Shows
Museum Archipelago111. Why Software Hasn't Eaten Museums (Yet)Museums today are filled with software, yet they've largely avoided being "eaten" by the tech industry. Unlike music or movies, exhibitions can't be downloaded or scaled infinitely. There's only one Mona Lisa. But if the wrong platform finds the right leverage, that immunity may not last.
Which is why the kind of software museums choose matters. TilBuci is a free, open-source tool used by museums to build touchscreens, kiosks, and projections. It was created by Brazilian software developer Lucas Junqueira after watching too many digital exhibitions quietly break down once the opening buzz faded. Designed to be...
2025-12-1513 min
Museum Archipelago109. The Rise and Fall of Enterprise Square, USAFor the last few decades of the 20th century, if you visited Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, you could have been serenaded by a barbershop quartet of audio-animatronic portraits of America's founders as framed on U.S. currency. This was one of the many exhibits at Enterprise Square, USA, a high-tech museum dedicated to teaching children about Free Market Economics. The museum, which found itself out of money almost before it opened, shut down in 1999.
Barrett Huddleston first encountered these exhibits as a wide-eyed elementary school student in the 1980s, mesmerized by the talking puppets, giant electronic heads, and...
2025-02-2415 min
Museum Archipelago108. The Museum of Utopia and Daily LifeThe tension is right there in the name of the Museum of Utopia and Daily Life. It sits inside a 1953 kindergarten building in Eisenhüttenstadt, Germany, a city that was born from utopian socialist ideals. After World War II left Germany in ruins, the newly formed German Democratic Republic (GDR) saw an opportunity to build an ideal socialist society from scratch. This city – originally called Stalinstadt or Stalin’s city – was part of this project, rising out of the forest near a giant steel plant.
The museum's home in a former kindergarten feels fitting – the building's original Socialist...
2024-12-0919 min
Museum Archipelago104. What Large Institutions Can Learn From Small MuseumsThe Murney Tower Museum in Kingston, Ontario, Canada is a small museum. Open for only four months of the year and featuring only one full-time staff member, the museum is representative of the many small institutions that make up the majority of museums. With only a fraction of the resources of large institutions, this long tail distribution of small museums offers the full range of museum services: collection management, public programs, and curated exhibits.
Dr. Simge Erdogan-O'Connor has dedicated her studies to understanding the unique dynamics and challenges faced by small museums, and is also the Murney...
2024-02-2614 min
Museum Archipelago100. The Archipelago MuseumIn the early days of this podcast, every time I searched for Museum Archipelago on the internet, the top result would be a small museum in rural Finland called the Archipelago Museum.
As my podcast continued to grow and my search rankings improved, I didn’t forget about the Archipelago Museum. Instead, I wondered what they were up to. What were the exhibits about? Did they ever come across my podcast? Were they annoyed by my similar name?
And while the museum had a website and a map, there was no way to directly contact th...
2022-11-2811 min
Museum Archipelago95. The Museum of Technology in Helsinki, Finland Knows Even the Most Futuristic Technology Will One Day Be HistoryIn 1969, noticing that technological progress was changing their fields, heads of Finish industry came together to found a technology museum in Finland. Today, the Museum of Technology in Helsinki is the only general technological museum in the country.
But of course, technical progress didn’t stop changing, as service coordinator Maddie Hentunen notes, and that can be challenging for a museum to keep up.
In this episode, Hentunen describes the museum’s philosophical stance on technology, how the museum balances industrial development with more open source design practices, and how the museum thinks about its own...
2021-08-3111 min
Museum Archipelago94. Jazz Dottin Guides Viewers Through Massachusetts’s Buried Black HistoryThe deliberate exclusion of Black history and the history of slavery in the American South has been slow to reverse. But Jazz Dottin, creator and host of the Black Gems Unearthed YouTube channel says it can be just as slow in New England. Each video features Dottin somewhere in her home state of Massachusetts, often in front of a plaque or historical marker, presenting what’s missing, excluded, or downplayed.
The history discussed on Black Gems Unearthed has been left out by conventional museums, which are among the most trustworthy institutions in modern American life, according to th...
2021-06-2811 min
Museum Archipelago92. The Pleven Panorama Museum Transports Visitors Through Time, But Not SpaceThe Pleven Panorama transports visitors through time, but not space. The huge, hand-painted panorama features the decisive battles of the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–78, fought at this exact spot, which led to Bulgaria’s Liberation. The landscape of Pleven, Bulgaria depicted is exactly what you see outside the building, making it seem like you’re witnessing the battle on an observation point.
Bogomil Stoev is a historian at the Pleven Panorama, which opened in 1977. The opening was timed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Ottoman Empire’s surrender following the battles and the siege of Pleven. The building...
2021-05-0312 min
Museum Archipelago91. How Fake Museums Are Used in Theme Parks with Shaelyn AmaioMuseums can be a shorthand for truth, or for history, or for what a culture values. Disney theme parks all around the world use fake museums as a tool to immerse visitors in the themed environment. This detailed world-building can make the imaginary universe more real—or provide a setup to subvert a narrative.
But these fake museums aren’t the only ways the Disney theme parks present history to visitors. Public experience advocate Shaelyn Amaio describes how the parks “traffic in the past.” By removing references to the present or a future with consequences, parks like Disneyla...
2021-04-1912 min
Museum Archipelago90. Civil Rights Progress Isn't Linear. The Grove Museum Interprets Tallahassee's Struggle in an Unexpected Setting.The Grove Museum inside the historic Call/Collins House is one of Tallahassee’s newest museums, and it’s changing how the city interprets its own history. Instead of focusing on the mansion house’s famous owners, including Florida Governor LeRoy Collins, Executive Director John Grandage oriented the museum around civil rights. Cleverly tracing how Collins’s thinking on race relations evolved, the museum uses the house and the land it sits on to tell the story of the forced removal of indigenous people from the area, the enslaved craftspeople who built the house, and the Tallahassee Bus Boycott.
Gr...
2021-03-1514 min
Museum Archipelago89. Tehmina Goskar Critically Engages with Curation, Wherever It HappensDr. Tehmina Goskar, director of the Curatorial Research Centre, co-founded MuseumHour with Sophie Ballinger in October 2014. The weekly peer-to-peer chat on Twitter “holds space for debate” for museum people all around the world.
This month, Goskar officially steps back from her role at MuseumHour. This episode serves as both an “exit interview” for Goskar’s MusuemHour work and a chance to highlight other projects that she has founded based on her curatorial philosophy.
In this episode, Goskar discusses founding the Curatorial Research Centre, democratizing culture through her Citizen Curators program (in association with the Cornwall Museums Pa...
2021-02-2214 min
Museum Archipelago88. Jérôme Blachon Collects and Transmits Precious Memories at the Museum of Resistance and Deportation in Haute-Garonne, FranceDuring World War II, a Nazi collbatoring regime governed the south of France, and the city of Toulouse was a Resistance hub. The Vichy Government promoted anti-Semitism and collaborated with the Nazis, most specifically by deporting Jews to concentration and extermination camps. Fragmented Resistance fighters organized to form escape networks and build logistics chains to sabotage and disrupt the regime.
In 1977, former Resistance members created a community museum in Toulouse about their experience. Today, that museum is called the Museum of Resistance and Deportation in Haute-Garonne, France, and is run by the regional government. Museum director Jér...
