CURATORIAL DREAMING: A MUSEUM QUEERIES WORKSHOP

Not Your Average Cistory | Amelia Smith

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This past week, I was lucky enough to be able to go to Winnipeg for a workshop organized by the University of Winnipeg based Museum Queeries. Museum Queeries describes itself as an “interdisciplinary research project” with the aim to “challenge normative formations including white privilege, racism, and settler colonialism, among other systems of oppression, as they operate alongside and with transphobia and homophobia.” As a matter of transparency, it is important to note that the University of Winnipeg covered my travel expenses to help me be a part of the workshop. CORRECTION: It was Museum Queeries who paid for my expenses, not the University of Winnipeg.

Some members of Museum Queeries looking out at the Nonsuch in the Manitoba Museum. Photo courtesy of Lauren Bosc.

The workshop was based upon the “Curatorial Dreaming” model put forward by Shelley Ruth Butler and Erica Lehrer. The concept says that, while academics are quick to criticize an exhibition, it is often a lot more difficult to propose solutions. Therefore, it proposes dreaming imaginary exhibitions. As part of this workshop, the group visited both the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and the Manitoba Museum. We would then discuss ways that the labels, displays and exhibitions could be queeried.

Museum Queeries members on the Pride Tour, at the "Taking the Cake" exhibit on gay marriage. Photo courtesy of Amelia Smith.

The two museums differed greatly from each other. At the CMHR, we went on their Pride Tour, a specifically LGBT focused tour offered usually only during Pride Month. The tour brought out queer stories that were scattered around the museum. As a piece of programming, it is a fantastic alternative to the usual curatorial decisions regarding queer content, but at only 75 minutes, the choices made as to what not to include are telling (the lack of any discussion on the Toronto Bathhouse Raids especially so).

Whereas the CMHR had some, at times problematic, queer content, the Manitoba Museum had none. The Manitoba Museum is a more traditional encyclopedic museum that tells the history of Manitoba. This ranges from the environment of the province, to the many Indigenous groups that lived there, to the colonial activities such as the fur trade. Unfortunately, aside from some camp labels, there was nothing that spoke to the queer history of Manitoba.

Members of Museum Queeries at the Manitoba Museum being shown pelts and animal remains. Photo courtesy of Lauren Bosc.

The different approaches to queer content between the two institutions created equally different discussions on how to queery them. For the CMHR, the discussions centred around reworking what was already there, adapting the framework that already existed. This took the form of focusing upon labels and sometimes adding new dimensions to the exhibits that were not already there. This proved to be challenging in places, as the limitations of labels often hampered the amount of information that could be included.

The results of the discussions that came out of the CMHR visit. Photo courtesy of Amelia Smith.

The lack of content with the Manitoba Museum allowed for more flexibility in imagining a more queer museum. By having nothing, the museum unknowingly allowed us to focus on reshaping what content already existed. As a result, the discussions were much more diverse in the topics they touched on. One topic that was particularly interesting was the imagining of a brothel in the reconstruction of 1920s Winnipeg. This would have provided a look into the world of sex work in the 1920s as well as a conversation around how the police violence that the sex workers were frequently exposed to. This was but one of the reimaginings that participants created out of the Manitoba Museum.

The results of the discussions after the Manitoba Museum. Photo courtesy of Amelia Smith.

The workshop, in my opinion, was a success. It challenged us to think in new ways about the exhibitions and displays that we saw. The discussions that arose out of the museum visits provided unique insights into curatorial process. It also offered an opportunity to apply a critical queer lens to museums that usually are overlooked.

The members of Museum Queeries in the entrance to the Manitoba Museum. Photo courtesy of Lauren Bosc.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Angela Failler, Heather Milne, Lauren Bosc and Nicole Ritchie for organizing the workshop and for helping me to get out to Winnipeg for it. Had it not been for them, I would not have had the opportunity to experience the workshop and hear from others interested in queering museums.

ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL: SURVIVING THE GROUP PROJECT

The Grad School Guide | Emma Puddicombe

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Let’s play a game. I’m going to name a Grad School situation and you’re going to say the first word that comes to your mind. GO!

Situation: Group Projects. 

