Other things that have gotten me suddenly excited and back here blogging (other than International Museum Day 2010) is that this coming weekend i'll be heading to Ottawa, Canada's capital!
Yes, you say.. very well.. And why is that exciting?
Because Ottawa has a whole bunch of museums! National Gallery of Canada, Canadian Museum of Civilisation, Canadian War Museum, and the soon to be reopened (this weekend!) Canadian Museum of Nature! There's also historic buildings and all that jazz, too. I'm hoping that my renewed vigor for the blog, plus visiting some new museums, will help with content here. I'm also heading back to London to visit in a couple of weeks, so depending on what museums I get time to visit then, i'll have a UK report too. Exciting, no?
I do want to keep up with the more "thinky-thoughts" blogs like the deaccessioning one though so i'll be keeping my eyes peeled for ideas there. And if the handful of you out there reading have anything to input, it'd be great!
I'm finding it increasingly hard to keep positive and keep my mind "in the game" museums-wise seeing as it's been well over a year since I last worked in anything remotely resembling a museum job, too! I am hoping this will keep me focused and interested.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
On blogging and keeping enthusiastic about museums
Sunday, January 18, 2009
To Do, revisited; London's 'secret museums'
This past week's issue of Time Out has a feature on 'London's Secret Museums', so I grabbed a copy to see what they recommend. There's only 30 listed in the feature article in the museum, but there's 70 in the online version of the list - well worth a look. I'd heard of a number on the print list, even visited one or two and worked at one (the Garden Museum). There was another on the list which i'd planned to go to before picking up the mag, and it was even on my to-do list: the Hunterian Museum. Terrific little university medical museum - I loved the layout and the way they display specimens there. Fascinating and disgusting and informative, all wrapped up in a pleasing museum environment. Definitely worth a visit!
Having browsed Time Out a bit more (there had to be a point to spending a few quid on it!) I realised that in addition to visiting the museums on my to-do list plus adding a few more, i've got a few exhibitions i'd like to go and see, even if they're at museums i've already visited. So I have updated my list to reflect those as well, and we'll see how it all goes. Hopefully by the start of next month (after getting back from Berlin) I can tick off the Science Museum and Grant Museum of Zoology too!
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Lange Nacht Der Museen
Later this month i'm heading back to Berlin for the Lange Nacht Der Museen (long night of museums), as I had so much fun in August I couldn't resist heading back. I'm flying over with my flatmate Liz and a friend of ours from up north, Amy - going to be staying in Potsdam with friends and heading in en masse to flit between all the museums that take our fancy. (I'm going to warm up a couple of days before we leave by going along to the Science Museum Lates event here in London!)
The last trip I managed to see (including the long night and using our SchauLust card all the other days we stayed):
The Ethnographic Museum
The Altes Museum
Pergamon Museum
Museum of Film and TV
Museum of Musical Instruments
Deutsches Teknik Museum
Checkpoint Charlie/Wall Museum
Schloss Charlottenburg
Museum of Natural History
Museum of Medical History
(My Flickr set of the whole trip includes loads of pics from museums visited.)
This time i'm sure i'll go back to a few of those i've visited because (a) they're terrific museums worth revisiting and (b) there are some special events at certain museums for the long night so we might catch some of those. I'm also hoping to get to:
Berliner Dom
Deutsches Historisches Museum
DDR Museum
Zoo Aquarium Berlin
Zeiss Grossplanetarium
But we won't really know til we hit the streets and spend 6pm - 2am wandering them! Oh boy it's gonna be COLD. I think that's why the program is a bit shorter this time 'round, being winter rather than the milder weather of autumn of last year. More excuse to stop in for a warming round of coffee before shuttling to the next museum if you ask me!
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Getting the job done
I've had a big week of visiting, some new and some repeats. But I have made progress on my "to visit list" which I am quite chuffed at. Capped it off with Kew Gardens today, which was gorgeous despite the brisk weather. Should be doing the Tower of London soon, so there's some more ticky-boxes happening. I'll be updating my Flickr with stuff as I go, so you can click down there and check it out.
I've also done a bit of updating of my master list, and the UK is looking sorta crazy! Here I was thinking i'd not seen much at all. Still a lot of link sto add, but the list itself is going well. I do think it was slightly optimistic thinking i'd add a short review for everything on my list at some point - I think i'll leave that to reviews of particular exhibitions (like the Darwin one from last weekend) more than anything else.