2021-01-2507 min
Museum Archipelago87. The Vitosha Bear Museum Lives in a Tiny Mountain HutVitosha Mountain, the southern border of Sofia, Bulgaria, is home to about 15 brown bears and one bear museum. According to Dr. Nikola Doykin, fauna expert at the Vitosha Nature Park Directorate, the bear population is stable—if humans stay away and protect their habitat. To Doykin and his team, teaching children about the bears is the best way forward, and the Vitosha Bear Museum does just that.
Founded in 2002 by repurposing an abandoned mountain shelter for the Vitosha mountain rangers, the Vitosha Bear Museum provides “useful tips on how to meet a bear.” It’s also sparse: the enti...
2020-11-1609 min
Museum Archipelago86. Nashid Madyun Fights the Compression of Black History at the Meek-Eaton Black ArchivesHistory professor Dr. James Eaton taught his students with the mantra: “African American History is the History of America.” As chair of the history department at FAMU, a historically Black University in Tallahassee, Florida, he was used to teaching students how to use interlibrary loan systems and how to access rare book collections for their research. But in the early 1970s, as his students' research questions got more in depth and dove deeper into Black history, he realized that there simply weren't enough documents. So he started collecting himself, driving a bus around South Georgia, South Alabama, and North Flor...
2020-09-2113 min
Museum Archipelago85. The John G. Riley House is All That Remains of Smokey Hollow. Althemese Barnes Turned It Into a Museum on Tallahassee’s Black HistoryDuring the period of Jim Crow and the Black Codes, a self-sustaining Black enclave called Smokey Hollow developed near downtown Tallahassee, Florida. As the first Black principal of Lincoln High School, John G. Riley was a critical part of the neighborhood. In 1890, he built a two-story house for his family—only about three blocks from where he was born enslaved.
In the 1960s, the city of Tallahassee seized and destroyed the neighborhood as part of an urban renewal project through eminent domain. Riley's house was all that remained, thanks to activists who fought its demolition. Althemese Barnes wa...
2020-08-3114 min
Museum Archipelago84. On Richmond’s Transformed Monument Avenue, A Group of Historians Erect Rogue Historical MarkersNear the empty pedestals of Confederate figures that used to tower over Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, a new type of historical marker now stands. The markers have most of the trappings of a state-erected historical plaque—but these are rogue markers erected by a group of anonymous historians called History is Illuminating.
History is Illuminating decided to use historical markers as a medium to talk about the Black history taking place while those statues were erected as monuments to white supremacy.
In this episode, an anonymous member of History is Illuminating discusses the ubiquity of...
2020-08-1014 min
Museum Archipelago83. Chris Newell Forges The Snowshoe Path as the First Wabanaki Leader of the Abbe MuseumChris Newell remembers the almost giddy level of excitement he felt when he visited the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine as a kid. Every summer, the family drove for more than two hours for his father to perform songs about their Passamaquoddy language at the Native Market and the Native American Festival hosted by the museum.
But even as a young person, Newell could clearly see the difference between the the Native Market and the Festival, which were run by members of the Wabanaki Nations, and the Museum itself, which was not.
Today, Chris...
2020-07-0614 min
Museum Archipelago82. Statues and MuseumsIn the wake of the racist murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol tore down a statue of Edward Colston, a prominent 17th Century slave trader. Protesters rolled the statue through the street and pushed it into Bristol Harbor — the same harbor where Colston’s Royal African Company ships that forcibly carried 80,000 people from Africa to the Americas used to dock.
In this episode, we examine the relationship of statues and museums. Why do so many call for statues of people like Colston to end up in a museum instead of at the...
2020-06-1511 min
Museum Archipelago81. Living History in a Pandemic at Old Sturbridge VillageOld Sturbridge Village is a living history museum in Massachusetts depicting life in rural New England during the early 19th century. But the early 19th century isn’t specific enough for the site’s historical interpreters—to immerse visitors in the world they’re recreating, knowing exactly what year it “is” matters.
Tom Kelleher, Historian and Curator of Mechanical Arts at Old Sturbridge Village was tasked with choosing that “default” date. He chose 1838 in part because the social and political change of that time period would resonate with today’s visitors. But there’s another aspect of the year that will r...
2020-06-0112 min
Museum Archipelago80. British Museum Curator Sushma Jansari Shares Stories and Experiments of Decolonising MuseumsThe British Museum’s South Asia Collection is full of Indian objects. Dr. Sushma Jansari, Tabor Foundation Curator of South Asia at the British Museum, does not want visitors to overlook the violence of how these objects were brought to the UK to be held in a museum.
So for the 2017 renovation of the South Asia Collection, Jansari, who is the first curator of Indian descent of this collection, made sure to create unexpected moments in the gallery. She highlighted artifacts bequeathed to the museum by South Asian collectors and presented photographs of a modern Jain Temple in...
2020-05-0415 min
Museum Archipelago79. The Future of Hands-On Museum Exhibits with Paul OrselliThe modern museum invites you to touch. Or it would, if it wasn’t closed due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The screens inside the Fossil Hall at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC say “touch to begin” to an empty room. The normally cacophonous hands-on exhibits at the Exploratorium in San Francisco sit eerily silent.
Museum exhibit developer Paul Orselli of Paul Orselli Workshop says he’ll be reluctant to use hands-on exhibits once museums open up again. But he hopes that future hands-on exhibits are more meaningful because museums will work harder to justify...
2020-04-2013 min
Museum Archipelago78. How Museums Present Public Health with Raven Forest FruscalzoMuseums across the globe are now closed because of Covid-19. Some of those shuttered galleries presented the science behind outbreaks like the one we’re living through.
As Raven Forrest Fruscalzo, Content Developer at the Field Museum in Chicago and host of the Tiny Vampires Podcast points out, the fact that museums are closed is an important statement: they trust the scientific information.
In this episode, Forrest Fruscalzo discusses the people that make up public health, how museums can be a trusted source of public health information, and examples of museum galleries that incorporate public he...
2020-03-3013 min
Museum Archipelago77. Trump Asks, “Who's Next?” Lyra Monteiro Answers, Washington’s Next!The statue of George Washington in New York City's Union Square commemorates him on a particular day—November 25th, 1783—the date when the defeated British Army left Manhattan after the American Revolutionary War. The statue celebrates the idea that Washington brought freedom to the country, but professor of history at Rutgers University-Newark Dr. Lyra D. Monteiro researched how many people of African descent that Washington was enslaving on that same date: 271.
Representing these people formed the heart of Washington's Next!, a participatory commemorative experience focused around that statue. In this episode, Monteiro describes how a tweet from Pres...
2020-03-1614 min
Museum Archipelago76. 400 Years Post-Mayflower, the Provincetown Museum Rethinks Its Historical BrandingSometimes, a historical event is all about the branding. And the brand of Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts as the spot where the Mayflower pilgrims first disembarked 400 years ago this year is pretty strong.
The branding is strong enough to override the fact that the Mayflower actually first landed on the other side of Cape Cod, in what is now Provincetown. The Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum commemorates that site. And even within a museum that’s trying to correct an inaccuracy, it has its own to grapple with: the museum used to portray the meetings between th...