Now, if you’re immediate response was “NO” or something similar, I don’t blame you. Many of us have had negative experiences with group projects in the past and are not keen to be a part of them again. Unfortunately, group projects are a Grad School reality. Don’t fret, though. I am here to present you with tips to maneuver these situations with ease and grace! Keep reading for your guide to surviving the Group Project.

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1) Take Charge

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I get it. Taking charge of a situation and acting as “the boss” can be intimidating and you don’t want to step on anybody’s toes. Get over it. Don’t wait for someone else to take charge because nine times out of ten, that’s what every other group member is waiting for. I don’t mean play the dictator of the group, but being a firm hand to guide the group to productivity will be easier than you think!

2) Communicate

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Always communicate with the people in your group about questions you have, the confusion you are experiencing, or new ideas. Having one place where you can contact all your group members will give you a chance to make sure everyone is on the same page. Don’t just assume everyone knows what is going on during the project, because when you assume...well, you know the saying.
Email is one great way to communicate with your group, but some people have trouble keeping track of countless emails from multiple people. Here are some other messaging platforms your group can use:
       1. Facebook Messenger.
       2. WhatsApp.
       3. Slack.

3) Schedule Meetings

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Communicating over messenger is most effective when it’s used in smaller doses and should not be the only method of communication. Scheduling a meeting will provide you with a better way to talk with your group and give you all a chance to be together and focus only on the project for a period of time. Finding this period of time, however, is a challenge in itself. Doodle is a great tool which can give everyone a chance to share their availability in one place and say when they would prefer to meet.

4) Book a Room

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Finding a time to meet is only half the battle, the other half is finding a place to meet. You could find a corner in the Inforum the day of the meeting, but that could eat up valuable time you could be using to work on the project. Instead, book a meeting room and have a designated quiet place to meet with group members. You can book meeting rooms by emailing this address --> help.ischool@utoronto.ca

5) Make a Schedule

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Sit down with your group members and create an agreed upon schedule for the project. Think about when you want all the research to be finished, when everyone’s individual work should be completed, when you want the final project to be 100% done, etc. Make sure the dates are clear and have them written somewhere so that everyone can refer to these agreed upon deadlines.

6) Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses

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There are multiple people in one group, and not everyone likes working on the same thing (Eg. You might be a good researcher, but terrible at writing up that research in a professional way.) Talk together as a group and flesh out who is good at what before assigning roles in the project. This will help to ensure that everyone contributes their best work to the project.

Note: Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean you don’t do it. Everyone should still contribute equally to a project. Step up and do what you can, even if it’s not what you’re best at.

7) Be Honest

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If something will prevent you from giving your all in a group project, you need to tell your group members. Now, I don’t mean give them you’re whole life story or divulge any personal information you aren’t comfortable sharing. However, if you are dealing with a personal issue which will prevent you from making a deadline, your group deserves to know. Your groupmates will be more willing to help you if they know in advance what your limitations might be.

Note: Telling your group members about personal issues is not showing weakness and no one will think any less of you for doing this. You need to take on what you can handle, and taking on too much will only bring down the whole group.

8) Have a Shared Document

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Have one, easily accessible place where everyone can share their work with the group. What you share doesn’t need to be perfect, but it will help your group mates understand where the project is as a whole. Google Docs is a great platform for this. You don’t need a Gmail account to be added to a document and it can be accessed on any computer anywhere.

9) Play Nice, Be Kind, and Trust

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People work differently. What works for one person might not work for someone else, and you have to accept that everyone’s process is different. Snapping at your group mates and being passive-aggressive will only make the group dynamic worse. Be patient with one another, and most importantly, be kind. Remember, the only actions you can control are your own. Trust your group members and get your work done before you worry about what they are doing.

10) Talk to Your Prof

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I have been very positive so far in regard to the Group Project, however, sometimes it could turn out exactly as you feared it would: Terrible. It happens. If you are in a situation where people really aren’t pulling their weight or doing their part, it’s okay to talk to the prof to get advice on how to move forward. It may feel like you’re tattling, but the professors are there to help you succeed. They will help guide you towards a better group dynamic.

TEACHING AND LEARNING AS INTERNS: FROM TORONTO TO NAPLES

 Internship Check-In | Joanna Wreakes

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Hello Pals, back again for another Internship Check-In. I’m super stoked to share what some of my colleagues are up to in the diverse roles they’re tackling for their internships. Read on to grab a small taste of the kinds of work an MMSt internship can lead to!

