Any Questions? at the Oakland Museum

Last week, I visited the Oakland Museum, whose work I've heard about since I was a graduate student.  So much to think about, but one particularly take-away for me was the number and variety of visitor feedback stations.  Questions, questions, and more questions, and almost everyone had loads of Post-it feedback and almost none had that sort of dopey, teen-ager kind of feedback that often surfaces.  Feedback stations were scattered across all three parts of the museum--art, natural history, and history and care was given to the visual presentation of each one.

What's in common with these stations? 

One, the visitor--that's you-- is always at the center of the invitation. "Share your story,"  "How is the drought affecting you?" "Tell us your thoughts." "We want to hear from you."

Two,  the questions are interesting--and sometimes surprising.  "What does the California's border evoke for you?" is a far more interesting question to ponder than "what do you think of immigration?"

Three, there's space in the exhibitions for changing questions:  "How is the drought affecting you?"

But equally importantly, throughout the entire museum, a visitor can see that they are important, that these voices matter.  Just a few quick examples.  First, this panel from Tell Me Where the Mirrors Go, a project of Maria Mortati and the Guzman-Mondragon family, first-time visitors to the museum, who, over the course of several visitors, explored the museum and shared their impressions.  It's not just temporary notes, it's a concrete sense of visitor voices in the art gallery.

And again, a sense that visitor voices really matter in this audio installation and this label for a poster from the 1960s.

And finally, as you enter, the biggest place to share your voice--a giant blackboard at the museum entrance.  When we arrived, this staff member was just posting a question for Free Fridays, but when we left, it was filled with responses.

I'll definitely be thinking about these (and the many others I photographed here) the next time I work on feedback stations.  Thanks Oakland Museum!

What Do You See in This Picture from the Rijksmuseum?

This picture has been all over my social media feed for the last week.  It's a group of teenagers engrossed in their phones in front of Rembrandt's Night Watch at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. And the more I read comments from my colleagues, the madder I got.  I didn't get mad at those teenagers, I got mad at my colleagues (and others) whose comments included "so sad,"  "sigh,"  "how have we let this happen?"

As it happened, I spent a day at the Rijksmuseum last winter including some time in that very room looking at the art and yes, taking photos.  Here's one I took.

The same absorption, but with a different tool.  Would this have caused the handwringing?  Probably not.  Instead, we'd celebrate this deep dive into a topic.  How about this?

Wow, a student reading to learn more (take a closer look to see what he's reading).  Just imagine, for a minute, what could those students at the top of the post might be doing on their phones:

• Sharing a selfie.  I noticed that when school tours came up to the Night Watch, the museum educators made time for selfies before they began talking.  I thought it was a great adapted compromise between content and connection.  Older visitors bemusedly and easily moved aside to let this happen.  Still think selfies are stupid?  Alexandra Korey took a fascinating look at #Uffizi posts on Instagram and what she found might surprise you.
• Looking at a really, really close detail.
• Considering how to enter the Rijksmuseum's Make Your Own Masterpiece competition.
• Wishing the Rijksmuseum had a teen program like its neighbor, the Stedelijk Museum so they could create their own mood app.
• Checking out Rembrandt's Amsterdam to understand that they walk the same streets he did.
• Thinking that they might come back with their families to use the museum's Family Game, in which you use your own phone to solve a series of mysteries.

We all know that photographs only capture a single moment. It's the viewers' perceptions that help define the image.  Students absorbed in cellphones is just one image--and can be defined in so many ways, positive or negative.  To expand the pool, here are some more images of what I observed teenagers doing at the Rijksmuseum:  looking, talking, engaging.

But why did the comments make me mad?  I'm mad because it revealed some serious failures to me: a failure of empathy, about understanding these students, their lives and their needs and a failure of imagination,  unwilling to imagine what else they might be doing on their phones.  I'm mad because despite the enormous potential (and the resources devoted to them) of these new tools, far too many museum people still think of them as useless or silly or sad.  Many commenters saw distractions; far fewer saw potential.

I think there's an enormous amount to be said for learning to just look at art. I saw teenagers at the Rijksmuseum and plenty of other places learning to do just that (and a big shout-out to the Rijksmuseum education team who I saw engaging audiences of all ages and of course, to the abundant generosity of Rijksstudio projects)  I think balancing lives lived digitally and in the real world is a huge challenge for all of us.  But I also think the comments I saw pulled back the curtain on a not-so-attractive part of our field.  That's the part that still thinks we know best.  What did you see when you looked at that picture?

Update:  thanks to tweep Jason Alderman (@justsomeguy) for pointing me to the photographer; and very many thanks to Gijsbert van der Wal for taking and sharing the image.

Checking out the Gallerie des Enfants: No French Needed!

I'm in Paris,  having my lunch at the Pompidou Centre's cafe and across the way,  there's the Gallerie des Enfants, the Children's Gallery, which currently has a hands-on exhibit about letters and images.  But what's particularly interesting about an exhibit on that topic is how little text in the conventional sense there is, and how successful it is nonetheless.

Like MassMOCA's children's gallery, which I also love,  the museum assumes that children deserve and should see original artwork and that interactions should spring from that experience.  Here's just a bit of what I observed.

First,  an interactive done with something many of you have in your space where you store things you want to get rid of but don't ever get around to:  an overhead projector.  Children arranged shapes on the projector,  they were projected big so they could see them--but also then,  you could view it from the back, where hands and shapes were in a mysterious dance.  What would happen next?

(This screen was almost as tall as I am).  There were big foam letters to play with.

And lots of other ways to think about letters and shapes.  A big board to flip tiles to make letters;  artwork including letter constructions under glass;  a lightbox art installation of the letter "B" which one mother was intently looking at with her son.