2020-03-0212 min
Museum Archipelago75. Museduino: Using Open Source Hardware to Power Museum ExhibitsProprietary technology that runs museum interactives—everything from buttons to proximity sensors—tends to be expensive to purchase and maintain.
But Rianne Trujillo, lead developer of the Cultural Technology Development Lab at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU), realized that one way museums can avoid expensive, proprietary solutions to their technology needs is by choosing open source alternatives. She is part of the team behind Museduino, an open-source system for exhibits and installations.
On this episode, Rianne Trujillo and fellow NMHU instructor of Software Systems Design Jonathan Lee describe the huge potential to applying the open sour...
2020-02-1710 min
Museum Archipelago74. 'Houston, We Have A Restoration' with Sandra TetleyEvery time an Apollo astronaut said the word Houston, they were referring not just to a city, but a specific room in that city: Mission Control. In that room on July 20, 1969, NASA engineers answered radio calls from the surface of the moon. Sitting in front of rows of green consoles, cigarettes in hand, they guided humans safely back to earth, channeling the efforts of the thousands and thousands of people who worked on the program through one room.
But until recently, that room was kind of a mess. After hosting Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and Shuttle missions through 1992...
2020-01-1314 min
Museum Archipelago73. Sanchita Balachandran Shifts the Framework for Conservation with Untold StoriesThe field of conservation was created to fight change: to prevent objects from becoming dusty, broken, or rusted. But fighting to keep cultural objects preserved creates a certain mindset — a mindset where it’s too easy to imagine objects and cultures in a state of stasis.
Sanchita Balachandran, Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, founded Untold Stories to change that mindset in the conservation profession. Through events at the annual meetings of the American Institute for Conservation, Untold Stories expands cultural heritage beyond preserving the objects we might find in a museum.
In this...
2019-12-0214 min
Museum Archipelago72. ‘Speechless: Different by Design’ Reframes Accessibility and Communication in a Museum ContextMuseums tend to be verbal spaces: there’s usually a lot of words. Galleries open with walls of text, visitors are presented with rules of do and don'ts, and audio guides lead headphone-ed users from one piece to the next, paragraph by paragraph.
But Speechless: Different by Design, a new exhibit at the Dallas Art Museum and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, guides visitors as far away as possible from words with six custom art installations.
In this episode, curator Sarah Schleuning and graphic designer Laurie Haycock Makela discuss how their personal experiences le...
2019-11-1814 min
Museum Archipelago71. Assessing Curatorial Work for Social Justice With Elena GonzalesMuseums are seen as trustworthy, but what if that trust is misplaced? Chicago-based independent curator Elena Gonzales provides a solid jumping off point for thinking critically about museums in her new book, Exhibitions for Social Justice.
The book is a whirlwind tour of different museums, examining how they approach social justice. It’s also a guide map for anyone interested in a way forward.
In this episode, Gonzales takes us on a tour of some of the main themes of the book, examining the strategies of museum institutions from the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia to...
2019-10-2815 min
Mac Power UsersIan Elsner & His Stick of Gum PCDavid and Stephen talk with Ian Elsner, a museum exhibit creator who is using the iPhone SE, iPad Pro and an Intel Compute Stick together in some very interesting and unusual ways to help develop educational exhibits for kids and adults.
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2019-10-271h 29
Museum Archipelago70. The Gabrovo Museum of Humor Bolsters Its Legacy of Political Satire Post-CommunismTo the extent that there was a Communist capital of humor in the last half of the 20th century, it was Gabrovo, Bulgaria. Situated in a valley of the Balkan mountains, the city prides itself on its unique brand of self-effacing humor. In 1972, the Museum House of Humor and Satire opened here, and the city celebrated political humor with people in Soviet block countries and even some invited Western guests.
Today, three decades after the collapse of Communism, the Museum House of Humor and Satire remains one of the region's most important cultural landmarks. The museum has...
2019-09-3011 min
Museum Archipelago69. Soviet Spacecraft in the American Heartland: The Story of the Kansas CosmosphereFrom Apollo Mission Control in Houston, Texas, to the field in southeastern Russia where Yuri Gargarin finished his first orbit, there are many sites on earth that played a role in space exploration. But Hutchinson, Kansas isn’t one of them.
And yet, Hutchinson—a town of 40,000 people—is home to the Cosmosphere, a massive space museum. The Cosmosphere boasts an enormous collection of spacecraft, including the largest collection of Soviet space hardware anywhere outside Russia. How did all of these space artifacts end up in the middle of Kansas?
To find out, I visited Hutchi...
2019-08-2611 min
Museum Archipelago68. The Akomawt Educational Initiative Forges a Snowshoe Path to Indigenize MuseumsAkomawt is a Passamaquoddy word for the snowshoe path. At the beginning of winter, the snowshoe path is hard to find. But the more people pass along and carve out this path through the snow during the season, the easier it becomes for everyone to walk it together.
endawnis Spears (Diné/ Ojibwe/ Chickasaw/ Choctaw) is director of programming and outreach for the Akomawt Educational Initiative. She saw a need to supply regional educators with the tools to implement competent education on Native history and Native contemporary issues. She co-founded the Initiative with Chris Newell (Passamaquoddy) and Dr. J...
2019-08-0514 min
Museum Archipelago67. Cité de l'Espace Celebrates Apollo Day from the Middle of the Space RaceCité de l'Espace in Toulouse, France is a museum in the middle. It is in the middle of France’s Aerospace Valley and the European Space Industry. But it is also geographically in the middle of the two competing superpowers in the Space Race that ended with Apollo 11.
From its vantage point in the middle, Cité de l'Espace has its own story to tell. The museum features a mix of Soviet and American space hardware, like an American Apollo lunar module and a Soviet Soyuz capsule. The museum also features an extentive collection of French-made space hardware.
2019-07-1508 min
Museum Archipelago66. From ‘Extinct Monsters’ to ‘Deep Time’: A History of the Smithsonian Fossil HallThe most-visited room in the most-visited science museum in the world reopened last week after a massive, five year renovation. Deep Time, as the new gallery is colloquially known, is the latest iteration of the Fossil Hall at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.
It might not seem like much in geologic time, but the Smithsonian Fossil Hall has been welcoming visitors for more than 100 years. Over those years, the dinosaur bones and other fossils—even some individual specimens—have remained at the center, even as the museum presentation around them has change...
2019-06-1714 min
Museum Archipelago65. Sarah Nguyen Helps Fight Digital Decay with Preserve This PodcastEverything decays. In the past, human heritage that decayed slowly enough on stone, vellum, bamboo, silk, or paper could be put in a museum—still decaying, but at least visible. Today, human heritage is decaying on hard drives.
Sarah Nguyen, a MLIS student at the University of Washington, is the project coordinator of Preserve This Podcast, a project and podcast of the same name that proposes solutions to fight against the threats of digital decay for podcasts. Alongside archivists Mary Kidd and Dana Gerber-Margie, and producer Molly Schwartz, Nguyen advocates for Personal Digital Archiving, the idea that fo...
2019-06-0311 min
Museum Archipelago64. Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Atlantis Experience Is Part Museum, Part Themed AttractionThe Space Shuttle Atlantis Experience, which opened at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida in 2013 brings visitors “nose to nose” with one of the three remaining Space Shuttle orbiters. The team that built it used principles of themed attraction design to introduce visitors to the orbiter and the rest of the exhibits.
