In this, the inaugural episode of the Museopunks podcast, the Punks chat to Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy at the Smithsonian Institution, and Paul Rowe, CEO of Vernon Systems, about museums in the Age of Scale. How can museums rethink their practices to work at web scale, from the smallest institutions up to the biggest?

001: Kick Out the Jams

What role does design and design thinking play in museum innovation? In this episode, the Punks dig into one of the “secret themes” that emerged out of Museums and the Web 2013: design. They talk to web strategy consultant and design thinking facilitator Dana Mitroff Silvers and Scott Gillam, Manager, Web Presence of Canadian Museum for Human Rights, about just how museums can think about design, and what role empathy plays in this process.

002: Flip the Script

In 2012, Collections Trust CEO Nick Poole did a short analysis of 40 mission statements of leading UK museums and galleries, and discovered that the word “Future” was the third most common word used to describe the missions of the museums, double that of the word “past”. With such an eye to the future, it is little surprise to discover that museums spend some time thinking about the shape of things to come.

During recent museum conferences, there have been a number of sessions that consider museum futures and how cultural institutions can prepare for likely economic, social, and technological scenarios. At Museums Australia 2013 in May 2013, Dr Stefan Hajkowicz: Leader, CSIRO Futures gave a talk on the Our Future Worlds report, which outlines six megatrends facing the world – and the arts – in the coming twenty years. At MuseumNext, also in May, Bridget McKenzie from Flow Associates examined ways in which museums might engage with communities to maintain relevance in the coming decade and the key technologies that may be influential in future planning.

In this episode of Museopunks, your Punks will delve deep into the future to ask how museums can use future scanning techniques to better plan for the future, and meet their missions. As the OECD notes, ‘A solid ‘scan of the horizon’ can provide the background to develop strategies for anticipating future developments and thereby gain lead time. It can also be a way to assess trends to feed into a scenario development process.’

003: The Shape of Punk to Come

News and media organizations have been undergoing similar challenges to those facing museums in the digital age, with increased competition for attention, challenges to old models of authority, and the need to develop new kinds of business models and modes of practice in response to changing technological, social, and economic conditions. So what can museums learn from news and media organizations in order to change and adapt their practices to work effectively in an increasingly online and social media context?

In this episode, the Punks dig into these questions with a little help from Paul Schmelzer, Web Editor at the Walker Art Center, and Sree Sreenivasan, new Chief Digital Officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Both Schmelzer and Sreenivasan come to the museum sector with backgrounds in the media and significant experience in journalism, and their insights reflect the importance of these skills in the contemporary museum. Does the responsiveness of social media change the pace at which museums must work, and what opportunities does it open up for new kinds of practice?

006: Museums as Media Organizations

Games are such a hot topic in museums, but the topic is a complex one. As blogger Kevin Bacon (no, not that one) points out, video games are expensive, are being made by many dedicated people outside museums, and can be a challenging vehicle for telling nuanced historical stories. So should museums invest in games? And if so, what should they be seeking to achieve?

In this episode, the Punks talk to Sharna Jackson, Tate Kids Editor and the woman behind Seahorse, a digital content agency for children, and Sophia George, co-founder of Swallowtail Games and the V&A’s first ever Game Designer in Residence, about all things games and gaming in the museum. What is the difference between a game and a toy? Why are women less likely to enter a career in gaming than men? And why is ‘gamification’ such a dirty word?

005: Game On!

In 2008, AAM (now the American Alliance of Museums) established the Center for the Future of Museums to help museums understand the cultural, political, economic, environmental, and technological trends shaping the world, and envision how museums can help their communities thrive in coming decades. Why is this important? As CFM Founding Director Elizabeth Merritt wrote in 2011: ‘The biggest challenge in preparing for the future is imagining what it will be like. One of the most important roles of futures studies is to help people write stories of the future that, like all good fiction, tell the truth about something that hasn’t actually happened yet.’

This is one reason why Intel Futurist Brian David Johnson uses science fiction as a design tool for the development of technology and new products. In the introduction to The Tomorrow Project, Johnson writes that, ‘Each story is a kind of conversation about the future, a way to develop a deeper understanding, explore the opportunities and examine the hazards of a future that is not quite set but does get closer and closer each day.’

In this episode, the Punks go forecasting with Elizabeth Merritt and imagine what the impact of current cultural, economic and technological trends could be for museums. Also, the unexpected return of badgers!

