Museum Studies at Tufts University

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Author: Dominique T. Marcial (Page 12 of 12)

Weekly Jobs Roundup!

May 28, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Here’s our weekly roundup of new jobs. Happy hunting!

New England 

Mid-Atlantic

Midwest

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West

Hello from the New Editors!

May 21, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Hey everyone! We are both so excited to step in as your new editors for this upcoming year.  To get started, we have some brief bios about ourselves, so you can get to know us a little better. We look forward to hearing from you and working with you throughout the next 12 months! As always, feel free to send us any articles or material that can be used for future blog posts.

Andrea Woodberry– Hi everyone! My name is Andrea, I am heading into my second year in the Tufts Museum Education program, and I’m excited to be editing the blog with Dominique this coming year! I am originally from Minnesota and graduated last year from Luther College in Iowa with a history major and minors in French and museum studies. I said goodbye to the corn fields and blue lakes to pursue a degree in museum education. History was my entry point into a love for museums and through an internship I quickly realized museum Ed was the place for me. I love finding points of connection between museums and their visitors. I see museums as places for people to come together and am passionate about developing ways for museums to continuously deepen new and existing audiences’ experiences. While my background is in history and culture museums, I love discussing how museums of all disciplines can learn from each other to benefit the whole field. In my free time I like to bake, read, and explore. I’m looking forward to connecting with you all through the blog this year over events and topics in the museum field!

 

Dominique Marcial Hey museum-lovers, I am a Northeast Pennsylvania native with an affinity for canonical literature; Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, you name it, I’ve read it. I am a frequent jogger, with a tendency to listen to Indie to get me through the pain past mile 5. I have a Bachelor’s degree in  English Literature (surprise, surprise) from Lafayette College, and originally intended to become a teacher. Yet after a summer internship at a local museum, I fell in love with the idea of free choice and object based learnings in the museum setting. Low and behold, here I am, pursuing a Master’s in Museum Education at Tufts. I also work at the Concord Museum and intern at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

My love for museums stemmed from an early age. I was the type of child who would ask to go to local historic houses or museums as birthday gifts. The narratives behind the objects drew me in. As an ardent reader, I loved the stories behind the objects regarding past owners, or creators of the objects, as well as their purposes. As a woman in my early twenties, with a little more museum experience under my belt, I can say that I am truly invested in the community relations and services a museum provides to its local sphere of influence. Whether that be through school programs, senior tours, or public programs, the museum acts as a medium of information regarding not only its collection, but also contemporary social connections and conversations. It is truly up to us as museum professionals to make more accessible connections with the community to be a source of education, contemplation, and even change.

Summer through a Social Lens

May 21, 2017 / / 0 Comments

The first post of this new editorial season is going to come from Dominique, discussing three Boston museum exhibits this summer that hone in on social provocation, demonstration, and change. Here is a cursory look at (in my opinion) the most socially contemplative and thought provoking installations and exhibits around Boston this summer, that will call you to stop and reflect upon prevalent topics such as immigration, mental health, and forms of resistance. But hey, if your travels don’t pull you to Boston this summer, this will also provide a basis for these exhibits which you can further explore through the omnipotent internet.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston “I must tell you what I saw” Objects of Witness and Resistance.

On Display until July 30, 2017

This extremely powerful exhibit hosts a wide array of objects meant to provoke conversation regarding genocide, mass violence, and responses to these types of hate crimes around the world. The exhibit expands through millennia ranging from ancient depictions of war and Babylonian deportation to J.M.W. Turner’s Slave Ship to the Armenian Genocide. This exhibit is bold, only housing eight paintings, but it is provocative. The pieces demand discussion and beg to be strung together in a timeline that acknowledges the atrocities and devaluation done to people who fall under the category of “different” or “oppressed” in comparison to the majority population at any given time.

Museum of Science “Many Faces of our Mental Health”

Opens May 27.

99 facial portraits will be on display throughout the summer at the Museum of Science depicting the appearances of those who suffer from bipolar disorder and/or schizophrenia, and individuals who are a support system for those suffering from mental health conditions. The exhibit also features more biological components of mental health, such as DNA models that highlight specific genes and traits, and data that explore findings in professional research regarding mental health. The exhibit balances the more human side of mental illnesses with the biologically based research of diseases, which does an excellent job of encompassing a holistic understanding of mental health.

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston- Nari Ward’s “Sun Splashed”   

On view until September 4,2017

Jamaican-born artist Nari Ward takes a materialistically fresh approach to the social topics of citizenship, urban spaces, and immigration with his found-object installations. The media in this exhibit is unique to say the least. There is a compilation of photography, sculptures, film, and installations made from shopping carts, and a fire escape. The pieces in this exhibit are meant to be reflected upon from their very material makeup to their spatial placement. What does it mean to be an immigrant? What defines urban life? These are all questions to be asked.

