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Nina Simon: Creating the Participatory Museum

Posted by: Rosemary Poole on May 24, 2010 / 11:26 AM

 

Since relaunching last summer, we’ve followed the blog Museum 2.0 with interest. On it, Nina Simon, a multi-tasking author, consultant, and exhibit designer, makes the case for making museums more visitor centered and engaging. In other words: Incorporate the kinds of participatory tools people are already using on the social Web en masse. Sounds like a no-brainer, but for museums it represents a dramatic shift in how visitors are defined; “passive consumers” are now “cultural participants.”

It’s not mere branding speak but a matter of survival. Over the past two decades, cultural institutions have seen their audiences decline as other forms of entertainment and learning have emerged. A 2008 survey by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts charted these trends; read it here.

“Visitors expect access to a broad spectrum of information sources and cultural perspectives,” Simon writes in the preface to her recently published book, The Participatory Museum. “They expect the ability to respond and be taken seriously. They expect the ability to discuss, share, and remix what they consume. When people can actively participate with cultural institutions, those places become central to cultural and community life.”

The good news? Simon believes history museums like ours (though we consider ourselves a history/city museum hybrid) are very well-positioned to make the transition. “As cultural anthropology has swung away from a vision of authoritative history and toward the embrace of multiple perspectives, there is potential for those stories to come from all over the place, including visitors themselves.” For us, this has meant turning a rather traditional arts and crafts exhibition into an opportunity to host DIY workshops and sharing the results online, and streaming images of Vancouverites and their bicycles into our exhibition on the city’s bicycle revolution—to name just two examples. Small gestures, perhaps, but part of a concerted effort to reflect what’s happening in the city in real time.

We’re constantly finding inspiration from the many incredible examples Simon uncovers. We loved the 3six5 project and theDenver Community Museum’s pop-up shop experiment (an image from it is pictured above). Way too many to list. On Wednesday, May 26 at 7:30 p.m., Nina Simon will join us via Skype to discuss her work, her book, and other great examples of participatory museums at work. Details on the event here. Hope you can swing it.

Image credit: Museum 2.0

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Museum 2.0
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Velo-City

MOVments from the week

Posted by: Rosemary Poole on April 08, 2010 / 4:22 PM

 

A weekly round up of the news and cultural happenings we followed this week—and what’s coming up at MOV.

Empire Stadium rising! This isn’t a news event from the week so much as an expression of enthusiasm for the new-old Empire Stadium that’s very quickly taking shape in Hastings Park. So excited about its return! If you haven’t seen the goings on down there, check it out this weekend. (Are we forgetting the misery of watching football in cold November rain? Perhaps.) Blogger Miss 604 blog posted a nice round up of archive images of the original stadium in a December post linked here. The image at left is of the final BC Lions game played there in 1982.

The sea horse comes down: Hastings Street’s iconic Only Sea Foods (sic) sign came down this week. The sign has been dark since the storied restaurant closed last year (read our story on the closure here). Many of you have contacted us asking if we’re now in possession of the sign. Nope! The Portland Hotel Society is storing it in hopes of reinstalling it and reopening the diner somewhere, somehow. John Mackie has a thorough account in today’s Vancouver Sun; local historian John Atkin has a slideshow of the sign coming down on Flickr.

Fewer homeless on the streets, more in shelters. The good news: according to new figures released today, the city’s homeless residents are using emergency shelters. The bad: the shelters close next month. The worse: the number of people without permanent homes continues to grow, rising six per cent per year over the past two years. (CBC)

Wish we could be there: We often suffer a twinge of public program-envy when reading about the goings on at our favourite New York museums. Case in point: tonight, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia speaks at the New Museum. A perfect guest to speak on the use of technology in cataloguing history, and the rise of mass curating! (New Museum)

And lastly… tomorrow night we host DIY@MOV2. I’ve written much about the social-crafting soiree on the blog and there are additional details on our Audience Engagement Calendar here. If you come, please send us feedback either by posting a comment here or via our Twitter account. Oh, and on Saturday morning we’re hosting an awesome felt workshop for kids and their parents; details here. Do hope to see you! Happy weekend.

Image credit: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun files

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Art of Craft
DIY@MOV
Empire Stadium
homelessness
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New Museum
The Only Sea Foods

MOVments from the past week and a look ahead

Posted by: Rosemary Poole on April 01, 2010 / 1:50 PM

 

Our weekly round up of the news and cultural happenings we followed this week—and what’s coming up at MOV.

Think Velo-City-meets-Art of Craft: Last summer, we introduced our new look and mission with Velo-City: Vancouver and the Bicycle Revolution, an exhibit on the rise of local cycling culture. This summer, New York’s Museum of Arts and Design hosts Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle, focusing on “the designs of six internationally renowned bicycle builders whose work in metal, as well as graphics and artifacts, elucidate this refined, intricate and deeply individual craft.” (Museum of Arts and Design)

Better in the ‘burbs? Vancouver’s not the only city trying to create a green businesses hub. This week, Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts “added clean-energy companies to the list of business that can get a break from the city if they locate there.” (Globe and Mail)

Wish we’d been there: So often Vancouver’s brightest artistic and design talents are celebrated outside the city limits. Last week, Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen of Molo Design were in New York speaking about a new museum they recently designed in Aomori, Japan. Much like Molo’s design practice, the city is known for its artful paper expertise, hosting an ancient paper festival each year. The museum will “house the festival’s floats year round and give visitors a chance to view the handcrafted floats as they’re being made.” Click the Azure magazine link for slideshow of their work and renderings of the museum project. (Azure)

Coming up at MOV: We’re about to change the scenery here. On Sunday, April 11, our two Cultural Olympiad shows, Tracing Night and Art of Craft, draw to a close. Before they go, we’re hosting round two of DIY@MOV, the social-crafting night we piloted a couple months back. We were thrilled with the response. This time around, there will be workshops on weaving, drawing, felting, spinning, jewellery making and collage. We’ve also expanded the onsite craft market. Click here for the complete list of vendors and to buy tickets. Happy long weekend!