Back to the BM this week to do a little temping in my old job - then it's back to hanging around waiting for a bit more work over xmas/new years. It's very quiet at the moment, and due to my less than ideal visa situation i've given up on applying for real jobs (although even those have been quiet!).
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Darwin Big Idea exhibition at the Natural History Museum, London
As part of the many and varied celebrations of the upcoming 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, the Natural History Museum in London opened their exhibit 'Darwin: Big Idea Exhibition' this past weekend. Myself and my flatmate Liz found out about it a couple of weeks back thanks to an ad in the tube, while we just happened to have a little friend with us:
She being a longterm Darwin geek and myself having long been interested in evolutionary biology (especially with regard to physical anthropology), we decided we needed to see it! And although the opening weekend was possibly a poor choice of timing (I was surprised at the amount of people in there for a Saturday afternoon, assuming everyone was just around for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards), it was well worth going to see.
We spent a good hour or so in there, and that was even with skipping over some text and a video or two due to the crowding - there is most certainly plenty to see. The exhibition follows a pretty straightforward narrative starting with Darwin ending up being part of the Beagle team, working through that voyage and Darwin's discoveries and observations along the way, then looking at the immense amount of work and research he did in the years following that and leading up to the publishing of On the Origin of Species. Toward the end of the exhibition it moves away from Darwin-specific narrative and looks broadly at evolutionary theory and evidence, with practical examples (casts, skulls etc) and videos/blurbs on the teaching of evolutionary theory, and where evolutionary theory stands in modern science and society.
The content and structure of the exhibition is excellent, it follows a simple and logical structure with just the right amount of information without being overwhelming. I liked that there were little asides about scientific facts, or certain environments and animals that Darwin would've encountered. There were a goodly amount of graphics used - the one that stood out most for me and that i'm still recalling is a large map that filled a wall, detailing the voyage of the Beagle and how long it took; i'd no idea until then just what an epic journey it had been! I can understand Darwin's joy at getting the chance to tag along.
More than anything though, the amount and quality of artefacts and specimens on display really highlighted the exhibition for me - no section was sparse in the Darwin-specific sections (and even the latter part of the exhibition was still illustrated reasonably well with specimens and graphics). Some of my favourite items were Darwin's notebooks and letters, detailing his notes and conversations from the time when he was starting to form his ideas and theories about evolution and natural selection - and his first sketch of what is now known as an evolutionary tree was actually quite thrilling to see. All this thought and puzzling over issues, these brilliant minds coming together to nut out details of what we all take for granted today, it was quite amazing.
Of course, Darwin's list of pros and cons of marriage was a lovely, hilarious inclusion ("less time for clever conversations at the gentleman's club", "not as much money for books" - Oh, Darwin.).
As an admirer of Darwin and biological science as a whole, I found the exhibition incredibly interesting and rewarding. As a museum enthusiast, I feel it's been done very well. I shall have to go back again if and when it gets quieter, for a more thorough go through - I can definitely recommend it to anyone to go and see if they can!
And now I really want to visit Darwin's house, but that'll have to wait til next year.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Visitor experience and technology in the Getty Center.
I was recently pointed toward the podcast of Dave Cronin's presentation at this year's Ideas Conference (the slides and podcast can be found here), Art for the public: supporting a visitor-directed museum experience. Cronin works for Cooper, a consulting company brought in to develop and implement new technologies to enhance visitor experience to the Getty Center art museum in LA; the podcast was essentially a presentation of this as a case study, and was a very interesting listen.
They redeveloped the computer 'kiosk' system, replaced audioguides with handhelds, and integrated it all with the Getty Center's website. They fed a lot of visitor experience data into the development of this, which is a fantastic way to make sure the technologies you're putting in are going to work for the visitors, rather than dumping technologies in and trying to make the visitors use and enjoy it. What I liked about their approach to developing this stuff was that it wasn't all just about education/information about what was in galleries, but also about wayfinding and orientation in the museum. I like that mix of practical and educational info.
I also found the way they examined the visitors interesting - they looked at the varying levels of art knowledge people have, the things they might be interested in when viewing a piece (i.e materials or artist, or subject etc), the different ways people learn in museums, as well as attitudes to the use of technology in museums. It's a nice broad approach that informs the development of the technology they were looking to install - and it's valuable visitor information for the museum to use in the future. Out of their visitor research the group came up with "Personas" - or "Archetypal user models based on behavior patterns observed during research" - which Cronin states are design models and not statistical realities. I like the idea of this - rather than a strict statistical demographic group, it's more informed by statistics and research and actual visitor observation to get down to sorts of individuals - which, while painted with broad brushes, are probably more useful than large demographically based groups. As well as including visitors, they had a docent persona - what a great idea! I think a lot of museum administrators try so hard to provide for their visitors that they tend to forget their employees are important to consider when planning exhibitions/new technologies/programs/activities etc.
