musical theater production that moves the audience from place to place within a historic village while providing us all with a bit of Newfoundland's complicated history, proved unexpectedly moving.

Scandale:  Vice, Crime and Morality, 1940-1960,  at the Montreal History Center
This shouldn't have been a surprise to me because the exhibit Scandale was curated by one of my 2014 mentees, Catherine Charlebois, and our conversations that year often ranged widely over the issues of developing creative exhibitions. The exhibit uses oral histories as a framework, installed in all sorts of ways: a nightclub tables, in mug shots, at a card game. There were not many objects in the exhibit so, purposefully so, the oral histories and photographs do the storytelling work. Most surprising: walking in a recreation of a prostitute's room and seeing a downward video projection of a couple on the bed!

Lessons Learned
The lessons for me in all these surprises? Experimentation, a sense of humor, a deep commitment to place, and most of all, the sense in exhibit and historic site interpretation that our complicated human natures can make almost every story compelling and moving. I'm grateful to my clients, old and new, who embrace our creative process together.

What will surprise me in 2016? I've already got a few museum visits already completed this year and it's only the first week of January, so I know there will be surprises coming. In your work, consider making a resolution that surprise and joy are a part of your next project. Surprise me! What could you do differently?

(And please forgive the somewhat wonky posting and formatting. There's a learning curve on my new iPad!)

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How's Your Audience Feeling? Here's One Answer

This past week, I was in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, beginning a new project for the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.  They've opened a new headquarters with dedicated space in the lobby area for a history exhibition. The RNC is the oldest police force in North America, with a proud history.  They've put together a volunteer committee of retirees and working policemen and raised funds to do the exhibit, highlighting a fascinating collection of objects and images. It wasn't surprising to me when I asked who the exhibit was for, getting responses like: constables, school groups, maybe tourists who wander over from The Rooms, the provincial museum next door.  Just what I expected.

But then I got a response I've never heard any museum person give anywhere.  Our audience, said one committee member,  "is people under stress.  We see good people here on their worst days."  At most museums, I think, we see people on their good days, not on the day their car was stolen, for instance.  What a challenge for designer Melanie Lethbridge and me.  We have to tell a complicated story--one of labor strikes, of sectarian violence, of devastating fires and more--in ways that connect both with those who have a deep pride in this particular history--and at the same time--reach out to those people who are perhaps bored, mad or more, waiting in a police lobby.   It's a different experience than a memorial museum and it's one I think we'll puzzle at for a while, to find a successful approach.

My other surprise?  I floated the idea of some sort of talkback board, envisioning that police would not be about letting people write whatever they want.  Again, surprise!  "We're big on social media" they said--"If we let people comment on our Facebook page or tweet to us, of course they could do it here."  How many times have you been in a room where someone said, "Oh no,  we could never let people just write what they want!"  whether it be online or in an exhibition.  Not these folks.

Big on social media?  25,000 Twitter followers--that's almost 5% of the population of the province. So big on social media that they were just featured on a Social Spotlight website analyzing social media campaigns.  My favorite element of their ongoing work?  They're funny:  they sent out an all points bulletin for summer last July when it was cold all month;  they checked out a Delorean for speeding on Back to the Future Day.

My Newfoundland lessons from last week?  Understand your visitors emotional selves, be open, and have fun.  Thanks RNC.

What did I Find at New Founde Lande?

I'd been meaning to write a post about my experience at the New Founde Lande pageant in Trinity, Newfoundland and had been pondering how to approach.  Rebecca Harz's recent post, Should Exhibits Tell Stories? made me think more deeply about questions that continue to interest her--and me--those questions about the intersection of museums, stories, and emotions.   Can we combine them?  Should we?  Does it hurt or help critical thinking?

So, on to the pageant.  For more than two decades, the Rising Tide Theater has produced this outdoor historical pageant in the gorgeous village of Trinity on the Bonavista Peninsula.  It tells the story from the earliest settlement to the first Newfoundland election in 1832.  We bought our tickets and perched on a slope on a beautiful sunny day, with perhaps one hundred other visitors--unsure about what, exactly, would happen.