Image credit: Sacha White via Museum of Arts and Design

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Art of Craft
DIY@MOV
local design
Tracing Night
Velo-City

MOVments from the week – and DIY@MOV2!

Posted by: Rosemary Poole on March 25, 2010 / 4:36 PM

 

Our weekly summary of local news and cultural happenings—and a shameless plug for an upcoming MOV program… Read on!

Curtains for the Ridge Theatre? Ian Bailey reports that the historic Ridge Theatre may be on the verge of closing. Owner Leonard Schein says the single-screen cinema model can’t compete with the multiplex. (One wonders how his Park Theatre on Cambie Street is doing. ?) (Globe and Mail)

An Exhibit We Wish We Could Check Out: Next week, Sustainable Futures opens at London’s stellar Design Museum. The show promises to be a smart sampling of the best green designs, products, and the like, all meant to inspire a better way. (Design Museum)

“Forever Punk”: A profile of D.O.A.’s Joey Keithley hit newsstands a couple weeks back, so if you haven’t read it yet, let this serve as the reminder. Really captures the zeitgeist of Vancouver’s punk scene in the 1980s. Best Keithley quote: “D.O.A.’s about causing trouble, being shit disturbers, fomenting revolution. You have to kick the giant—even if it’s only in the toe.” (Vancouver magazine)

End of the line for the Olympic Streetcar: We all knew it was only a temporary thing, funded as it was by Olympic money. Still. The Olympic streetcar line was a beautiful thing. A novelty at only 1 km+ in length (it really is our version of Seattle’s Monorail) but an efficient and needed transit connection between Granville Island and Canada Line’s Olympic station. Though the City has made a multi-million investment to upgrade the existing tracks, it needs $90-million more to make the line permanent. (CBC News at Six)

DIY@MOV2: Our first social-crafting night was a hit, so we’re hosting another on April 9. We’ve worked out the kinks, bumped up the art supplies, and there’ll be another great mini-craft fair for those who’d rather leave the crafting to our city’s many talented pros. Details on our Engagement calendarhere. Happy weekend!

Image credit: Brian Howell for the Globe and Mail

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museums

Art of Craft, meet DIY

Posted by: Rosemary Poole on January 20, 2010 / 11:27 AM

Though we’re fans, followers, and patrons of Vancouver’s craft scene we don’t often get the chance to throw ourselves into the mix. Tomorrow night we will, hosting a DIY craft night with multiple workshops aimed at novice and seasoned crafters alike. The museum will be occupying interesting territory here, bridging the gap between the perhaps more traditional (classic?) craft world that is represented in Art of Craft, and the emerging, socially driven do-it-yourself/punk/rogue/craft 2.0 world. Two solitudes, as it were.

Of all the programs we’ve hosted over the past few months, none has gotten as much attention as this one. So, why all the interest in a museum taking in the DIYers? What’s this movement about? Quick summary:

New crafters are learning those lost arts of knitting, sewing, printing, etc., that skipped a generation;

The return to the handmade is a reaction to an increasingly digitized world (though the DIY movement relies on the blogosphere and sites like Etsy to spread the word);

Some craft movements reclaim public space, in celebration or protest. Yarn bombing, for example, sees a message knit into chainlink (such as the one scrawled along the fence at Oppenheimer Park, protesting the park’s redesign), or a surface decorated to enliven a stretch of sidewalk (like the one pictured left at the sprawling Davie Village Community Garden). For more on Yarn Bombing, click here for details on the recently published book of the same name, written by Vancouverites Mandy Moore and Leeanne Prain.

Maybe there’s some combination of all of the above at work, but above all else, we think craft 2.0 is simply a sign that long-silo’d artistic practices are merging into a looser, artistic form that doesn’t require formal education or training. Craft, art, design—it’s all for the taking, making, and interpreting. We hope tomorrow night’s event captures a slice of that energy. Blim’s Yuriko Iga will lead a session on button making and screen printing. Knitgirl Robin Love will direct a knitting circle, and illustrator—and Art of Craft exhibit designer—Kirsti Wakelin will lead a round of exquisite corpse, a technique where words and images are collectively assembled. Incredible materials have been supplied by Opus and Blim. Oh, and Got Craft, Yarn Bombers and Blim will have a selection of their crafts for sale (reason enough to come, if you find the learning how to knit in public daunting).

Image credits, from top:

Black Cat Doll - Ari, by artist Mia Hansen.
Davie Street Community Garden, from Monniblog.com

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Art of Craft
Blim
DIY@MOV
Got Craft
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