In this edition we'll be hearing from:

Amelia Smith: Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, Toronto, ON

Defne Inceoglu: Lambton House (Heritage York), Toronto, ON

Revital Weiss: Koffler Gallery, Toronto, ON

Selin Kahramanoglu: Colegio Oficial de Doctores y Licenciados en Filosofia y Letras y Ciencias de Valiencia y Castellon,  Naples, Italy

This photo featuring Lambton House juxtaposes the historic and modern found all around Toronto. Source.

Please introduce yourself and tell us about your internship role.

Amelia: I'm Amelia and I have been interning at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre as a research assistant. The JCCC has begun redesigning their permanent exhibition on Japanese diaspora, and I've been taken on to research Japanese migration into Imperial Manchuria.

Defne: Defne Inceoglu here, I’m the archives and records intern at Lambton House, which is a historic house run by the charity Heritage York. While my title says archives and records, I’m ALSO a collections manager, library cataloger, website designer, photographer, policy writer, exhibition designer, provenance researcher, cleaner, resident neighbourhood expert, admin worker… I wear a lot of fun, fun hats.

Revital: My name is Revital and I’m an urban-planner-turned-Museum-Studies-student. This summer, I’m working as a Gallery Education Assistant at the Koffler Gallery, a contemporary art gallery. Together with a devoted education team, I am responsible for making our summer show accessible to our diverse visitors through engaging tours and conversation. I also help create and facilitate workshops that highlight some major themes in the exhibition, and research for the development of education packages.

Selin: I am entering my third year in the CDP (Combined Degree) program this September, with a concentration in Archives and Records Management. I had the great fortune of joining a dig in Naples this summer. My internship role is to clean, label, store, and inventory all of the artifacts recovered from our excavation site in Pompeii, for the local museum's use.

Defne in the Blue Room at Lambton House, surrounded by the library to be catalogued. Photo courtesy of Defne Inceoglu.

What is a typical day like at your institution?

Amelia: My average day is not very exciting to write about. Most days consist of endless reading and making as many notes as I think necessary. I usually get in at 8:30 AM and the reading doesn't stop until around 4:30 PM (excluding a break for lunch around 12/12:30 PM).

If feel I need a break from reading, I will usually go on a search for artefacts that could make it into my section of the exhibition. As I cannot read Japanese, the places I can search are limited. Nevertheless, I have been able to find a load of excellent items through The Library of Congress and Harvard Libraries.

Defne: My day starts early in the morning, as I throw my thermos of coffee into my backpack and take my bike ride through High Park/the Humber River trails and the surrounding neighbourhood. The Humber River and the former City of York is incredibly important to us at Heritage York, our mandate is centered around the history of this area. Plus, the exhibition I am designing is about the City of York. I like to spend time every morning getting to know the neighbourhood better. Once I get to work, I start up on one of my projects. I type-type away at my desk. We open to the public around 12:30-1 PM until around 3:30 or 4. At this time myself or the other intern (CDP student Devin Benczik!) will greet people, chat and give tours. However, much of my day is spent at my desk, cataloging books or objects, writing copy for my exhibition, researching provenance or designing the website.

Revital: Each day is slightly different and there have been phases of work throughout the internship. Ahead of the exhibition opening, my typical day was spent on various activities related to the summer show, like helping complete the education package used for tours, building the summer workshops, and reaching out to cultural and academic organizations to offer a tour and workshop.

Selin: Typically, we leave our residence by 7:00 AM and head to the dig site. I gather all the materials excavated the day before, and take the boxes to another on site lab. There, the materials undergo general conservation treatment and are recorded. In the evenings, our team has a debriefing, or we tour another local site, before having dinner by 9:00 PM!

Amelia looking beautiful in yukata at the JCCC's Natsu Matsuri. Photo courtesy of Amelia Smith.

Is there anything that’s surprised you about your internship?

Amelia: I was surprised by how quickly I started locating artefacts that could make it into the exhibition. Within my first couple of weeks, I had found a book at Downsview library that I felt would be perfect. Granted, about a week later I realized that books from the first half of the 20th century might not be the best choice for a permanent exhibition at the JCCC, but you win some, you lose some.

