Spaces and Spectrums
Collection Acquisitions with Teens
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Christina Alderman
Museums need to continue to make advances in diversity and equality at all levels within the institution. Teen programs are seen as serving a particular audience rather than as a resource that can help the institution achieve these goals. Many museums work to diversify their collection through acquisitions, but it is also essential to diversify the acquisition methods. This can lead the museum toward more authentic diversity and equity, as it draws on more than the established methods, aesthetics, and narratives. Museums must create pathways and programs to push directly against the existing structures to deeply understand how to reimagine itself. This session focuses on teen programs as a path for making museums more equitable and civically engaged in the communities that the museum serves. The goal is for participants to see beyond the surface outcomes of teen programs (i.e., diverse audiences, attendance numbers, and a pipeline for future museum workers) and begin to understand these programs as profoundly related to social justice-based work. Outcomes would include a better understanding of how to advocate for teen involvement in museums, ideas for current programs to have a more influential position, examples of practices and projects that have created change in the institution, and a call to work with teens to make change now.
Think Inside the ‘Box’: Public Institutions and Children’s Imagined Geographies View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kemal Ahson
Children’s lived experience of many public institutions, such as museums, still tends to be constructed by adults for rather than with them. Even in play, dedicated spaces are increasingly commercialised and organised with children having little say in the type of activities they are involved in. This is in stark contrast to the effort being put into improving access and promoting inclusivity in many of these sites, and a wider narrative, especially in the Global North, of developing children’s agency and encouraging them to become active citizens. Children’s agency is relational and performed through social relations within different spatial and temporal contexts. Part of these spatial and temporal contexts are influenced by what some scholars call ‘imagined geographies’. For Edward Said, how we imagine people and places helps shape our understanding of the environment we live in and defines ourselves. And, as Maxine Green has suggested, it makes empathy possible and permits us to give credence to alternative realities. But what might these alternative realities look like in the context of how children construct and use some public institutions? And how can inclusive spaces allow children to create counter discourses and resist adult hegemonies? This paper highlights some of the imagined geographies children create. Based on qualitative research undertaken with a class of 6-7 year old children in Helsinki around creating and packing a 'box', it considers some of the motivations and preferences of children and possible tensions with the practical and symbolic ownership of space by adults.
Featured Museums in Color: Finding Home in Hues View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Josephine Newcomb, Rachel Dukes
Museums have the power to reach audiences across backgrounds and have long been acknowledged as sites of learning and knowledge sharing which is a foundational and relevant facet of this long-standing institution. However, museums, more than anything, should encourage exploration, discovery, joy, play, and rest. Museums, as they currently appear and function, do not create space for this range of actions and emotions. The imposing architecture and intimidating campuses of traditional museums might deter visitors from engaging with the space. And once inside, a sea of white walls, which represent “purity” to cleanse the visual palette, makes the space seem clinical, sterile, and loveless. These visual markers all serve the white gaze, intentionally subduing the visitor into conformity. In adherence with the latest ICOM definition of museums as “accessible and inclusive” spaces, the traditional appearance of museums should not turn visitors away from engaging with the space, it should allude to the power of museums to be an agent for the range of emotions discussed above. This paper argues that by infusing bright and audacious colors into the exterior and interior design of a museum, visitors can engage obnoxiously with the space, defying traditional museum etiquette. In doing so, visitors might feel more inclined to view the museum as "home" which naturally encourages community building. Additionally, this paper explores what museums might look like if they were prioritized as a gathering place before a space of education, or a space that collects and preserves objects.
