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Going Batty –  A Review of Bats! At the Peabody Essex Museum

Those making their annual pilgrimage to the Witch City this year should make time in between the ghost tours and psychics to visit the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), located in the heart of Salem, Massachusetts. Though Boston-area residents are often familiar with PEM’s excellent exhibits and programming, visitors might be drawn to spookier attractions. However, one of PEM’s fall exhibits focuses on one of our favorite flying Halloween friends. Bats! provides a family friendly exploration of the often unjustly maligned and misunderstood creatures.

The exhibition was organized and produced by ExplorationWorks! and Build 4 Impact Inc. with assistance from The Dotty Brown Art & Nature Center.  Bats! takes an interdisciplinary approach which explores bats in art, science, technology, and cultures across the world. Exhibition curator and Sarah Fraser Robbins Director of the Art & Nature Center, Janey Winchell, states in an interview with PEM that most people know relatively little about bats, but that regardless of their opinion on or experiences with bats, “[…] once people are in the exhibition, they will discover things that relate to them in their own lives.” As a long-time nature nerd and bat lover, I had to see the exhibit for myself and the Peabody Essex didn’t disappoint! 

The exhibit is laid out in a non-linear fashion which helped avoid overcrowding in areas of the exhibit space and allowed visitors to explore at their own pace. The exhibit space is broken up by a series of temporary gallery walls, which created unique spaces within the exhibit while still allowing for wheelchair accessibility. Like many other visitors, I entered the exhibit and moved through it mainly clockwise. Ecological and biological facts on bats alternate with art and objects. I enjoyed that the exhibit text included abundant pictures of bats to illustrate concepts while visually pleasing.

Interactives are abundant in this exhibit and hit the rare mark of being engaging for all age levels. Some interactives are simple, such as flip boards for true and false bat facts and “bats around the world.” The bats around the world interactive is interesting and engaging but the text was small and difficult to read. The focal point of the exhibit is a live bat interactive featuring Egyptian Fruit Bats. The bats can be viewed from outside or by crawling in and looking up from inside a plastic bubble. Visitors of all ages enthusiastically crawled through the interactive. Grown adults without children were excited by the prospect of looking up from the tunnel at the bats. However, incorporating living beings into an exhibit always raises issues and questions. The bats weren’t very active and were all huddled together in the corner of the enclosure. True or not, this gave the impression that the bats are not pleased with their current situation. It also made it difficult for visitors to spot them. PEM seems to have anticipated some concern from visitors, including a label, “Frequently Asked Questions About the Bat Colony.” The label clarifies how the bats are cared for and where they came from…to an extent. The label states that the bats are from “Indiana Wild, a conservation and education organization.” I think it would be beneficial to clarify how that organization came to have the bats, whether they were seized from animal trafficking or born in captivity, and why it is not possible to release them. As a visitor, these were questions I had as I grappled with the ethics of displaying live animals. However, the impact of this interactive display cannot be overstated. Visitors connected with bats on a level that would be difficult to achieve otherwise. 

Another popular, but less controversial interactive is a table game which represents the threats to bats’ survival. Two partners must tilt a table to shift a ball through a maze, avoiding holes that represent challenges facing bats. This is a novel interactive unlike any I’ve seen in previous exhibits. The game is well designed, both fun and informative. I learned more than a few things about the threats facing Flying Foxes. For example, I had no idea that farmers internationally poisoned fruit to control predation of their crops! Other interactives include comparing human, bat, and bird bones on a magnetic board and making folded paper bats. The exhibit balances textual elements with interactives nicely, resulting in a dynamic exhibit appealing to visitors of all ages and experience.

The textual elements of the exhibit are just as engaging as the spectacular interactives. One section of the exhibit covered perceptions of bats across space and time, covering Africa, Asia, and the Americas. I overheard one visitor remark on the perception of bats in China, “Bats are considered lucky! I didn’t know that!” Other visitors enjoyed the section on bats in pop-culture, flipping through a series of posters featuring bats in movies and television. My personal favorite as a fan of folklore and history was the section on how European stigma and superstition surrounding bats formed. Spooky 17th century woodcuts of witches and demons with bat wings certainly felt appropriate for the season! “Which Came First the Bat or the Vampire?” explored the enduring connection between bats and European vampire lore. The labels explained complex concepts from culture, religion, and folklore at an accessible level which kept clear of judgment.

If the goal of Bats! is to challenge the stigma around the animal, it’s certainly a success. Two PEM interns acting as docents for the exhibit, Charlotte and Martha, stated that the exhibit has seen up to 1,000 visitors a day, with the lowest attendance still being 200. Charlotte, a student at Endicott College stated, “I generally hear positive feedback […] bats tend to be stigmatized and people’s perceptions of bats have changed positively.” Martha added that people can leave feedback on the exhibit in a notebook near the exit. Flipping through the notebook, I saw glowing reviews of the exhibit, exclamations of love for bats, and even fun bat cartoons! One visitor remarked, “10/10 recommend. respectfully want to boop the bats nose.” I can think of no greater endorsement than a nose boop! The exhibition, Bats!, attempts a multicultural and interdisciplinary exploration of bats in a relatively small package and it succeeds.


Bats! Curator Interview, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbJXURbdsec.
 