Atlantis is introduced linearly and deliberately: visitors see two movies about the shuttle before the actual orbiter is dramatically revealed behind a screen. The orbiter’s grand entrance was designed by PGAV Destinations, whose portfolio includes theme parks and museums. Diane Lochner, a vice...
2019-05-1313 min
Museum Archipelago63. Sex and Death Are on Display at The Museum of Old and New ArtThe Museum of Old and New Art opened in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia in 2011. With a name like that, MONA could include any type of art. But looking at the collection, it’s clear that its creator, millionaire gambler David Walsh, has a fascination with sex and death -- and bets that the rest of us do too.
Walsh himself calls MONA a “subversive adult Disneyland.” The building’s architecture is designed to make you feel lost, and the art is displayed without any labels whatsoever. It’s just you and the art.
In this episode, Hobart-bas...
2019-04-2909 min
Museum Archipelago62. David Gough Reclaims Stewardship of Tiagarra for Aboriginal TasmaniansThe displays at the Tiagarra Cultural Centre and Museum in Devonport, Tasmania, Australia were built in 1976 by non-indigenous citizens and scientists without consulting Aboriginal Tasmanians. David Gough, chairperson of the Six Rivers Aboriginal Corporation, remembers visiting the museum when he was younger and seeing his own culture presented as extinct.
Today, Gough is the manager of Tiagarra. When he took over, one of the first things he did was put masking tape over the inappropriate and incorrect descriptions and write in the correct information. As Gough explains, racist language covered up and written over by the very...
2019-04-1514 min
Museum Archipelago61. Jody Steele Centers the Convict Women of Tasmania's Penal Colonies at the Female FactoryPenal transportation from England to Australia from the late 1700s to the mid-1800s was used to expand Britain's spheres of influence and to reduce overcrowding in British prisons. The male convict experience is well-known, but the Cascades Female Factory in Hobart is at the center of a shift in how Australians think of the role that female convicts played in the colonization of Tasmania.
Dr. Jody Steele, the heritage interpretation manager for the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority, which includes the Female Factory, says that having a convict ancestor used to be considered shameful. But...
2019-04-0114 min
Museum Archipelago60. Stephanie Cunningham on the Creation and Growth of Museum HueThe fight for racial diversity in museums and other cultural institutions is not new: people of color have been fighting for inclusion in white mainstream museums for over 50 years. Dispose these efforts, change has been limited. A 2018 survey by the Mellon Foundation found that 88% of people in museum leadership positions are white.
Stephanie Cunningham has a clear answer for why these white institutions aren’t changing: “When you’ve been practicing exclusion for so long, you can’t change overnight.” That’s one of the reasons why she co-founded Museum Hue with Monica Montgomery in 2015.
In this epis...
2019-03-1814 min
Museum Archipelago59. Faith Displayed As Science: How Creationists Co-opted Museums with Julie GarciaThere’s a new tool in young-Earth creationists' quest for scientific legitimacy: the museum. Over the past 25 years, dozens of so-called creation museums have been built, including the Answers in Genesis (AiG) Creation Museum in Kentucky. Borrowing the style of natural history museums and science centers, these public display spaces use the form and rhetoric of mainstream science to support a belief in the literal truth of the Bible, including the creation of the universe in six days about 6,000 years ago.
In her 2009 thesis, “Faith Displayed As Science: The Role of The Creation Museum in the Modern Crea...
2019-03-0414 min
Museum Archipelago58. Joe Galliano Fills In The UK’s Family Tree At The Queer Britain MuseumJoe Galliano came up with the idea for Queer Britain, the UK’s national LGBTQ+ museum, during the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalization of homosexual acts in England and Wales. Discouraged by the focus on male homosexuality and on legislation, he launched a bid to preserve histories that have been ignored or destroyed. If all goes well, the museum will open in London in a few years.
In this episode, Galliano talks about the UK’s history of anti-gay legislation, how he is working to create a ‘catalytic space’ at Queer Britain, and why the medium of museu...
2019-02-1113 min
Museum Archipelago57. The Colored Conventions Project Resurrects Disremembered History With Denise Burgher, Jim Casey, Gabrielle Foreman, & Many OthersIn American history most often told, the vitality of Black activism has been obscured in favor of celebrating white-lead movements. In the 19th century, an enormous network of African American activists created a series of state and national political meetings known as the Colored Conventions Movement.
The Colored Conventions Project (CCP) is a Black digital humanities initiative dedicated to identifying, collecting, and curating all of the documents produced by the Colored Conventions Movement.
In this episode, two of the CCP’s cofounders and co-directors, Jim Casey and Gabrielle Foreman are joined by Project Fellow Denise Bu...
2019-01-2815 min
Museum Archipelago56. Lana Pajdas Trains Her ‘Fun Museums’ Lens to Croatian Heritage Sites, From The Battle of Vukovar to Over-Tourism in DubrovnikLana Pajdas is the founder of Fun Museums, a heritage and culture travel blog with a radical idea: museums are fun. It is the guiding principle of her museum marketing, consulting work, and even her photographs.
In this episode, Pajdas describes Heritage Sites in her native Croatia, from the interpretation of the 1991 Battle of Vukovar at the Vukovar Municipal Museum to the Game of Thrones-inspired Over-Tourism in Dubrovnik
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2019-01-0710 min
Museum Archipelago55. Barbara Hicks-Collins Is Turning Her Family Home Into the Bogalusa Civil Rights MuseumBarbara Hicks-Collins grew up in a Civil Rights house in Bogalusa, Louisiana. In her family breakfast room in 1965, her father, the late Robert “Bob” Hicks, founded the Bogalusa chapter of the Deacons for Defense and Justice. The armed self-defense force was formed in response to local anti-integration violence that the local police force complicitly supported.
The house became a communication hub, a safe house, and a medical triage station for injured activists denied medical services at the state hospital. After her father’s death, Barbara Hicks-Collins decided that the house has one more chapter: as the Bogalusa Civil...
2018-12-0314 min
Museum Archipelago54. Buzludzha Is Deteriorating. Brian Muthaliff Wants To Turn It Into A Winery.High in the Balkan mountains, Buzludzha monument is deteriorating. Designed to emphasize the power and modernity of the Bulgarian Communist Party, Buzludzha is now at the center of a debate over how Bulgaria remembers its past.
Architect Brian Muthaliff wants the building to evolve along with Bulgaria. His master’s thesis on Buzludzha describes a re-adaption of the site to subvert the original intention of the architecture, including installing a winery and a theater.
Unlike architect Dora Ivanova’s Buzludzha Project, which we discussed at length in episode 47, Muthaliff’s plan only calls for a single...
2018-11-1914 min
Museum Archipelago53. Tribal Historic Preservation Office Helps Students Map Seminole Life for the Ah-tah-thi-ki MuseumThe Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Seminole Indian Museum, on the Big Cypress Reservation in the Florida Everglades, serves as the public face of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. But the museum collaborates with the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO) next door to preserve the tribe's culture, working for and with the community through various shared projects.
One of the projects is called Are We There Yet: Engaging the Tribal Youth with Story Maps, which is now on display in the museum. Quenton Cypress, Community Engagement Coordinator at THPO, and Lacee Cofer, Geo Spatial Analyst at TH...