Defne: I am surprised at how trusting and supportive my supervisors are. As a volunteer Board, they care very much about their work and in return they care very much about us interns. They let me run around with my ambitions and guide my ideas without restricting the limitations. It has been a fun process getting to create my own projects and implement them. Their expertise and kindness has been very valuable.

Revital: I am surprised about the level of autonomy I have been given and the amount of responsibility with which I have been entrusted. My supervisor is always available to answer questions and checks in occasionally, but I am mostly self-monitoring to complete my tasks. I am especially surprised and appreciate that my supervisor has faith in the work I produce and accepts ideas that I bring to the table.

Selin: I was surprised to learn that my supervisor was willing to take my advice in regards to improving some workplace practices. Mostly, the project is well-organized and progressing smoothly, but I was able to make some suggestions about better practices. For example, I've been helping with improving the code of the photographs in the hard drive so that they're easier to find, using archival standards.

Selin hard at work cleaning artifacts excavated from the dig in Naples. Photo courtesy of Selin Kahramanoglu.

What are you excited about accomplishing throughout your internship?

Amelia: I'm excited to write the essay that will be the basis for my portion of the exhibition. With the amount of time I have put into the research and the multiple dimensions I have imagined for it, I am confident this will be an essay unlike any other I've written in the past. And that is exciting to me.

Defne: I am excited to lock down the accession and storage frameworks that I am currently helping to develop and/or improve. It has been a fun, challenging process. We are currently getting ready to start accessioning more of the objects in the collection. The best part about this is the provenance research. I have been doing a big research project on a William Notman/John Arthur Fraser painting that we have. It's like playing detective and I am excited for what else is left to be turned up.

Revital: The Koffler maintains ideals of social justice, equality and inclusivity. I am most excited about fulfilling this mandated practice and have already done so through giving tours that highlight the need for social change, providing arts programming to children in underserved communities, and contributing to a lecture about erased art history that centres on marginalized and oppressed communities. I very much look forward to continuing this social practice both at the Koffler and future workplaces.

Selin: I'm most excited about seeing the full lifecycle of these artifacts. So far, these very interesting objects have been recovered after thousands of years, cleaned like new, catalogued, and shipped to the museum. I'd like to know more about how the museum displays these objects, and how they hope to tell the story of Pompeii, using our archaeological data and modern exhibition techniques.

Revital leading some young visitors through a guided meditation. Photo courtesy of Revital Weiss.

Do you have any words of wisdom for someone entering a similar position?


Amelia: Don't be afraid to see where a position will take you. I knew nothing about the Japanese occupation of Manchuria before I started this position, and now I've got Manchurian postcards indelibly burned into my mind's eye for all eternity.

Defne: Pacing your work is important. It can get a bit hectic with lots of projects on the go, so remember to take your time and plan accordingly.

Also, when you work in a food desert, don’t forget to pack your lunch!

Revital: The best tours are those that feel like a conversation, so ask your audience questions and listen when they have something on their mind; you will not only learn new pieces of information that you can incorporate into the show, but your day will go by much faster when you treat visitors like friends!

Selin: Don't be afraid to speak up. You are more qualified than you realize, and you've got some great ideas to offer. Keep an open mind when it comes to learning something new, but don't forget that you might end up being a teacher too!
 
The interviews have been edited for length and clarity. 

Edit: A previous version of this article linked Selin's internship to Archaeological Institute of America. This has since been updated to accurately reflect the organization she is working with. 

"AN ARGUMENT FOR SOMETHING ELSE": CORRECTIVE ART HISTORY RIGHT NOW

Breaking the Glass Case | Alexandra Forand

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This summer the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) presented “Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artist.” Believe it or not, this exhibit was the first major showcase of indigenous women (I am intentionally using small "I" indigenous, because the artists range in location and community). The exhibit features 115 objects, that span 1,000 years including paintings, sculptures, textiles and more.

This exhibit took my Facebook and Twitter feed by storm. Every time I logged into a social network platform to mindlessly scroll through articles and memes for a couple minutes I would see friends and acquittances posting pictures, think pieces authored by magazines like Vogue, and scholarly articles mentioning this exhibit. Words, like “ground-breaking,” “awe-inspiring,” and “revolutionary,” were often affixed to posts about this exhibit. But it was one term discussing Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artist, that really caught my eye. This term was “Corrective Art History.” 