004: Back to the Future

What role does language have in dictating the way we talk and think about the future – and present – in museums? Does talking about the future hold museums back in the present? Do terms like “innovation” and “forward-thinking” actually promote the behaviours they connote? In this episode, the Punks talk to Colleen Dilenschneider, Chief Market Engagement Officer for IMPACTS, and Jeff Grabill, Professor of Rhetoric and Professional Writing and Chair of the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University, about language, rhetoric, and the power of words in creating our world.

018: Rhetoric of the Future

What does it mean to be a museum professional with an active online presence? How does blogging, Twitter, and other forms of social media communication give shape to a professional identity in the digital age? In this episode, the Punks talk to Nina Simon, Executive Director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, prolific blogger, and author of the book The Participatory Museum, and Ed Rodley, Associate Director of Integrated Media at Peabody Essex Museum and author of Thinking About Museums, about the impact that an active online and social media presence can have on museum work broadly, and on professional identity. What does it mean to “grow up professionally” in the public eye, or to enter into an online discourse with an already-established professional identity? How does the kind of professional discourse that social media makes possible give shape to new ways of thinking and perceiving museum work? And what are the long-term ramifications of living a professional life online for all to see?

015: Professional Identity

One of the most interesting sessions at MCN2013 was on The Future of Museum Digital Departments, which featured staff from the Tate, the National Gallery, London, Imperial War Museums, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and discussed the sometimes harsh realities of delivering a digital strategy within a complex organization. In the session, John Stack, Head of Digital Transformation at Tate, spoke about the museum’s recently adopted hub-and-spoke model for digital governance. In this episode, we break this idea down, and ask how different organisational structures can impact museums and digital organisations. How are museum digital departments integrated within broader institutional structures, and what impact does this have on digital’s place in the organisation?

For this discussion, the ‘punks are joined by Stack, and Keir Winesmith, Head of Web and Digital Platforms at SFMOMA. We talk about digital strategy, organisational structure, and the impact of the evolving digital landscape on the decision making process.

013: Digital As A Dimension of Everything

Museopunks regularly digs into some of the more innovative practice in museums, but so far, we’ve haven’t tackled curating. In this episode, Suse catches up with one of the most powerful people in the world of art – Paola Antonelli (@curiousoctopus), Senior Curator of Architecture & Design, Director of Research & Development, MoMA – to find out what innovative curating looks like. What does it mean to collect the @ symbol? Do museums need R&D departments? There are more and more entrepreneurial museum projects and labs beginning to pop up, like the Spark!Lab National Network, started at the Smithsonian in 2008, or the Indianapolis Museum of Arts IMA Lab (which we discussed during our recent MCN2013 session), but what do they offer the museum? And are such projects different when approached from curatorial position, than when driven from (say) the technology department? In this episode, we find out.

012:Innovative Curation

DigitalCitizenship.net cites nine individual elements of digital citizenship: access, commerce, communication, literacy, etiquette, law, rights & responsibilities, health & wellness, and security (self protection). Cultural institutions are doing well in some respects, but what about other areas? Could museum interactive experiences not only provide access to rich content, but also help increase the overall digital literacy of users? Can our digital projects travel parallel paths in pursuit of both curatorial mission and digital good? Should they?

Guests:

Darin Barney, Canada Research Chair in Technology & Citizenship, McGill University
Kyle Jaebker, Director IMA Lab, Indianapolis Museum of Art
Luis Marcelo Mendes, Communications Consultant for Museums, Fundação Roberto Marinho

This episode was recorded live at MCN 2013 on November 21, 2013. Thank you to the Museum Computer Network for making it possible, and inviting us to be a part of this conference.

009: Museums as Digital Citizens

On August 27 this year, the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in NYC announced that it had acquired Planetary, an iPad app, which was also the Museum’s first acquisition of code. But how can such an acquisition be conserved for the future? What does it mean to acquire these kinds of highly-networked, ‘living’ objects? As Seb Chan and Aaron Cope of the Cooper-Hewitt wrote in their blog post on the acquisition:

"Museums like ours are used to collecting exemplary achievements made manifest in physical form; or at least things whose decay we believe we can combat and slow. To that end we employ highly trained conservators who have learned their craft often over decades of training, to preserve what would often be forgotten and more quickly turn to dust. But preserving large, complex and interdependent systems whose component pieces are often simply flirting with each other rather than holding hands is uncharted territory. Trying to preserve large, complex and interdependent systems whose only manifestation is conceptual – interaction design say or service design – is harder still."

