Abstract
The study consists of individual presentations from students of the Museum and Exhibition Studies program at the University of Illinois Chicago and their unique, overlapping perspectives on community engagement through a class-conscious lens. Nat Ayala’s Museo-Punk Mag discusses–in the format of a zine–punk pedagogy for do-it-together exhibit development. El Mayer’s Haymarket, State Violence, and the Collective Work of Public History discusses Chicago memorials to the Haymarket Affair, their competing narratives about labor action and their relationship to the contemporary praxis of public history. Onyx Montes’ Show Me the Money Strategies and Lessons on Salary Transparency for Museum Workers promotes the importance of salary transparency in the museum sphere through an open-access digital publication and social media presence. Leeann Ream’s Painting Museums Pink: A Self-Guided Museum Game guides players in a critical investigation of gendered labor within museums as they uncover site-to-site disparities in pay, accessibility, and representation that affect both workers and visitors. This colloquium–influenced by audience participation–is led by Dr. Maria Eugenia Lopez Garcia a public scholar, community organizer, and cultural worker whose work is firmly rooted in the study of immigrant and transnational labor, comparative racialization, and women of color feminisms, centering the intersections of representation, resistance, and performance. This colloquium aims, through class consciousness, to provide attendees with the tools for empowering diverse communities, promoting workers’ rights, and exploring labor histories.
Presenters
Maria Lopez MaruAssistant Professor, Museum and Exhibition Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago, Illinois, United States Leeann Ream
Student, Museum and Exhibition Studies, MA, University of Illinois at Chicago, Illinois, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
2023 Special Focus—Museum Transformations: Pathways to Community Engagement
KEYWORDS
Museum Labor Rights, Gendered Labor, Class Consciousness, Public History