2018-11-0512 min
Museum Archipelago52. Paula Santos Dives Into The "How" of Museum Work on Cultura ConsciousBy day, Paula Santos is Community Engagement Manager at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. By night, she hosts the excellent Cultura Conscious podcast.
On Cultura Conscious, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary, Santos interviews cultural workers on their work with justice and equity. The discussions dive deep into what Santos calls the "nuts and bolts" of museum work.
On this episode, Santos describes her thoughts about the relationship between cultural institutions and the communities they identify as “underserved,” gives examples on how institutions can cede power, and explains how the idea for her podc...
2018-10-1510 min
Museum Archipelago51. Yulina Mihaylova Presents a Moral Lesson at the Sofia Jewish Museum of HistoryThe Jewish Museum of History in Sofia, Bulgaria is housed on the second floor of the Sofia Synagogue in the center of Bulgaria's capital, just steps away from an Orthodox Church, and Sofia's Mosque. This clustering of places of worship — it's hard to find another example of this in Europe — is part of the unique story of Jewish people in Bulgaria.
While the museum tells the full story of the Jewish people in Bulgaria from ancient Roman times to today, Yulina Mihaylova of the Jewish Museum of History says that the culmination of the story is the resc...
2018-10-0112 min
Museum Archipelago50. Allison Sansone Connects Writers and Readers at the American Writers MuseumWhen the American Writers Museum opened in Chicago in 2017, it became the first museum in the US to celebrate all genres of writing. Early in the planning phase, founder Malcolm O’Hagan made a couple of key decisions: no artifacts and no single curator.
In this episode, the museum’s programs director Allison Sansone explains how these decisions continue to shape the museum, from a timeline of 100 significant authors of fiction and nonfiction to galleries honoring the craft of writing.
This episode was recorded at the American Writers Museum in Chicago, IL, USA on September 2nd...
2018-09-1709 min
Museum Archipelago49. Deyana Kostova Centers ‘The Little Man’ in War at the Bulgarian National Museum of Military HistoryThe campus of the Bulgarian National Museum of Military History in Sofia is defended on all sides by a garden of missiles and tanks. But as Director of Public Relations Deyana Kostova points out, many of the exhibits inside focus on the consequences of war rather than the tools of warfare.
One of these exhibits, called 'The Little Man in the Great War', explores the Bulgarian World War I experience through overarching emotions. In this episode, Kostova gives a tour of the exhibit, explains how the museum contextualizes Bulgarian and world history, and describes the mission of...
2018-09-0310 min
Museum Archipelago48. Museums Are Really Sensitive To Critique. Palace Shaw & Ariana Lee Decided They Don’t Care.Ariana Lee and Palace Shaw create The Whitest Cube, an excellent new museum podcast about people of color and their experiences with art institutions as artists, visitors, workers, activists, or casual admirers. The podcast interrogates the city of Boston and its museums through the lens of race.
In this episode, Lee and Shaw talk about the reasons for starting the podcast, what diversity in museums really means, and how to pressure cultural institutions to change. If you’re interested in museums, you should subscribe to the Whitest Cube on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, or Instagram. You can support th...
2018-08-2012 min
Museum Archipelago47. Buzludzha is Deteriorating. Dora Ivanova Wants To Turn It Into A Museum.High in the Bulgarian mountains, Buzludzha monument is deteriorating. Commemorating early Bulgarian Marxists, it was designed to emphasize the power and modernity of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Buzludzha is now at the center of a debate over how Bulgaria remembers its past. Some people want to destroy it, some people want to restore it to its former glory, but Bulgarian architect Dora Ivanova has a better idea.Ivanova wants to turn it into a museum, and she founded the Buzludzha Project Foundation to do exactly that. In this episode, Ivanova describes how the city of Berlin...
2018-07-2309 min
Museum Archipelago46. Vessela Gercheva Directs Playful Exhibits at Bulgaria’s First Children’s MuseumThere were no children’s museums in the Balkans before Muzeiko opened in Sofia, Bulgaria in 2015. Days before Muzeiko’s historic opening, I interviewed Vessela Gercheva, the museum’s Programs and Exhibits Director. Gercheva talked about the challenges of opening the museum, not the least of which was how few people actually knew what a children’s museum was.Today, almost three years later, Gercheva says things have changed. Muzeiko is packed with kids, careening through exhibits designed just for them. Gercheva and Muzeiko are at the forefront of a shifting attitude towards children's education in Bulgaria. T...
2018-07-0910 min
Museum Archipelago45. Margaret Middleton Designs Museum Exhibits for All AgesMargaret Middleton is an independent exhibit designer and museum consultant based in Providence, RI, USA. Middleton recently completed the design of the children's exhibits at the Discovery Museum in Acton, MA, USA. Driven by a background in industrial design and queer activism, Middleton is passionate about creating visitor-centered museum experiences, and writes and speaks about inclusion in museums. In 2014 Middleton developed the Family Inclusive Language Chart, now widely used in museums across the country.In this episode, Middleton describes what makes exhibit design for children's museums so unique and exciting and what other types of museums can...
2018-06-2511 min
Museum Archipelago44. Vassil Makarinov Presents Technology and History at the Bulgarian Polytechnical MuseumThe Bulgarian National Polytechnical Museum is a science museum that also tells the story of Bulgarian and world history. The building itself once housed a museum of a Bulgarian communist leader, and the technical artifacts on display, from simple machines to Bulgarian-made computers from the 1980s present both scientific concepts and the political contexts in which they were developed.In this episode, curator Vassil Macaranov describes how the increasing role of technology in our lives underscores the importance of presenting scientific and technological artifacts with their historical contexts.This episode was recorded at the Bulgarian...
2018-06-1111 min
Museum Archipelago43. Blake Bradford Aims To Increase Number of Black Museum Professionals with Lincoln University ProgramIn episode 36 of this podcast, Bill Bradberry, Chair of the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Area Commission, described encountering the glaring lack of cultural diversity within and around the museum industry, particularly in leadership. He cited the new Museum Studies program at Lincoln University as an example of a program that addresses the problem directly.
Blake Bradford is the director of that Museum Studies Program, a partnership between Lincoln University and the Barnes Foundation. In this episode, Bradford describes ways to change museum institutions that already consider themselves successful. He also talks about museums as public-facing...
2018-05-2811 min
Museum Archipelago42. Freddi Williams Evans and Luther Gray Are Erecting Historic Markers on the Slave Trade in New OrleansUntil a few weeks ago, one of the only places in downtown New Orleans acknowledging the city’s slave-trading past was a marker in Congo Square, erected in 1997. The New Orleans Committee to Erect Historic Markers on the Slave Trade has since put up two new markers, one on the transatlantic slave trade along the Moonwalk and another on the domestic slave trade at the intersection of Esplanade Avenue and Chartres Street. Author and historian Freddi Williams Evans and activist Luther Gray are the two original co-chairs of the committee.In this episode, Evans and Gray describe Ne...
2018-05-1413 min
Museum Archipelago41. 16,000 Years at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter with David ScofieldView Shownotes
As the oldest site of human habitation in North America, the Meadowcroft Rockshelter has a challenge: how to convey its mind-boggling timescale, spanning from prehistory to the 19th century? David Scofield, director of the Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village, describes how the museum is designed to connect the big changes in how people lived through 16,000 years of history.