The stuff that Cooper ended up producing sounds terrific - full of information (of varying forms) - and accessible in the 3 different ways. I had a look at the slides, and the appearance of them is quite good, too (for something that could've been too complicated to present) - the handheld looks particularly awesome! After using something like that in Te Papa in Wellington (they were testing the technology), it's awesome to see it being integrated into museums as a valid guide tool. The Getty's been terrifically lucky in who they chose as consultants, because I think Cooper are really clued in as far as where you can go with this sort of technology for visitors in museums now. I would love to see my museum go anywhere even NEAR having these sorts of things on offer for visitors - we don't even have proper guide booklets, let alone tours or audioguides! Wishful thinking.. Anyhow - if you're interested in hearing about research and development with regard to museum visitors, I highly recommend giving this a listen!
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Thoughts on museum appearances.
I'm not entirely sure about the point/structure of this. However, I did need to dump these thoughts and I also definitely needed to kick myself in the pants and get back into thinking about this sort of stuff and recording it in this medium.
During my lunchtime break I went for a walk along the river here, where the boardwalk looks up into the development site of the renovated State Library of Queensland, and the new Gallery of Modern Art. It looks amazing, and classy. It makes the old Art Gallery and Museum buildings look like embarrassing blocks of cement. Which.. they are. Up until recently it was sort of easy to ignore how dated the buildings in the cultural centre look, because there wasn't anything newer in the vicinity to compare it to. Then the front of the museum had a big glass entrance and new foyer tacked on, which sort of looks like someone putting a blonde wig on a pitbull. But the GOMA/SLQ development is going to really unbalance everything. Don't get me wrong, both are fantastic.. but it's really going to be a downer coming into the Museum from over in the new section of the precinct, once it's finished.
The QM really is unfortunate with its drab building. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to be in an older building if the style was more in the way of the Australian Museum, for instance. I think the outside of a Museum does a lot to attract or repel crowds - despite the fact we're always told not to judge a book by its cover, a lovely open glass building will always look more interesting, evocative and draw more people in than a square lump of cement. Although, this could be just painting the museum-going public with a very broad brush. Many people will come to a museum regardless of its looks if they are really interested in the subject/content, if they are desperate for somewhere to take their kids, if they just love going to museums no matter what, etc & etc. I do see the influence a museum's structure has on visitors, though, and while it might not turn people away the majority of the time, I do believe it colours their perceptions and recollections of their visit/s. For instance, I love the aesthetic and layout of the Melbourne Museum and it greatly heightens my enjoyment every time I visit. And despite their similar outward appearances, I actually enjoy visiting the Queensland Art Gallery moreso than the Queensland Museum because their internal spaces are utilised differently, and the lighting in the Art Gallery means you feel less like you're skulking around inside a cardboard box.
But, as drab and embarrassing as the outside (and some of the inside!) of the QM can be, we're fortunate as a museum institution. Regardless of any gripes I may have about anything here, we're lucky to have what we do. We have an operating budget, temperature regulated storage areas, proper storage and packing materials, reasonably well-maintained (if slightly out of date) display areas, security, visitor assistance staff, computers, phones, etc etc. There are many small museums in Australia and the Pacific region that don't have decent enough buildings, let alone the money or staff to maintain them. A lot of Pacific Islands museums with collections that rely on temperature regulation for their preservation are in poor conditions because air conditioners are broken or non-existent. Collections might often have parts stolen, and displays be vastly out of date or even have sections missing.
There is a broad spectrum when you look at the state of museums the world over. They range from small to large, well-funded to struggling, interesting to poorly themed - but I think it's terrific to have them all, regardless of how they look. I'm happy my Museum exisits, and hope it continues to (and hopefully thrive!) for years to come, regardless of how boring it looks when you see it from the other side of the street. My wistful stares at the new museum up the river will continue until December, until I can see whether or not the gorgeous new space they have is being used satisfactorily.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Article repost - Theme parks with old stuff
Theme parks with old stuff
Leigh Dayton
22feb06
From http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,18226303,00.html (Higher Education)
HERE'S a quick question. What appears in your mind's eye when you recall a childhood visit to a natural history museum? Dinosaurs, an Egyptian mummy? Maybe a moon rock or a case filled with creepy crawlies?