In response to these questions, the Cooper-Hewitt made the decision to open-source the source code for Planetary, uploading it to GitHub. In this episode, the Punks dig into some of the questions that these kinds of acquisitions and conservation processes could mean for the museum, and for how we think about objects in general. We ask how digital technologies are changing the practice of conservation? In this episode, the Punks dig into this question with the Cooper-Hewitt’s Seb Chan (Director of Digital & Emerging Media) and Aaron Cope (Senior Engineer), and Dale Kronkright (Head of Conservation at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum).

Fair warning: it’s a long episode, but a super interesting one.

008: Intergallactic Planetary

What happens when technical difficulties get in the way of regularly scheduled programming? The Punks make do, of course. In this episode, Suse and Jeffrey chat about inspiration, show dynamics, and their upcoming ‘Live’ shows at the Museum Computer Network conference in Montreal.

007: Punks Interrupted

Don’t call this a comeback! After an almost three-year hiatus, Museopunks returns to explore progressive museum practice. How much has changed since the ‘Punks last hit the airwaves? Does Jeffrey have any new tattoos? Has Suse lost her Australian accent?

In this first episode of season two, the ‘Punks unpack the trials and tribulations of trust with Dr. fari nzinga and Adriel Luis. Report after report indicates that public trust in institutions is plummeting. The 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, which surveys more than 33,000 people across 28 countries, showed the largest-ever drop in trust across the institutions of government, business, media and NGOs. Meanwhile, the Economist’s Intelligence Unit downgraded the US to a “flawed democracy” in its 2016 Democracy Index, due to erosion of trust in government and elected officials.

Museums have traditionally appeared to be cushioned against drops in trust. The American Alliance of Museum reports that museums are considered the most trustworthy source of information in America. Yet a 2013 UK study on public trust in museums showed that although museums are highly trusted, there was “a strong sense that if they started “telling people what to think” or became spaces for controversial debate, this might damage their integrity.” What does this mean for our institutions at a time when there is increasing pressure on public institutions to promote social justice, and intervene in political and social discourse? Join us to unpack these questions and more.

Show notes: http://museopunks.org

Episode 19: The State of Love and Trust

Museums that want to impact their visitors are often concerned with changing their behaviors. However, before any kind of change can take place, it's important to understand visitors, and the behaviors that they bring into the museum with them. In this episode, the ‘Punks ask how museums can better understand and align their work around existing visitor behaviors. We talk to the first Neuroscience Researcher in an art museum to learn more about how the human brain understands the physical world, and how that connects to our emotions, and then connect with an experience designer whose work has focussed on social media use in the cultural sector.

We also want to know: are you a museum geek who is also a fan of professional wrestling?! Reach out to us on Twitter and let us know. 

GUESTS:

Dr. Tedi Asher is Neuroscience Researcher at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass. The position — which marks a first for an art museum — supports PEM’s neuroscience initiative and is made possible through a generous grant from the Barr Foundation. Dr. Asher earned her Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School’s Biological and Biomedical Sciences program and has spent the last 12 years gaining experience in a wide range of fields, including neuroscience and psychology. At PEM, she will synthesize neuroscience research findings and make recommendations on how museums can enhance and enrich the visitor experience.

Alli Burness is currently an experience designer with ThinkPlace, a global strategic design consultancy that applies human centred design and complex systems thinking to create public value.  On the side, she is a freelance digital producer, designing digital presences for artists, small arts organisations and not-for-profits. She also researches, publishes, tutors and speaks about the value of creative digital expression and social media use in the cultural sector. She previously worked in museums and galleries as a digital producer and collection manager for around 10 years. She has created content for institutions such as the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Wellcome Collection in the UK and the Powerhouse Museum and Museums and Galleries NSW in Australia. She is currently based in Sydney.

PRESENTING SPONSOR:
Museopunks is presented by the American Alliance of Museums.
Website: museopunks.org
Twitter: @museopunks

Episode 22: Human Behavior

The vision of the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine, describes how the museum “will reflect and realize the values of decolonization in all of its practices, working with the Wabanaki Nations to share their stories, history, and culture with a broader audience.” But what does it take to decolonise a museum? How does it change the governance structure and the practices of the board? What kinds of frameworks and internal work are necessary to shift the balance of authority within the institution, and turn theory into actionable change?