The Meadowcroft Rockshelter opens for its 50th season on May 5th, 2018. It is part of the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pennsylvania.
Made possible by listeners like you. Join Club Archipelago today.
2018-04-3009 min
Museum Archipelago40. Conserving Digital Photos with Jenny Mathiasson and Kloe RumseyView Shownotes
Jenny Mathiasson and Kloe Rumsey started The C Word: The Conservators’ Podcast to broadcast their friendly and professional discussions about conservation. Each episode features a different hot topic in the conservation world, and the podcast stands out for its hosts willingness to tackle complex topics.In this episode, the hosts discuss whether photos are data or objects, the Digitized Photograph Project at the Rwandan Genocide Memorial Centre, and museums asking people to bring in their own objects. For new listeners, Mathiasson and Rumsey recommend starting with S01E01: Demographics.Mad...
2018-04-1609 min
Museum Archipelago39. Hans Sloane and the Origins of the British Museum with James DelbourgoOver the course of his long life, Hans Sloane collected tens of thousands of items which became the basis for what is today the British Museum. Funded in large part by his marriage into the enslaving plantocracy of Jamaica and the Atlantic slave trade, and aided by Britain’s rising colonial power and global reach, he assembled an encyclopedic collection of specimens and objects from all around the world.James Delbourgo, professor of History of Science and Atlantic World at Rutgers University, is the author of Collecting the World: Hans Sloane and the Origins of the British Mu...
2018-04-0212 min
Museum Archipelago38. Conservation in the 21st Century with Sanchita BalachandranImage: Sanchita Balachandran. Photo Credit: James Rensselaer.
Sanchita Balachandran, Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, hopes to see the field of conservation develop into more of a social process, rather than simply a technical one.From her 2016 talk at the American Institute for Conservation’s Annual Meeting, to teaching her students how to interrogate an object in person, to her Untold Stories project, Balachandran has thought critically about the role of conservators. In this epsiode, Balachandran talks about her early formative experiences in the field of conservation and how whether or not someone’s hi...
2018-03-1913 min
Museum Archipelago37. The National Public Housing Museum with Robert J. Smith IIIIt would have been much easier to build the National Public Housing Museum from scratch instead of retrofitting it in the last remaining building of the Jane Addams Homes, the first public housing development in Chicago. But doing so would have undermined one of the core principles of the museum: that place has power. Robert J. Smith III, the associate director of the National Public Housing Museum, describes the mission of the museum as preserving, promoting, and propelling housing as a human right. In this epsiode, he describes the history of the Jane Addams Homes, how national p...
2018-03-0513 min
Museum Archipelago36. The Underground Railroad in Niagara Falls with Bill BradberryBill Bradberry, the President and Chairman of the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Area Commission, thinks of the entire city of Niagara Falls, NY as an open crime scene from “the crime of holding people in bondage, and the man-made crime of trying to escape.” With Canada just across the Niagara river, the Commission conducts research on the Underground Railroad as it relates to Niagara Falls and the surrounding area — for some, the last terminus in the United States.The Commission will open the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center on May 4th, 2018. Bradberry hopes that the center...
2018-02-1912 min
Museum Archipelago35. Cartoons from the Museum Floor with Attendants ViewAttendants View is a blog of hand-drawn, single page cartoons that capture a slice of a museum attendant’s day. The comics show confused visitors, tourists asking the same questions over and over again, and museum board members flouting the rules.The writer and illustrator behind Attendants View has been creating comics about her experiences in museums for the past seven years. About 60% of the comics are about something that has happened to her or around her personally, and the rest come from stories colleagues and others have told her. She wants anyone to feel comfortable sharing th...
2018-02-0510 min
Museum Archipelago34. Erotic Heritage Museum with Dr. Victoria HartmannThe Las Vegas Erotic Heritage Museum is the largest erotic museum in the world. Sex scholar Dr. Victoria Hartmann has been the museum’s director since 2014, and her mission is to create a space for people to safely explore and engage the topic of human sexuality.Dr. Hartmann thinks museums too often tell the visitor what to think. She would rather use visitors’ responses to the galleries as a starting point to further discussions.At the Erotic Heritage Museum, there is a lot to react to: a statue of Donald Trump next to a galley of p...
2018-01-2207 min
Museum Archipelago33. Icelandic Museums with Hannah HethmonIceland has many more museums per person than the UK and the US. The country is also in the middle of a massive tourism boom: there are several times more tourists than residents. Hannah Hethmon, an American museum professional and Fulbright Fellow living in Reykjavík, was interested in this abundance of museums and the nature of museum tourism in Iceland.Her Fulbright project is the podcast Museums in Strange Places, which explores these and other Icelandic museum topics. In each episode, Hannah brings listeners through a different museum through the stories of the people who work t...
2018-01-0812 min
Museum Archipelago32. What a Museum on the Moon Might Look Like With Michelle HanlonImage: The Lower Half of the Apollo 17 Lunar Lander in a debris field in the Taurus–Littrow valley. This view was captured minutes after the last humans left the moon and it would look exactly the same today.
What humans left behind on the moon are part of our human heritage, on par with Laetoli and Lascaux. Unlike human heritage sites on earth, the lunar landing sites are pristine, completely untouched by natural erosion or human disruption. But the lunar landing sites are also unprotected. On earth, protecting heritage sites is a national affair: countries nominate sites wi...
2017-12-2513 min
Museum Archipelago31. Habemus with Romina Frontini & Christian DíazHabemus is a Spanish-language radio program about museum topics broadcasting out of Bahía Blanca, Argentina. Every Friday from 9 to 11pm, team members interview museum people and promote an ideology of fun and hacks in museums.The title is a play on words — linking the Spanish word “museos” with the Latin verb “we have.” Since the show is on a popular radio station, Habemus team members Romina Frontini and Christian Díaz say it’s up to them to introduce museum topics to a general audience.In this episode, Romina Frontini and Christian Díaz talk about thei...
2017-12-1111 min
Museum Archipelago30. Visitors of Color with Dr. Porchia MooreDr. Porchia Moore, Inclusion Catalyst at the Columbia Museum of Art, started Visitors of Color with nikhil trivedi in 2015.Visitors of Color is a Tumblr project that documents the perspectives and experiences of marginalized people in museums. It is a record of what the museum experience can be like for people who are often discussed but whose voices are rarely privileged, people that don’t feel welcome in museums, and people that don’t feel like nearby museum spaces are for them.In this episode, Dr. Moore discusses the Museum Computer Network conference where the proj...
2017-11-0611 min
Museum Archipelago29. A Digital Approach to Museum MapsImage: An example of a digital mapping tool, Mapbox Studio Classic.
Everything happens at a time and a place. In a museum, that coordinate system can help keep a story straight, even if it is not at the forefront of a gallery. And when designing maps for museums, we should keep in mind how humanistic digital tools are — and how helpful they can be to museum visitors.We should pay close attention to mental map matching. Museum visitors have a sense of geography marked by their own lived experiences. What feels like an important city la...
2017-10-2304 min
Museum Archipelago28. Leaving the Museum Field with Marieke Van DammeExecutive Director of the Cambridge Historical Society Marieke Van Damme affectionately calls anyone working in the museum field “Museum People.” On her excellent podcast of the same name, she interviews museum people every episode. Many museum people are museum workers.In 2016, together with other noted museum professionals (Sarah Erdman, Claudia Ocello and Dawn Estabrooks Salerno), Marieke asked why museum workers leave the field. Last month, they published a summary of the findings titled, Leaving the Museum Field.As Marieke explains, she always knew that working in the museum field is hard. Museum workers face difficult cond...
