Exploring ideas and engaging in conversation

Author: Kansky

Melissa is pursuing her master's in museum education from Tufts University. She works as a Visitors Assistant at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston.

Tufts Prison Symposium: Applications of Museum Education

The Tufts Prison Symposium illuminated the role of education in the prison system. During the two-day program, former inmates described their interactions with correctional officers, clinicians, and educators. They advocated to end a dehumanizing system that perpetuates a hierarchy of power and hinders opportunity for both professional and educational advancement. In the final workshop, Tufts students’ reflected on their experiences tutoring at correctional facilities and their unique responsibility as educators.

Tutors  described an educational approach that meets learners where they are, that cultivates a non-hierarchical relationship, that instills a sense of accomplishment, and that shares ownership over the learning process. Additionally, the tutors discussed the importance of valuing the whole learner and incorporating the learner’s experiences into the educational experience. They affirm that the learners’ ideas are valuable. For museum educators, their teaching experiences sounded extremely familiar. The tutors’ teaching methods parallel those in museums.

Emerging museum education philosophies advocate for shared-authority, encouraging learners to use prior experiences to derive personal meaning from the exhibited content. Gallery teaching focuses on skill development and relationship-building, rather than mastery of content. Teaching techniques such as Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) validate multiple perspectives and generate confidence. VTS uses images to inspire discussion and exploration; educators serve as facilitators, rather than content-providers. In this educational model, educators relinquish agendas and permit learners to direct the conversation.

VTS programs typically include a studio project, during which learners produce art that responds to the images they encountered. The art project serves as a tool to express both knowledge and experience. The general public rarely encounters inmates’ personal narratives. The three students who served on the panel recognized that the prison system purposefully segregates inmates from society, contributing to the dehumanization of prisoners. Museums have a responsibility to reflect the experiences of people in the community. The absence of inmates’ stories contributes to a dominant narrative that presents stories from the perspective of those in power.

Perhaps there is an overlooked opportunity for museums to partner with prisons. Such a partnership would provoke questions concerning complicity in the prison system and institutions of power, yet the initiative could create an educational environment that empowers the learner and expands the people we recognize as part of our community fabric.

Interpreting Aboriginal Culture- An Australian Outlook

This week’s post is brought to you by Melissa Kansky, a first-year student in the Museum Education M.A. program at Tufts,

                                                                                                           

Image 1 :  (Bark Painting exhibited at the Art Gallery of NSW)

Image 2    (Political poster, Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia )

 

Museums provide a lens into a community’s cultural identity, as well as the social issues that define its history and development. During Winter Intersession, I had the opportunity to travel to Australia. While abroad, I relied on art museums to uncover the layered history of the unfamiliar place. Despite the unique character of each museum, they exhibited similar themes, revealing dominant questions that permeate Australian society. The national institutions consistently used their respective collections to address the country’s colonization practices and resulting injustices against the Aboriginal people.

Similar to museum practices in the United States, Australian museums have, historically, depicted indigenous culture as static and archaic. Displays of Aboriginal culture had been restricted to anthropological museums, which provoke visitors to associate Native heritage with primitive and obsolete populations. However, in 1959, the former deputy director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales advocated that the museum include Aboriginal works, moving indigenous culture from the domain of natural history into an art context. Although controversial at the time, the decision acknowledges that Aboriginal experiences contribute to present Australian identity and enable Aboriginal peoples to direct their narrative. Aboriginal artists produced the series of Bark Paintings, exhibited on the first floor of the museum, specifically for the gallery. As a result, the artists determined the way in which their culture was presented for public consumption. Additionally, wall text often includes the artist’s voice and perspective, permitting both artist and curator to contribute to the interpretive process.

In addition to elevating Aboriginal voice, museums also highlight persistent colonization practices. An exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia illustrates current issues regarding land ownership and indigenous rights. The temporary exhibit, “Word: MCA Collection,” contains political posters from the permanent collection. The posters respond to displacement and cultural appropriation. The contemporary collection indicates these social injustices are not confined to Australian history, but influence present political structures, showing that museums must be courageous enough to not only participate in, but also advance, challenging conversations that shape the country.

While Australia is certainly not perfect in its museum practice, the country offers a model for greater inclusion of indigenous perspective. In the United States, the Abbe Museum, located in Bar Harbor, Maine, has positioned itself as a leader in decolonizing museum practices, which demands sharing authority for the documentation and interpretation of Native culture. Nevertheless, indigenous collections have, largely, been limited to natural history museums, tribal museums, or indigenous-focused museums. In contrast, exhibitions in non-disciplinary museums expand where visitors encounter Native voice and the way it is incorporated in the community’s story. Museums that prominently feature Native artists signify that the experiences of marginalized populations are part of our national character.

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