In this episode of Museopunks, Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko, President & CEO of the Abbe Museum, delves into the complexities of decolonisation.

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to Museopunks on iTunes or Stitcher

Episode 26: Decolonise the Museum!

With a reticence towards partisan politics, museums are sometimes perceived to be neutral institutions, many avoiding taking a visible stand on issues. But can they really avoid being political when making choices about the allocation of resources, time, and energy? #MuseumsAreNotNeutral is “an initiative that exposes the fallacies of the neutrality claim and calls for an equity-based transformation of museums.” In this episode, LaTanya S. Autry and Mike Murawski break down the #MuseumsAreNotNeutral campaign, while Kaywin Feldman, Nivin and Duncan MacMillan Director and President of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), discusses what it’s like to run a museum at a time of crisis.

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to Museopunks on iTunes or Stitcher

Museopunks is presented by the American Alliance of Museums.

Graphic Design of the Museopunks logo is by Selena Robleto.
Website: Museopunks.org
Twitter: @museopunks

Episode 27: Museums Are Not Neutral

Since the mid-1990s, it has been received wisdom that museums are, or should be, “safe spaces for unsafe ideas.” But is this true? Are museum safe spaces? And do they really deal in unsafe ideas? In this episode, Elaine Heumann Gurian, who is credited with first expressing this idea, helps us unpack whether it continues to make sense in museums today.

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to Museopunks on iTunes or Stitcher

Episode 31: Are Museums Safe Spaces for Unsafe Ideas?

OF/BY/FOR ALL  is a global movement and a set of tools to help community institutions around the world become more representative OF and co-created BY their communities. In this episode, we’re joined by OF/BY/FOR ALL founder Nina Simon and Rohini Kappadath, General Manager of Immigration Museum (Australia), to find out how to create a museum for everyone.

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to Museopunks on iTunes or Stitcher

Episode 33: A Museum for Everyone

In early 2019, experience designer Ed Rodley asked the hivemind what they saw as the biggest issues facing ppl who make museum experiences in 2019? The answer from Jay Rounds, E. Desmond Lee Professor of Museum Studies emeritus at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, was “A surfeit of virtues.” Rounds proposed that, “There are so many demands for what an exhibit ought to be or do, or how it should be made, that they can paralyze us. Many of these demands seem virtuous in isolation, but some are in conflict with others, and it is impossible to do all of them at once and end up with an exhibit worth visiting. But we have no overarching principle for prioritizing among them, and thus we become so dedicated to being virtuous that we forget how to be good.”

In this episode, Museopunks explores this idea of the surfeit of virtues with both Rodley and Rounds, and discovers a moment of paradigmatic change in museums within the USA. 

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to Museopunks on iTunes or Stitcher

Episode 34: Paradigm Lost

The end of Pride Month does not mean that we should stop talking or thinking about LGBTQIA+ inclusion and queer curating practices in museums. This month, we’re joined by Craig Middleton and Nikki Sullivan, authors of the KINQ (or Knowledge Industries Need Queering)manifesto, and Alison Kennedy and Anna Woten, from AAM’s LGBTQ Alliance Task Force for Transgender Inclusion to discuss queering the museum.

Episode 36: Queering Your Museum

Unpaid internships are commonplace in the museum world, supported by a culture that suggests “experience” and the chance to get “a foot in the door” are worth the sacrifice of time and lost earnings. This practice necessarily limits the sector’s ability to diversify or become equitable, by ensuring that only those who can afford to work uncompensated can participate. But there is some promise of change afoot! The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) recently made a resolution calling on art museums to provide paid internships. At the same time, the Art and Museum Transparency group, a grassroots initiative to bring transparency to the arts sector through collecting anonymous salary data from the field, launched their recently-launched Unpaid Internships spreadsheet, which aims to shed light on the sector’s reliance on free labor. 

In this episode, we’re joined by Alison Wade from AAMD, and Michelle Millar Fisher and “E” from the Art + Museum Transparency group to discuss these initiatives, and the implications for the sector of its practice of unpaid internships. Plus, Ed Rodley, Museopunks’ new co-host, makes his official debut.