But here's the thing:  there were virtually no labels telling you what to do or what to learn from the experience.  When a little instruction was needed, it was provided graphically.  Below, a pattern recognition and the hot pink illustration was the only information given.

This installation really made me think about my own practice.  Could I do interactives with no instructions just symbols?  Does this require a higher level of trust in your audience?  Do we expect different kinds of learning from art and history organizations?   What do you think?

Bite-Size or Banquet? How Do You Like Your History?

Several weeks ago I was in Indianapolis and had a chance to visit both the Indiana Historical Society and the Indiana State Museum and was struck by the differences in the way they presented history, differences that reflect both the DNA of the organizations (one primarily an archives and one an encyclopedic collection)  and a distinct approach to involving visitors.

The Indiana Historical Society is, unlike many historical societies, solely an archives, a repository of millions of photographs and archival materials.  But it's housed in a big, grand space that has now become a place to experience,  on a changing basis,  bite-size bits of Indiana's past.  The You Are There project takes a historic photograph, re-creates the particular space, and peoples the space with live, first-person interpreters to, in any way you wish,  connect with the visitor.  While there,  I heard a bit of Cole Porter sung, met a sponsor of a Holocaust refugee resettled to Indianapolis as she described their arrival, and a listened to a true-believing (and a little cranky) WCTU activist at the site of an illegal still.   I stood in the dark as Robert F. Kennedy announced the death of Martin Luther King to a shocked audience.   Each experience surprised me and led to interesting conversations with my fellow visitors (museum professionals all on that morning). 

The project is an ongoing experiment as the historical society staff listen to visitors, work hard to pick engaging photos from their enormous collection,  and figure out what works and what doesn't.  Several elements take the experience further:  there's a staff member, sort of an introducer, outside each experience.  S/he sets the scene, and even said, in one case, "I like to ask her about..."  to give shy visitors a starting point.  Wall exhibits outside each experience allow interested visitors a place for deeper exploration. 

After RFK's speech,  a staff member engaged us in conversations about the speech, about the members of the audience that night (we were all given a simple description of one and got the chance to learn the rest of their story);  and encouraged us to use a talk-back board sharing what gives us hope.    I'm a sampler,  I like to dip in and out of things,  and this approach really gave me a chance--not to learn a full overview of Indiana history--but to connect with the stories of the state. 

The Indiana State Museum takes a familiar, now seeming a bit old-fashioned, approach. After the You are There experience, I struggled to find the same kind of meaning.  The State Museum takes the long view, starting with the geographic formation of the state.   I've been in meetings where we try and figure out the appropriate sized time period to include in an exhibit.  Here it was the birth of the earth to now--the really long view.

Artifacts and text were layered and layered and layered, to the point that it was tough to make sense of any of it.  I appreciated the care that clearly had gone into developing the exhibits (like the embedded roads, below) but I couldn't find myself caring about much of it.  And I couldn't find that I would find much reason to return to the museum.   But in the case of the historical society,  I'll be fascinated to see the next photo chosen and the next stories shared.

And, by the way,  in this contentious election year, it was meaningful and important to hear Kennedy's words that sad night spoken aloud, "What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black."

Bite-size or banquet?  I vote bite-size.  I think that the historical society's approach could serve as a model for so many other historical societies, large or small.  If the model of the billion years ago to now exhibit is the encyclopedia,  perhaps as museum workers, we should be considering if we're headed the way of the Encyclopedia Britannica.  But the historical society's bites of history perhaps better suit contemporary life.  No high-tech media,  just solid research,  a commitment to training great staff, engaged presenters,  and a passionate desire to share meangingful stories.

Dropping in at the Getty

My last post about what any museum can learn from the Getty has drawn lots of attention (and thanks to all who retweeted and shared it).   So I wanted to share another experience from my visit there because I think, in one small space, it exemplified the museum's thoughtful approach--and again, it's something that almost any museum could do, scaled to fit your own circumstances.

As I walked down a hallway, I saw a sign that said Sketching Gallery--and as I approached, there was a buzz of activity.  It's a small gallery,  filled with art (real art, not reproductions), tables, drawing horses, and people.  That's what struck me at first--it was a group of people that was so diverse in terms of age, gender, ethnicity--everything!  And everyone had their pad of paper and pencils--eagerly ready.

 At the front of the room stood a white-haired man and a younger man (who exuded a lovely kind of calm) sitting on a stool.  This was a life drawing drop-in class.  No experience needed.  Some people had started drawing, others were awaiting instruction.  More people continued to squeeze into the room and the education staff greeted everyone, provided supplies, and encouraged them to find a space--on the floor, on a chair, wherever.

An educator provided a brief introduction--drop in life drawing, every Thursday in January,  come to one or all, and here's the instructor.   The instructor was great--because rather than beginning with a lecture about life drawing,  he had everyone jump right in--start drawing, he said!  And everyone, of all different abilities, began.   And he began circulating the room, asking to sit where participants were seeing so he could see the model from their perspective.   All of a sudden, surrounded by art, the room grew quiet as participants really looked and drew.

I didn't stay for the full hour,  but also took some time to look at the interpretive labels around the room and chat a minute with the educators.  The sketching gallery is always open and so these labels provide context--explaining the great classical tradition of sketching from great works of art--and provide tips on looking and thinking.

You can read more about the Sketching Gallery here.   But the description--and I'm afraid this blog post--doesn't quite convey the spirit of the place which was fun without being silly, serious without being formal, planned without being overly directive, and reflective without being way too quiet.

Although not every museum has a Rubens to exhibit, we all do have beautiful, interesting or fascinating objects.  And we could all create ways--and spaces-- for our visitors, no matter what age or interest, to look deeply, try something new, and enjoy themselves.