For me, as a southern California kid, it's sabre-toothed tiger skulls at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. They're quickly followed by visions of dusty dioramas at the LA Natural History Museum which displayed stuffed animals alongside spear and basket-wielding Indians.
Dated? Yes. Tacky? Unquestionably. Effective? You bet. When it comes to grabbing the attention of children, there's nothing like the real thing. That holds true even in today's world of interactive experiences. There's something compelling about an honest-to-goodness object that can never be replaced by hi-tech gimmicks.
Of course, yesterday's displays need rethinking. What's new, scientifically? How can the significance of this fossil or that ancient tool be better presented? Can old objects stir new meaning? Can collections and expertise shine light on debates, public or scientific?
Still, rejuvenation isn't an excuse to lock away objects in the 21st century equivalent of a 19th century cabinet of curiosities. After all, that's what museums are, collections of curiosities, objects that are studied and displayed. Museums show us our world and help us consider our place in it.
Even those ageing cabinets and antiquated presentations are part of the story. Look at the Victorian cabinets and galleries of the country's first natural history museum, Sydney's Australian Museum. They reflect a 19th century passion for collection and observation that culminated when Charles Darwin boarded the Beagle.
And speaking of Darwin, old exhibits can sometimes tell a new story. The AM, for instance, recently dismantled its evolution exhibit, Tracks Through Time. The plan is to make way for a new dinosaur exhibit. Nothing wrong with dinos. Nothing wrong with spring-cleaning. But look at the timing.
The long-running exhibit, widely used a teaching aid, was ditched just as American-style creationism in the guise of intelligent design is gaining ground in Australia.
Surely, the exhibit could have been rejigged to good effect. After all, last year even then federal education minister Brendan Nelson muddled scientific theory and religious belief, deliberately or otherwise.
"Students can be taught and should be taught the basic science in terms of the evolution of man," he said. "But if schools also want to present students with intelligent design, I don't have any difficulty with that. It's about choice, reasonable choice."
Choice? The mind boggles. The point here is that the out-with-the-old attitude can be a tempting siren to new administrators, anxious to make their mark. It also fits neatly with another plague on our houses of science: bottom-line leadership. You know the buzz words: benchmarking, accountability, external funding.
It's the type of thinking that turns museums into products, ones that must compete for the entertainment dollar. Long gone are the days when a museum visit was a public good, paid for from the public purse, and knowledge had inherent value.
Frankly, I'm weary of politicians whose penny-pinching ways are forcing museums to become razzle-dazzle fun houses, places where cash and customers are separated at the ticket wicket, gift shop and in-house cafe; where visitors are encouraged to make donations and take out memberships; where galleries are hired out for functions, catering included. Where's the wonder? Where's the science? For that matter, where are the scientists? Right now, the AM and the University of Sydney's antiquities and natural history museums are getting a shake-up that leaves researchers at other institutions wondering if they're next. The cause of the anxiety is a well-meaning, but misguided exercise in managerial best practice.
For instance, new brooms at the university museums are sweeping staff out the door, while AM bigwigs are squeezing research scientists into administrative pigeonholes, regardless of their expertise and reputation. If, say, your work on trilobites doesn't contribute to museum-wide goals, it - and possibly you - won't be supported.
Surely, this kind of thinking is back-to-front. We're talking creative institutions here, places where people are as much a treasure as are collections of skeletons, beetles and bronze figurines. Scientists, as with collections, may have been acquired in an ad hoc manner, but if they're good so what? A museum isn't a theme park. It's a place of ideas and inquiry. It's a cultural institution. It's part of an international web where quality counts. Back the best and you'll reap rewards. It's obvious.
Or is it? In January, Dennis Tourish wrote a piece for the HES headlined Management Bent On Worst Practice. Although he was writing about Australian university management, it could easily have been a piece about the new crop of museum bureaucrats.
Tourish's point was that managerialism - defined as "the wholly unreasonable conviction that those at the top always know better than those they manage" - is creating problems, not solving them. How true.
That's why leading universities - and museums - build organisational structures to serve their people, not vice versa.
Case in point: the La Brea Tar Pits. The haphazard display of my childhood is gone. Visitors now enjoy sophisticated exhibits, a gift shop, gardens, theatres, the lot.
But best of all, scientists are still pulling sabre-toothed tigers out of grubby pits of oozing tar. It's fantastic and it's free.