2017-10-0911 min
Museum Archipelago27. Yo, Museum ProfessionalsYo, museum professionals: exhibitions aimed at kids should not include interactive screens in galleries. You're undermining your mission!— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) September 4, 2017
Notably missing from discussions like these is a willingness to defend the interactive screen. The defense is simple: concepts that museums are tasked with teaching aren’t tangible anymore. Today’s students learn complex concepts that kids weren’t exposed to a generation ago. Even basic knowledge of science today requires a deep understanding of systems and ecosystems and how they interact at different scales. Interactive screens provide the conceptual tools, like rescaling and simul...
2017-09-1204 min
Museum Archipelago26. Arab American National Museum with Devon AkmonImage: Arab American National Museum photo by knightfoundation CC BY-SA 2.0.
Before the Arab American National Museum opened in Dearborn, MI in 2005, there wasn’t a singular museum telling the Arab American story. The museum defines the Arab World as 22 countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Southeast Michigan has the highest concentration of people from the Arab World in North America, and much of the social, religious, cultural, and commercial enterprises are centered in Dearborn. In this episode, museum director Devon Akmon describes the process of using arts and culture as a mech...
2017-08-2812 min
Museum Archipelago25. The Museum of Socialist Art in Sofia, Bulgaria is Figuring Out What to Do With All the LeninsAfter the fall of communism in Bulgaria in 1989, statues of Bulgarian communist leaders, idealized revolutionary workers, and Lenins were taken down all over the county. Some of these statues are now in the Museum of Socialist Art in Sofia. Bulgaria doesn’t have a history museum that explores its communist past. The Museum of Socialist Art doesn’t fill that void, exactly: it is an extension of the Bulgarian National Gallery of Art.
In this episode, museum director Nikolai Ushtavaliiski and art historian Elitsa Terzieva talk about organizing the past by focusing on art. The outdoor sculpture gard...
2017-07-1708 min
Museum Archipelago24. College Hill and the International Slave Trade Walking Tour with Elon CookElon Cook created the College Hill and the International Slave Trade Walking Tour in Providence after researching the crucial and massive role that Rhode Island played in the history of slavery.The walking tour covers an an area of about one square mile in and around Brown University. Here, wealth and stability were created off of the buying and selling of enslaved people in Rhode Island and elsewhere.The built landscape of Providence serves as a museum without walls, and Elon considers each of the stops on the tour to be a different mini-exhibition.
2017-07-0310 min
Museum Archipelago23. Museum-Metro Station HybridsImage: An early rendering of the Serdika station in Sofia, Bulgaria, displaying Roman ruins on the first level underneath the street.
During the planning stages for the Sofia Metro in Bulgaria, ruins of an old Roman fortress and city wall were discovered at the network’s proposed Serdika station. This wasn’t a surprise. People have been living in what is now Sofia for at least 4,000 years, and when you dig a tunnel, you’re bound to find something. The agendas of archaeologists and metro builders are often contradictory. Metro builders want to proceed quickly, while ar...
2017-06-0505 min
Museum Archipelago22. Guide Training at Akagera National Park with Lisa BrochuI met interpretive planner Lisa Brochu in Akagara National Park in Rwanda. I was there as a tourist, and she was there as a guide trainer.Lisa’s teaching stresses that the best way to communicate with the visiting public is by having strong, central theme. At Akagara National Park, park-employed and community freelance guides are the ones doing that communication. By working with them, Lisa hopes visitors’ experience in Akegara will stick with them longer. Lisa teaches that instead of rattling off a list of facts, guides should bundle them together with a strong, centr...
2017-05-1510 min
Museum Archipelago21. Apollo 11 Historic SiteEven before I started working in the museum field, I was thinking about the future museum at the Apollo 11 landing site at Tranquility Base on the moon. The site is special. No matter how the human experiment turns out, the site will represent the first step off earth. Now Tranquility Base is a pile of historical artifacts in their original context. Even the astronauts' footprints in the delicate, powder-like dust of the lunar surface are still there. How should we treat this well-preserved historic site? What will the museum at the site have to say to...
2017-05-0105 min
Museum Archipelago20. Universal Design at the White House Visitor Center with Sherril YorkDr. Sherril York, executive director of the National Center on Accessibility, was part of the team that renovated the White House Visitor Center in 2012. Design priorities included making the experience accessible for all visitors.The new visitor center features raised line floor plans, tactile 3D models, and physical directional keys adjacent to touchscreens.In this episode, based on her case study for the fall 2015 issue of the Exhibitionist, Dr. York describes the process of working on alternative navigation methods, explains the difference between accessability and universal design, and underscores the importance of not thinking about a...
2017-04-1809 min
Museum Archipelago19. Remembering the Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi at the Kigali Genocide Memorial CentreWhen the Kigali Genocide Memorial was first built in 1999, it was a burial site outside the Rwandan capitol city for thousands of victims of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi. Rwandans came to visit the final resting place of friends and family. Today, the city has expanded to envelop the memorial, which has also expanded to include a museum and archive.We talk with Honoré Gatera, the manager of the memorial, about what the center means to the city and country in 2017 and why a museum is the right medium for the center.This podcast w...
2017-04-0315 min
Museum Archipelago18. Maps and the 20th Century at the British LibraryImage: Two propaganda maps at the Maps and the 20th Century exhibit at the British Library.
The Maps and the 20th Century exhibit at the British Library is quick to get to central theme of the exhibition: in order to understand a map, you must understand how and why it was made. Maps are not neutral. In a museum context, however, it can be tempting to present a map as the source of truth.Topics Discussed:00:00: Intro00:14: Maps in Museums01:08: Limiting the Gallery to the 20th Century01:45: “Global Nor...
2017-02-2704 min
Museum Archipelago17. Entertainment and History at Disney's AmericaImage: A Civil War-era village that would have served as the hub of Disney's America. Image (c) Disney
In 1994, Disney was hard at work on a new theme park called Disney's America. The park, which would open in Virginia not far from Washington DC, would showcase the “sweep of American History.” Confident and enthusiastic, Disney executives were walking a tightrope between entertainment and history.Topics Discussed:00:00: Intro00:14: Disney's America00:37: "The Complexity of the American Experience" 01:24: Themed Lands at the Magic Kingdom01:50: Themed Lands at Disney's America03:10: "Seriou...
2017-02-0606 min
Museum Archipelago16. Visitation Trends at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Seminole Indian MuseumThe Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Seminole Indian Museum is commemorating three anniversaries in 2017: the 200-year anniversary of the first attack of the Seminole War, the 60th anniversary of federal recognition of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the 20th anniversary of the opening of the museum.Carrie Dilley, Visitor Services and Development Manager at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki museum, compiles data collected from visitors. Last year, she discovered that visitors from one third of countries visited the museum, including a surprising number of Europeans. In this episode, Carrie discusses possible reasons behind the visitation numbers, some museum goals for the n...
