Big Idea, Election Style

I've been in lots of meetings lately where we talk about the Big Idea in exhibits--what's the big idea about innovation, about a particular community's history, about the story of vacations. It's the way in which all of us try to make sense of telling any complicated history in an exhibit format. So I was interested, last week, to hear a piece on NPR's All Things Considered on the big idea in this year's presidential campaign. As Robert Siegel said, sometimes candidates say only that "I'm better, stronger, older, younger or something...." than the other candidate. But sometimes candidates are about bigger ideas and political contributors EJ Dionne and David Brooks, using candidates own speeches, talked about who's got a big idea and who doesn't. John McCain was, they thought, a big idea guy stuck with a big idea called Iraq; Barack Obama's: building a better America; Hilary Clinton: sort of a version of it takes a village and John Edwards, a "factory floor populism."

What does that mean for exhibit goers and makers? Perhaps we too often fall prey to the same, "I'm better, stronger," syndrome in which we expect visitors, because we're the only museum in town, or because we're a famous big name museum--that the experience should be enough. Time will tell in electoral politics whether a big idea wins, but every day, our communities vote with their feet--and their contributions--about our big ideas.

No Looking, No Learning

No looking, no learning….

Hard as that is to believe, that’s what one of my students heard a harried mom say as she marched her son towards the exit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The comment provided the funny end to a long day of museum looking, accompanied by students from my museum exhibitions class. We saw one surprisingly good exhibit we didn’t have on our schedule, one old favorite for unknown reasons, one not worth the hype, one worth the effort, and one that raises questions about what museums are.

At the American Museum of Natural History:
Surprisingly good—the new Spitzer Hall of Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History. Beautifully designed and installed, this exhibit explores evolution—and our future. We saw it at the end of the day, but it still was, for all of us, the memorable one. Media installations—but not too many, and easy to watch; clever exhibit design that, as one of my students said, “allowed you to get it without reading” but plenty of deeper text for those who were interested; and perhaps most importantly, evidence of a passionate commitment to knowledge and understanding. That last characteristic importantly connects it with last year’s Darwin exhibit at AMNH. (My apologies--my photos didn't convey the exhibit well, but loved this one of visitors looking at models of their ancestors).

An old favorite—hard to say why, but there’s something about the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians that draws me there every time I visit AMNH. The objects are incredibly beautiful and meaningful far beyond the simple labels, but the installation, no surprise for something based on research by Franz Boas, is old-fashioned. It’s a reverent sort of feeling place though, and I’d hate to see them change it.

Not worth the hype: Gold. The exhibit raised lots of questions for us. We’ve been talking about the big idea in class. What’s the big idea here? Gold is cool? One student interested in geology was very interested in that section, and another liked seeing the Oscar statue at the end. The exhibit was crowded—and why, when you put objects in freestanding cased with waist-level labels, couldn’t you put those labels on all four sides so more people could see it? I didn’t watch the video, but my students who did thought that was the best part. Very ho-hum, despite some beautiful objects.

And, at the New-York Historical Society:

Sojourner Truth, Library of Congress

Worth the effort, but not perfect: New York Divided: Slavery and the Civil War. The second of the historical society’s exhibits on slavery and New York had some of the same strengths and weaknesses as the first. Strength—a very clever opening video that makes the point of the exhibition very clear. Commerce or conscience—which would govern New York’s approach to slavery? The introductory label—written as an invitation from its president, Louise Mirrer, exemplifies the historical society’s commitment to the project. Loads and loads of text—not made easier by the fact that many of the objects themselves are books, pamphlets, or other textual materials. When asked, just after finishing the exhibit, about memorable objects—students named a small drawing, or a coin, or the orphan asylum book—small objects that spoke volumes.

This exhibit though, suffered from the same overuse of media as the first one. So much so, that the sound bleed from place to place made it difficult to concentrate. One large video about a dance hall seemed a waste, while a second about minstrel shows really drew me in to watch. An exhibit worth doing—and worth seeing. If you’re there, also don’t miss the exhibit A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls. It’s beautiful, and an amazing look at Driscoll and the women she worked with.