Hopefully these will exhibits will make it on your summer museum list and will evoke a response to the social conversations they are trying to induce.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Executive Director [Lexington Historical Society, Lexington, MA]

May 2, 2017 / / 0 Comments
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR – Search Reopened

The Society seeks an experienced Executive Director to provide strategic planning and management for a vibrant organization serving a diverse local community and visitors from around the world.  The Society manages and interprets to the public three historic house museums with significant connections to the Battle of Lexington, provides stewardship of important collections and archives spanning three centuries of Lexington history, and provides year-round programming to the community.  The annual budget of $500,000 supports a paid staff of five and the important roles and involvement of a large cadre of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers.

Candidates should have the following qualifications:

  1. Ability to work well with dynamic staff, Board members and volunteers, town officials, community organizations and collaborative partners;
  2. Strong fundraising and grant writing experience; excellent oral and written communication skills;
  3. Management experience in an historical or similar non-profit organization, including familiarity with finance, buildings management, and personnel development;
  4. An advanced degree in museum administration, history, archives management, or the equivalent;
  5. A demonstrated interest in American history and enthusiasm for sharing it with the public.

This is a full-time position with salary commensurate with experience.
​
Please send a brief statement of interest and resume to:  historicalsocietysearch@gmail.com by May 26, 2017.

Museums in the News: For-Profit, Five Hundred Thousand Dollars, and Fudge? Looking Beyond the Spectacle of the Museum of Ice Cream

November 25, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Today’s Museums in the News Post comes to you from Dominique Marcial, current Museum Education Master’s student here at Tufts.

In his article detailing the Museum of Ice Cream, which ran from July 29, 2016 – August 31, 2016, George Etheredge examined the thrills of the museum of Ice Cream for a millennial target audience, yet also pointed out more managerial and logistical aspects of the museum that open the conversation of this “museum” up to an array of concerns. Mary Ellis Bunn, founder of the museum, states the Museum of Ice Cream is a “temporary museum.” Therefore, one must examine the definition of museum to ascertain whether or not the Museum of Ice Cream is actually fit to be coined a museum, or whether it more closely relates to a temporary exhibit.

The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) defines a museum as an institution that is “organized for educational and aesthetic purposes… and it owns and uses tangible objects and exhibits these objects on a regular basis through facilities it owns and operates.”  AAM recognizes both for-profit and nonprofit institutions as museums. The Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) adds that museums can house either “animate or inanimate” objects. The International Council of Museums (ICOM) narrowly defines a museum as a “non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study, and enjoyment.” Within this definition, the Museum of Ice Cream would not be considered a museum because it is a for-profit institution, and by ICOM standards, a museum must be a non-profit.  However, in terms of its for-profit status, the Museum of Ice Cream could be considered a museum within the AAM and IMLS definitions because they do not define museums as needing to be nonprofits.

Additionally, according to Catlin-Legutko, a museum that attains 501(c)(3) status “is recognized as a charitable institution.” The term charitable includes the “advancement of education or science and the erection or maintenance of public buildings or monuments.” The failure of the Museum of Ice Cream to attain 501(c)(3) status shows that the museum is likely not charitable, meaning that it does not contribute to education or science.Within the Museum of Ice Cream, there is also no solid labeling of facts to educate the public, thus deterring the institution from achieving non-profit status.  Being that the Museum of Ice Cream does not maintain a public building for its existence, this aspect would also contribute to the failure of the institution to achieve 501(c)(3) status. In addition, a lack of 501(c)(3) status also makes the Museum of Ice Cream ineligible for tax-deductible contributions. This raises questions as to why corporations such as Fox and Dove chose to contribute to this organization. If these corporations wish to donate specific pieces to the museum, the Museum of Ice Cream can consider the influences of larger corporations without having to worry about the ethics of educating and serving the public through the influences of large donors as much as a nonprofit might have to.

Another major aspect to consider in the definition of a museum is that of the collections.  According to Anderson, “museums are responsible for the acquisition, conservation, management, and deaccession of collections.”  All three of the definitions of museum presented in this post from AAM, IMLS, and ICOM, mention the purpose of a collection in a museum, whether that be a collection of inanimate or animate objects. So although the Museum of Ice Cream does have a collection consisting of plastic life-sized sprinkles, and a wall of plastic cones, it does not display these objects in a permanent space, as AAM requires.

The IMLS definition of museums gets even more specific with the amount of time a collection must be on display to be considered a museum. According to the IMLS definition of a museum, a collection must be on display 120 days of the year. Being that the Museum of Ice Cream was only open for 33 days in 2016, this 120-day requirement officially pushes the Museum of Ice Cream out of all three of the major definitions of a museum that this article explored from AAM to the IMLS and ICOM.

That leaves us with the question of what exactly the Museum of Ice Cream is, if not a museum. Perhaps a pop-up exhibit or show would better fit the purposes and display of the Museum of Ice Cream. The fact that the Museum of Ice Cream retains the word “museum” in its title gives a false premise to the public about the contents of the exhibit. The fact that the Museum of Ice Cream consists of almost no labels or information takes away the educational importance and the authenticity of objects usually found in a museum. In a New York Daily News article, about the Museum of Ice Cream, one customer claimed it was her “first time going to a pop-up show,” which in itself may say it all.

Link to “The Museum of Ice Cream is Sold Out. Here’s What You’re Missing”                    

 

 

 

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