2017-01-1611 min
Museum Archipelago15. Tamar Avishai's The Lonely PaletteThe Lonely Palette is the best museum podcast out there. Host Tamar Avishai wants to make art more accessible and to help people feel more comfortable talking about what they see in museums. She uses her experience as a Spotlight Lecturer at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston as a jumping off point for her relaxed and unconventional approach to art history. Topics discussed:00:00 Intro00:16 Tamar Avishai00:29 The Lonely Palette01:26 Museum education as a recent addition to the museum experience02:04 Museum education making visitors feel welcome02:49 Spotlight lectures at the M...
2017-01-0212 min
Museum Archipelago14. Early Interpretive Planning at the National Museum of African American History and CultureImage: Guard tower from Camp H at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola at the National Museum Of African American History And Culture
The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) opened in September 2016. Today we will talk to some of the people who were thinking about the museum in 2007.Sara Smith and Andrew Anway were part of the Interpretive Planing team. They discuss NMAAHC director Lonnie Bunch's guiding principals for the museum as a whole, trips to other museums during the planning process, and the mission to show that what is happening...
2016-12-1211 min
Museum Archipelago13. Museums at a Crossroads with Rainey TisdaleCurator Rainey Tisdale sees two possible futures for museums: they play a more interdisciplinary role for their audiences or keep going down the same path they're on, becoming less and less relevant each year.Why should it be the job of the museum to enter the domain of other traditional institutions? And how can museums engage the public in new ways? By bringing together brain, body and spirit.Notes:- City Stories- @raineytisdale
2016-06-2304 min
Museum Archipelago12. Dead Bodies in Museums Part 2Image: Lenin's mausoleum, Moscow. CC by Veni
The American Association of Museums (AAM) has this to say about human remains in its code of ethics: “The unique and special nature of human remains and funerary and sacred objects is recognized as the basis of all decisions concerning such collections collections-related activities promote the public good rather than individual financial gain.” When AAM uses the word “special,” it means that every instance of a dead body is special, not a special body from a special person. What is different about displaying the everyman?In the second half of...
2016-05-2407 min
Museum Archipelago11. Dead Bodies in Museums Part 1Image: A rendering of Minik in the New York World
When Robert Peary brought six Inuits from Greenland back from his Arctic expedition, they landed in the care of the American Museum of Natural History. Among these people were an eight year old boy named Minik and his father Qisuk.After Qisuk became ill and died, the museum staged a fake burial and put his remains in the museum as artifacts. This is part one of a two-part series on dead bodies in museums.NOTES: Give Me My Father's Bo...
2016-04-2206 min
Museum Archipelago10. Framework For Engaging with ArtAt an art museum, would you rather listen to a detailed guided tour or just enjoy the art without any interpretative support? Are you more comfortable visiting with a friend, or do you prefer being in a group of interested strangers? The Dallas Museum of Art has determined that visitors fall into one of four clusters, based on their preferred learning styles. While she was director of the museum, Bonnie Pitman applied the results of the survey to make the museum more engaging to all types of visitors.In this episode, we take a look a...
2016-04-0409 min
Museum Archipelago9. The Museum Selfie with Dustin GrowickDustin Growick is in charge of audience development and the team lead for science at Museum Hack. Growick and Museum Hack treat a museum as a platform to build something more personal and fun.
One of the tools that they use to make it more personal and fun is the museum selfie. The theory is that taking selfies is easy way to put yourself literally and figuratively in the context of the museum.
In this this episode, Growick discusses the philosophy (as well as some dos and don'ts) of museum selfies.
Museum Archipelago...
2016-03-1104 min
Museum Archipelago8. Calatrava and the Museum IconThis week, we visit two museum works by architect Santiago Calatrava: the Prince Felipe Museum of Science in Valencia, Spain and the Milwaukee Art Museum in Milwaukee, USA. Both museums look nothing like the museum icon on maps and in mapping programs. Do these facades have anything to say about about what the museum icon might look like in 50 years? Do these buildings even make good museums?Correction: This episode misidentifies the Milwaukee Art Museum as the Milwaukee Public Museum. Notes: Santiago Calatrava - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaCity of Arts an...
2016-02-1006 min
Museum Archipelago7. What Happens to Dead Amusement Parks?Most of the time, nothing.This week, special guest Carole Sanderson of the National Roller Coaster Museum and Archives describes the process and challenges of documenting the entertainment industry.Notes:Six Flags New Orleans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaNational Roller Coaster Museum: WelcomeMatterhorn Bobsleds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaSpecial thanks to Carole Sanderson
2016-01-2709 min
Museum Archipelago6. MuzeikoUntil Muzeiko opened in Sofia, Bulgaria on October 1st 2015, there were no children’s museums in the Balkans. One of the reasons for the lack of children’s museums was a cultural attitude towards childhood education during communist times, according to Vessela Gercheva, the Programs and Exhibits Director for Muzeiko.In this episode, Museum of Museums visits Muzeiko to find a shifting attitude towards children's education. Notes:Muzeiko - Official SiteA Children’s Museum Comes to Bulgaria - NYT
2015-10-0106 min
Museum Archipelago5. StalinWorldImage: Monika Bernotas and her family interact with statues of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin that were previously located in the cities of Lithuania at Grutas park.
Go to the central square of any Soviet influenced country like Lithuania, and you will find empty pedestals.The pedestals used hold monuments to Soviet leaders. Where there once were statues of Lenin and Stalin, you now find overgrown bushes and pop-up cell phone stores. Where are the statues now? In Lithuania, they are in a pseudo-theme park called Grūtas Park or, unofficially, Stalin World.
2015-07-2407 min
Museum Archipelago4. Bison Hunt on HorsebackBuilt in 1966, the Bison Hunt on Horseback diorama at the Milwaukee Public Museum is a throwback to an older style of exhibit, without projectors or screens. In this epsiode, Dr. Ellen Censky, Senior Vice President and Academic Dean at the Milwaukee Public Museum, talks about the diorama and modern exhibit design.
Museum Archipelago is a tiny show guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, or Spotify to never miss an epsiode.
2015-05-2706 min
Museum Archipelago3. Museum Authority in a World of User-Generated Content with Seb ChanAs one of the nation's most-trusted category of institutions, museums project an enormous amount of authority over their subject matter. In this episode, Seb Chan, Director of Digital & Emerging Technologies at Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, talks about the ways that museums can share that authority with museum visitors comfortable with a less top-down approach to authority.
For discussions on how museum's got to amass so much authority, stay tuned to Museum Archipelago.
Museum Archipelago is a tiny show guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts...
2015-05-0510 min
Museum Archipelago2. LabelsEarly 20th century cartoons showed exhausted visitors craning their necks to read labels and stopping over to examine artifacts. What's the story 100 years later?
Topics and LinksExhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach by Beverly SerrellMUSEUM FATIGUE, 1928, JAMA
Museum Archipelago is a tiny show guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, or Spotify to never miss an epsiode.
2015-04-1505 min
Museum Archipelago1. LobbyThe lobby is where you transform from an ordinary person into a museum visitor.
In this first episode of Museum Archipelago, host Ian Elsner introduces the show and describes the transformative power of the museum lobby.
Topics Discussed:
The British Museum by J. Mordaunt Crook
The museum foyer as a transformative space of communication by Ditte Laursen, Erik Kristiansen, and Kirsten Drotner.
Museum Archipelago is a tiny show guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, or even email to never miss...
2015-04-0304 min