And I wonder….

We also visited the Children's Museum of Manhattan. Admittedly, none of us were children, nor did we have children with us. The place was packed, and families seemed to be having a great time. But if we think museums are about objects, those objects—of any sort—were in short supply here. I particularly loved though, the places where I saw parents and children working together. In a downstairs room, small groups of families worked enthusiastically on building block projects (at left) ; upstairs, a mother and son drove the fire engine.

I didn't see many people reading them, but I really liked the labels that helped parents think about how to play with their kids in ways that enhance learning.

But is it a museum?

What Stories Should We Tell?

I’m involved in two projects right now that focus, in part, on difficult stories in small communities. In one community, a history of labor strikes resonates down the years—so much so that the companies themselves are gone from the community. The bitter memories remain though, so much so that a 95 year old woman almost spit out the names of those who were scabs in the 1940s. On another project, a historic house, owned by slaveholders, is beginning the process of thinking about how to interpret that difficult history—another history that resonates down to the present day for both European Americans and African Americans. There is some sense—among several groups of people-- that the history might be too painful still to address.

Over lunch with a colleague (guess these kinds of lunches serve as non-virtual blogs) we talked about how much we, as historians and as museum people, want to understand these issues and how much we believe that museums and historical societies can be places to do it. We talked about not-very-serious titles for an exhibit on difficult issues—It’s About Time, or Let’s Talk About It. Larger museums—particularly those museums involved in the International Coalition of Historic Sites of Conscience have done it but it seems a much more difficult thing for small museums to do.

Maybe it’s because we're reluctant to discuss those issues with our neighbors we see everyday. But maybe that’s exactly the place that we should discuss them—and understand that change can happen right in our own backyard. Community museums could, with a good deal of listening and good will, create exhibits and interpretive plans that bring diverse elements of our community together. As Margaret Mead famously said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

What we think about buildings

Recently, the American Institute of Architects released the results of a poll of America's favorite structures. The Empire State Building comes in at number one, and others in the top twenty include the Golden Gate Bridge, Grand Central Terminal in New York, the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials. As I read the list, I thought both about my favorite buildings and about a recent concert I attended. The poll evidently was taken by showing images to respondents--but arguably, that's not how most of us experience architecture. Architecture is something that you experience with your entire self--not just your eyes. I became a student at Cornell the fall after the Johnson Museum (designed by IM Pei) opened--and, as a freshman, at first, I hated it. After walking past it, up Libe slope for two semesters, I came to love it. Ithaca has changeable weather, to say the least, and somehow the Johnson changed in every weather. Some days it loomed up out of the fog or snow, other days it was surrounded by fall leaves. The building became a part of me and my life at Cornell.

A few weeks ago I attended a concert at the Walton Theater. Walton's a small town near me, and the building, listed on the National Register, has served as performance space and movie house for generations of Waltonians. Last spring, I toured the building with two of the dedicated volunteers working to restore it--but just a few weeks later, the building, and much of Walton, were devastated by floods.

This concert, by Irish American musician Cathy Ryan, was the first since that flood. Volunteers, many of whom had damage to their own homes or businesses, had pulled together and cleaned out mud, replaced floors and theater seats, and brought the building back. It was a joyful occasion for the community. Cathy Ryan talked about how musicians can feel a sense of previous performers when they walk into a space. I think this sense of lives past--whether it's our own experiences or others--is what makes a favorite building.

Buildings' lives are created by those occupants and others who experience it inside and out. As I thought about the lively feel of this old but now new performance space, I wondered about why it's so hard for so many historic houses to convey this same spirit. Do we not chose to save the right places, just taking the house that someone is willing to give us? Or have somehow do we squeeze that feeling out of it in our eagerness to care for and interpret the place meeting professional standards? The best historic sites, to me, are the ones that somehow recapture that feeling--the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York, or Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin for instance. Now that so many places are the same--will all our communities be saving all those Wal-Marts in future decades?--it's perhaps even more important that we pay attention to that spirit of place in all of our communities.