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to Museopunks on iTunes or Stitcher

Episode 37: Experience doesn’t pay the rent

As decolonisation moves more firmly onto the agenda in museums, so to does its critique. In this episode, we speak with Sumaya Kassim, author of the essay 'The Museum Will Not Be Decolonised', and Nathan “Mudyi” Sentance to ask whether museums can dismantle the colonial gaze. We'll also find out more about the kinds of structural changes inside museums that may be necessary to fully support First Nations people and People of Colour working in our cultural institutions.

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to Museopunks on iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify

Episode 38: Decolonisation And Its Discontents

The season for existential crises continued this past month when the International Council of Museums (ICOM) announced that a working group had proposed a new definition for museums and that said definition would be voted on at the ICOM Triennial in Kyoto, Japan. We followed the many conversations that unfolded over the next few weeks, and asked a diverse group of museum colleagues around the world to share their thoughts on the issue with us. What does it mean to be a museum? Who does that definition exclude? And who is the audience for that definition? 

Guest Contributors
Hannah Heller, Armando Perla, Anna Leshchenko, Linda Norris, Maria Vlachou, Jasper Visser, Paul Bowers, Margaret Middleton, Joan Baldwin, Seema Rao and Luis Marcelo Mendes.

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to Museopunks on iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify

Episode 39: A new definition of “museum”?

Being Human, the new permanent gallery at Wellcome Collection, explores what it means to be human in the 21st century. In creating the exhibition, the Wellcome Collection worked with two advisory panels - one composed of scientists, and the other of artists, activists and consultants, convened in collaboration with the University of Leicester’s Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, focussed on the representation of disability and difference. The resultant experience embodies the idea that all can and should feel valued and connected. 

In this episode, the Punks speak with Clare Barlow, curator of the exhibition, and Richard Sandell, Professor of Museum Studies and co-director of RCMG at the University of Leicester, about the intentionality, processes and practices that have shaped this exhibition.

Episode 40: A very human exhibition

Over the past decade, museums have increasingly shared high resolution open access images of their collections. Yet there are significant legal and ethical complexities related to digital cultural heritage, particularly when blanket decisions about open access are made without involving communities of origin. In this episode, the Punks are joined by Mathilde Pavis and Andrea Wallace to discuss their Response to the 2018 Sarr-Savoy Report, which addresses intellectual property rights and open access relevant to the digitization and restitution of African Cultural Heritage and associated materials, and come to the conclusion that we need to be discussing digital cultural heritage with far more nuance.

Episode 41:  Digitization is not neutral

Since the #MeToo movement began in 2017, many in the museum sector have wondered when members of our own community would be called to account. In this episode, the Punks are joined by Robin Pogrebin, Zachary Small and Anne-Marie Quigg to explore a major #MuseumMeToo moment and ask how bullying and harassment shape workplace culture.

Episode 42: A #MuseumMeToo Moment

Even before a pandemic changed everything, we were living in turbulent times. Extreme partisanship defines politics in many countries, inequality grows even wealthy countries, and faith in institutions is diminishing. How do museums create environments of trust, especially where there are histories of distrust, victimisation and oppression? In this episode, we speak with Dina Bailey, former Director of Methodology and Practice for the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, and Tim Phillips, founder and CEO of Beyond Conflict, to consider what we can learn from transitional justice approaches when addressing the painful legacies of the past.

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to Museopunks on iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify

Episode 43: How do we live in turbulent times?

It’s been a few weeks since the world was upended in the wake of COVID-19. In this episode, we catch up with an old friend, Sharna Jackson, to hold space for some reflection, some mourning, and some laughter. 

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to Museopunks on iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify

Episode 44: A conversation among friends

Mutual aid systems rely on forms of exchange, sharing support and resources, to enable communities to care for their members in the face of difficulty. In May this year, Museum Workers Speak started the Museum Workers Relief Fund, a form of ‘radical redistribution’ that seeks donations from those with means to support US-based museum workers who have been laid off, furloughed, or otherwise severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Those donations are then redistributed as $500 gifts to help recipients stay afloat. 

In this episode, we speak with Paula Santos, Christian Ramirez and Alyssa Greenberg about the initiative and the role of mutual aid in supporting museum practitioners. While you’re listening, take a moment to support the Museum Workers Speak Relief Fund if you can.

Never miss an episode! Subscribe to Museopunks on iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify

Popular tracks by Museopunks