Today’s post comes to you from Colleen Sutherland, recent Tufts Museum Studies graduate and previous co-editor of the Tufts Museum Studies Blog. To read some of her previous work, click here. Recently, I stumbled across this article called “8 Principles of Gamified Learning.” It not only explains …
![Curatorial Internship [Old Colony History Museum, Taunton, MA]](https://sites.tufts.edu/museumstudents/wp-content/themes/kale/sample/images/thumb2.jpg)
Old Colony History Museum (OCHM) operated by Old Colony Historical Society and located in Taunton, Massachusetts has an internship opportunity available for a student currently enrolled in a museum studies graduate program (certificate or degree program) with coursework in collections management and collections care and preservation. The Opportunity: …
Recently, I’ve been reading in various news articles about the resignations of top trustees at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. According to these articles, the chairwomen and the vice-chairwomen of the board of trustees have resigned because of controversy surrounding an two international initiatives with Cuba. These two chairwomen say that the issues stem from the museum leadership’s desire to create a $2.5 million replica of a statue of a Cuban leader to send down to Cuba, as well as to participate in an art exchange with Havana that they say is almost guaranteed to fall through on Cuba’s end. The argument has also been made that the museum is spending too much time and resources focusing on working with Cuba while they neglect the social and economic issues in their backyard. Local Cuban artists add that the museum has frequently been selective in choosing Cuban artists to represent in the galleries while others feel that the museum exploits the Bronx’s troubled past. And while the two chairwomen claim to have brought these issues as well as others to light before, the museum appears to be ‘perplexed’ as to why these two women have resigned and maintain their full support of the director and the museum’s initiatives.
Shortly after the two chairwomen resigned, four more board members resigned for what the museum claims are unrelated reasons: “In no way is the museum experiencing any mass exodus of trustees in solidarity with [chairwomen] Laura and Mary Beth.” Now, the museum has appointed two new board leaders to in the interim and maintain that their director, Holly Block, has their full support.
While it is difficult to say who is right or wrong in this situation, it is clear that there is something fishy going on at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Why would the museum not address the issues brought up by the two chairwomen and the local Cuban population before? Why does the museum seem surprised that the two chairwomen resigned if they had already expressed concerns before that were not addressed? Why would four more board members suddenly resign for unrelated reasons? Do you think the museum is sweeping these issues under the rug by appointing new board members and not addressing the issues at hand? Let me know what you think in the comments.
Here are some of the articles I’ve been reading on this subject:
Looking for something fun and engaging to do now that summer is in full swing? Here’s a list of upcoming museum-related events to check out for the month of September: Thursday, September 1: Institute of Contemporary Art | Namaste at the ICA Friday, September 2: …
Today’s post comes to you from Colleen Sutherland, recent Tufts Museum Studies graduate and previous co-editor of the Tufts Museum Studies Blog. To read some of her previous work, click here. Hi there! I’ve recently been doing some social media culling, trying to stay relevant and …
I recently went to a family reunion last week and, as these things go, I repeatedly got asked by distant relatives what I was doing with my life. As I explained to them that I was in the midst of completing a graduate program in museum education here at Tufts, I seemed to get the same general responses: “Huh, I didn’t know museums did that,” or, “Usually museums are places where you can’t touch anything,” or, “What does that mean?” or…*sigh.* You get the point. Sadly, this is not the first time I’ve had to defend and/or explain my field, as I’m sure many of you have as well. Indeed, almost no one I have talked to about museums over the past year seem to know what the phrase ‘museum education’ means and they either continued to hold the antiquated view that museums are stodgy old curiosity cabinets or that museums were simply places of entertainment for a rainy Saturday. We as museum folk know this to be (mostly) untrue today as museums are trying harder and harder to break that mold and become known as places where education, entertainment, discussion, and innovation all converge. And while these ideas are coming directly from my own interactions with others, I recently read an article about public opinions of museums that suggests my 3rd cousins twice removed are not alone in their mistaken, albeit understandable views on museums.
The article, titled “Trust Me, I’m a Museum” from the Center for the Future of Museums discusses how the public views museums and what they consider to be the essential purposes of museums. It frequently cites a UK study done in 2013 which reported that, “when invited to weigh in on what does not fit in the essential purposes of museums, the UK participants listed promoting justice and human rights, and providing a forum for debate. These activities were cited as ‘undermin[ing] the essential values of trust and integrity that people cherish with regards to museums.'” (Side note: this topic is especially interesting to consider when thinking about one of our previous posts by Colleen Sutherland, in which she discusses the importance of museums joining the national conversation on social justice.) Further, the article argues that if museums choose to discuss issues of contention such as climate change or human rights, we may run the risk of shutting out the many people who feel that one of the core museum purposes is “to provide a family-friendly, enjoyable and entertaining day out.” As Nina Simon writes in the comments, this “reinforces the idea that people may have antiquated ideas about what museums are for or ought to be for.”
So, where do we go from here? How do we assert ourselves as places that can effectively facilitate discussions on important issues on while dispelling commonly-held antiquated views of what museums are really all about? Do you have any thoughts or experience with these issues in your museum? I’d love to see them in the comments below!