Peabody Essex Museum. “Bats!” Accessed October 22, 2023. https://www.pem.org/exhibitions/bats.
 
Peabody Essex Museum. “Meet Winged Creatures of the Night in PEM’s Fall Exhibition, Bats!,” July 31, 2023. https://www.pem.org/press-news/meet-winged-creatures-of-the-night-in-pems-fall-exhibition-bats.
 
Rubino, Tony. Love Hate Bat, 2019. Acrylic on canvas. Photograph by Madeline Smith. 
 

Article by: Madeline Smith

MA Candidate, History and Museum Studies

Tufts University ’24

 

 

New Series: Awesome Tufts Internships

We’re starting a new occasional series here at the TMSB (yes, that’s what I’m calling it now). We’ll be sharing some of the great internships that Tufts students are heading off to this summer, and over the following year.

First up is Rebecca Barber, who’s finishing her Museum Studies certificate this summer and fall with a sweet internship at the Peabody Essex Museum. Here’s what she has to say:

This summer I will be interning at the Peabody Essex Museum in their conservation department. I met Mimi Leveque, a mummy conservator, through an interview on a project I did through collections care and management class. She offered my an internship all the way back in November, was very helpful, and very hospitable. I am starting next week and will be working on cleaning and restoring furniture from the Ropes Mansion (previously had a fire in 2008). In addition, I will be helping cleaning and restoring objects in the Asian,  Maritime and Export exhibits. Pretty much I will be assisting Mimi Leveque with many pieces of art and learning new conservation techniques as well as getting more hands on experience with the collection. I have no previous conservation experience and no collection’s experience so this is a good internship to be thrown into learning how to handle objects and conservation techniques right away.

Curator of American Art [Peabody Essex Museum]

The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, MA, is entering a new era. In conjunction with a remarkable capital campaign and an upcoming expansion, PEM seeks an exceptional candidate to create and lead a distinctive program in American art. Museum Search & Reference is conducting the nationwide search.

The Curator of American Art is a new, endowed,
senior-level curatorship.

In November 2011, PEM made public its $650-million capital campaign. The increased resources and endowment will lead to expanded gallery space and the exciting opportunity to reinstall the collection and create new exhibitions, publications, and programming. The successful campaign and new strategic plan open up new opportunities to be part of PEM as it continues to be a leader among American museums. Scroll down for more information about PEM.

Job Summary

The Curator of American Art will be an experienced museum curator in 19th-century through mid-20th-century American painting and sculpture, with a broad knowledge of American art and decorative arts from Colonial to Modern. He/she will oversee 2 full curators (American Decorative Arts and Native American Art) and will at times lead exhibition teams. The Curator should be known nationally as an innovative and incisive scholar with a significant track record of exhibitions and publications; and for having built a museum’s collection through patronage.

Job Responsibilities

Guided by the museum’s global perspective, mission, and strategic plan, and by the leadership of Chief Curator Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, the Curator of American Art will put PEM’s American art collection on the national/international stage by:

  • Creating imaginative exhibitions to premiere at PEM and at times travel to major museums across the country and abroad.
  • Enhancing and shaping the growth of the American collection through gifts and patronage.

The Curator of American Art will:

  • Develop a dynamic range of exhibitions, along with publications and related programs that will increase PEM’s audience for American painting and sculpture and enhance patronage.
  • Create exhibitions that offer connections across time, cultures, media, and multiple disciplines.
  • Collaborate with all the curators and with the interpretation, education, design, integrated media, and marketing staff to ensure that the American art program meets the highest professional standards of creativity, innovation, quality, relevance, and audience engagement.
  • Work closely with the development department to acquire the resources necessary to sustain and enhance exhibitions, publications, and acquisitions.

Job Requirements

  • 10+ years of full curatorial experience, preferably at major art museums.
  • Master’s degree required. Ph.D. an asset, if combined with broad museum experience.
  • Demonstrated management skills in motivating, directing, and managing staff and consultants, and in coordinating and supporting curatorial activities of others.
  • Professional stature, with recognized reputation for original scholarship and fresh ideas.
  • Strong track record in developing and implementing innovative, effective exhibitions and publications in American art.
  • Passion for and expertise principally in 19th-c. and early 20th-c. American painting and sculpture, combined with broad knowledge of and appreciation for American art and culture of all eras, from Colonial to Modern.
  • Knowledge and know-how to create a greater audience for American art.
  • Excellent communication skills, including clear, persuasive writing and public speaking.
  • Experience in and talent for reinterpreting and re-installing collections in forward-thinking ways, with
    the capability to collaboratively re-install PEM’s American collection in the new gallery space.
  • Actively engaged in national and international trends, networks, and resources, including contacts with peers, collectors, and dealers in the field.
  • Experience managing projects and budgets.
  • Strategic vision and creativity, coupled with an entrepreneurial, self-motivated, and results-oriented work ethic.
  • Strong interpersonal skills and the capacity to develop effective relationships with patrons, collectors, museum colleagues, and the Board of Trustees.

Excellent compensation/benefits package, commensurate with the advanced experience ought.

The Curator will enjoy the cultural and intellectual amenities of Salem, MA (Salem) and the metro-Boston area (Boston).

For full job requirements and profile: museum-search.com.

Please let us know about your nominations or your own interest in this exciting job.  Thank you.

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