Is Interpretation Dead?

A colleague--and fellow free-lancer--called yesterday to talk about the word interpretation. It's one of those inside baseball words--words that we use in the profession but we constantly need to explain to others. And when you do interpretation as a consultant, it's often the very first part of your conversation with a client. She'd had several people tell her that in the field, interpretation was dead--it was no longer used in museums. We jointly decided to disagree with that, but then wondered if there were a better word. I often use the metaphor of a bridge (borrowed, I think from Falk and Dierking somewhere) with the visitor on one side and the information about your site or exhibit on the other. If you don't have something to help them across they'll never get it. I have to admit, other than Freeman Tilden, I don't know when the word came into existence and assume it exists because interpretation from one language to another is a living, person to person communication--rather than translation, which implies something on a page. In either case though, I think those images still work. When we think of powerful interpretation, we're not thinking of something that's word for word, or in our cases, fact for fact. If you think that straight-forward approach works, try any of those free translation sites. Word for word doesn't get you to the essential meaning of even simple concepts, muchthe less complicated stories. So what word should we use? I'm still thinking--and very open to suggestions.

Doritos and Museums: A Match?

What do Doritos and museums have in common? Doritos sponsored a contest for Super Bowl commercials--the winner (you can see it here) was created for a total cost of about $12. What does it have to do with museums? It reinforces the theory--first articulated in this succinct way to me by my colleague Anne Ackerson: Ideas don't cost money! Exhibits can be creative, fun, and meaningful without costing a pile of money. I just groan every time I see an exhibit of wedding dresses, or the chronological history of the community, or views of a region, or the same old topic over and over again. I want to see local history exhibits that go beyond that; that really use museum objects and community knowledge to share--not just the big old line-up of that salt cellar collection! This isn't to say that money doesn't help in the exhibition process--it's great to be able to work with scholars, designers, fabricators and evaluators, but if there's not a big idea, it's not going to work as an exhibit.

In reading an interview with Dale Backus, the creator of the commercial (and only 21) several other important ideas emerge: the commercial was the creative work of a group, brainstorming ideas together. The group wasn't afraid to adapt and change their idea once production began--both because better ideas emerged and because some parts of the plan didn't work. And of course, nothing like a deadline to encourage creativity. Their final commercial was completed just before the submission deadline.

Museums of Anything and Everything

In today's NY Times and elsewhere, I read with some fascination, the obituary of Elizabeth Tashjian, the founder of the Nut Museum in Connecticut. Read more about her in this 2005 New Yorker article. Her life's work was a complex combination of artmaking, collecting, and, in places unusual for a museum curator--such as the Johnny Carson show--educating the public about nuts.

Clearly, she had a particular passion, but the pursuit of that passion--founding a museum--she shares with thousands of others. Some people create museums of local history, or collect fine art--but Ms Tashjian belonged to the group of people who develop an all-consuming interest for a particular topic. In upstate New York alone there are museums dedicated to butterfly art, petrified creatures, maple, baseball, bottles, Easter eggs, firefighting, the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics, Ithaca Calendar clocks, fiddlers and sailplanes--to name just a few of the state's specialized museums. Some of these make the transition to a more mainstream museum--the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum for example. Others, however, remain almost entirely the province of their well-intentioned and enthusiastic founders, never generating the finances and support necessary to sustain an organization.

Thinking of starting a museum? Think about the sustainability of your enterprise. Sure, you care about buttons, or wood planes, or whatever. Will anyone else? How can you translate your passion into a museum that others can care about--in a deeper way than just a curiosity?

There was an answer for the Nut Museum--a professor at Connecticut College saved the collection and in 2004, helped develop an exhibition at the Lyman Allyn Museum in Connecticut. Read a thoughtful Wesleyan student review of that exhibit here.