What followed was a combination walking tour, theater experience and history lesson.  A small group of actors, in story and song, shared a chronological, and deeply personal look at Trinity's history--but we didn't learn that history in a school room or a theater, but outside, walking from place to place in the village.  We stood on the shoreline and learned about salting cod and women's work; we entered the church, still in use, to commemorate the loss of fishermen, we saw those same fishermen and their families denied credit by the fish merchants.  Some of the vignettes were moving, some were funny (and some just weren't funny to me, but perhaps to others).  You did pay better attention to the loose story; and the moving from place to place meant that you never got bored, knowing that something new was coming.  And it gave a chance to see the town in a different way; to people the town with these historical characters.  There's no question there were some deeply emotional moments, in both story and song, during the performance.  I'll long remember the performance's end, as the cast (and much of the audience) sang Ode to Newfoundland together.

But what about that history?  A few days after the performance, I had dinner with Newfoundland friends who thought they had probably seen the pageant five years ago and were curious if it had changed.  I shared what I remembered, and Bill said, "you know, you actually learned alot of Newfoundland history!"  Did I learn the intricacies and complications of history?  Probably not.  Did I come away with emotions and a feeling of narrative and actions?  Yes, definitely.  Did it make me a critical thinker?  I came ready to be a critical thinker, so it did spur me to learn more.  Did it spur others to be critical thinkers?  Hard to say, which is where I circle back to Rebecca's questions --  I think it's all about our goals for any particular historical project whether it be in a museum or along the shore in Newfoundland.  Our goal might be to create a strong emotional connection or it might be to develop critical thinkers.  I think there's room (as I suspect Rebecca does) for both in our work.

Building Community: Outport Style

I'm just wrapping up a week in Port Union, Newfoundland, beginning work on interpretive planning with them, and as always, each new client, each new place, each new set of experiences make me think about my own practice and how I can continue to shape and learn.

Port Union is known as the only union-built town in North America and was founded in 1916 by an inspirational (and somewhat controversial) leader, Sir William Coaker, as the headquarters of the Fishermen's Protective Union.  It looks different than any other Newfoundland outport, with its factory and row houses.  The Sir William Coaker Foundation, formed after the closure of the fish plant, has done amazing work in preserving buildings in the historic district,  restoring buildings to create both spaces for exhibits and interpretation and, at the same time, also addressing community needs such as affordable rental housing.  Much of Port Union's story is different than other Newfoundland outports: the Fishermen's Advocate newspaper published there, the workers' housing, Coaker's efforts to improve a whole variety of fishermen's way of making a living. The town has a unique opportunity to connect with the growing tourist audiences on the Bonavista Peninsula.

The interpretive challenges are many--but exciting.  Many Newfoundlanders have intense attachments to the places they were born. It was moving to walk the street with Harold (that's him at the head of the post, in front of the house where he was born) and Bill, as they remember the community it was; the lives of their families (below, Bill's grandfather, Fred Tulk, the captain) and the bustling community.  How do we make sure that their stories continue to live on in ways more than just a simple video or label text?  Canada has an extensive summer youth employment program that results in enthusiastic and friendly, but not well-trained, summer guides at many sites.  How can we develop ways for those stories and that knowledge be conveyed to young people so they can continue to share those stories and ideas forward?

And then there's the challenge of telling history that's still new.  In 1992,  the Canadian government announced a moratorium on cod fishing (still in place)  putting tens of thousands of Newfoundlanders out of work, taking away the kind of work that had sustained families and communities for centuries. At a community dinner, over great home-cooked food like moose meatballs and partridgeberry pie, I asked people about the moratorium.  Some thought that it was still too painful to talk about--and it was abundantly clear that everyone in the room had been affected by it. Others thought that most outsiders did not understand the moratorium at all. Perhaps within the context of the Fishermen's Union, 1992 was a part of the full story of fishermen's  lives and work that needed to be told.  How can we best do that?

We came home with our heads full of ideas, but this trip strongly reinforced that there's one skill every interpretive planner should have--that of active listening.  More and more I've come to think that my job isn't to come with the ideas of how you should do it, but to work in the way that evidently Michelangelo (without meaning that comparison directly) did--which is to find the meaning within a museum, a collection, a community, a place, and to work to pare away the extraneous, to reveal that meaning.

And, by the way, I am a huge Newfoundland booster.  It is a beautiful, varied, fascinating place with a still-distinct culture.  Plan a visit!  To whet your appetite, some photos from my travels below.