On now through August 18, the @artsmia is presenting “Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists,” the first major showcase to provide visibility to the indigenous women, both from Canada and the U.S. https://t.co/PC8kdfFj7l

— Vogue Magazine (@voguemagazine) June 3, 2019

We’ll be going to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to see the Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists exhibit today.

Native community members get free admission to the exhibit!!

— YourFavRezCouple (@UrFavRezCouple) July 5, 2019

(1/2) Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists, is hands down one of the best shows ever. If you’re even near Mpls pls go see! #mia #minneapolisinstituteofart #heartsofourpeople #nativeamericanartists #nativeamericanwomen #womenartists #itsabouttime #equality #equalityinthearts pic.twitter.com/KprcEwGWJc

— Ann Tracy (Áine Ní Threasaigh) (@anntracyart) June 18, 2019

Let’s back up for a moment. What is Corrective Art History? Corrective Art History is meant “to provide an affirmation for those who do not regularly see themselves portrayed in media or art.” Moreover, it is an effort to combat the lasting, damaging impacts of underrepresentation.

This term is often used to describe Kerry James Marshall’s work, who is both redefining the Western cannon and creating his own. He explains it better than I ever could: “My work is not an argument against anything; it is an argument for something else.”

Kerry James Marshall, Mastry, source.

Mickalene Thomas is another notable artists who could described as working within Corrective Art History. Thomas vividly and actively inserts black female bodies into art, a place she argues is traditionally white and patriarchal. Furthermore, there are many Indigenous artists who work within Corrective Art History. Arguably one of the most well-known artists working within this realm is Kent Monkman (Cree). Monkman’s Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience, is an epic revision of a Western colonial history that is still taught in schools today. If you want to learn about Shame and Prejudice, Sadie Macdonald wrote an exhibition review and you can click here to read it!

Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artist, is not the only Indigenous led exhibition which operates within Corrective Art History. More and more exhibitions are gaining attention in a post-TRC world. In the Spring of this year, an exhibition on the Poundmaker Cree Nation focused on the story of Chief Poundmaker, who was arrested after the colonial government of Canada failed to honour treaty promises. After six months, Chief Poundmaker was released from prison after contracting a fatal respiratory disease. For nearly 135 years the Western cannon wrote Chief Poundmaker as the villain of his story. The exhibition successfully sets the historical record straight and brings in First Nation voices to the Western cannon. While the state of Canada exonerated Chief Poundmaker on May 23, 2019, this exhibit shows that everyone from artists, researchers, and curators to ordinary everyday people can work against these harmful historical inaccuracies.

Chief Poundmaker,  Source. 

The exercise of Corrective Art History is important and necessary. As museum professionals we need to become uncomfortable with our own learned knowledge and let these exhibitions and art rewire our own inherent biases of history. We, like Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene Thomas, Kent Monkman, and the indigenous run exhibits, have to argue for something else.

Have you seen any of these exhibitons? What challenged you and how did you deal with these challenges? What are your thoughts? I really want to know! Leave a comment, send me an email (allyforand@gmail.com), or if Twitter and Instagram are more your speed my handle on both is @Ally_but_online.

THE GHOSTS IN COLLECTIONS: WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU COME ACROSS SOMETHING YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN

Collections Corner | Defne Inceoglu

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Boo! Illustration by Defne Inceoglu.

Picture this:

It’s evening, nearing 7 PM. Your colleagues have left for the night. You are staying, having decided to work late into the night. A new donation has arrived and you are eager to sort through it and describe before the start of the weekend.

You are unsure if there is still daylight at the surface, you are not sure if anyone remains. You sit below ground in the collections room of your institution.

The security guards must still be roaming the galleries, you reassure yourself.

You suddenly hear a gentle ‘thunk,’ coming out from the shelves that sit behind you. You seize up, breaking into goosebumps. You take a deep breath and close your eyes. Cautiously, you slowly take the time to look around to investigate. You spot something peculiar! A box has been left there in the middle of the aisle.

Getting up from your seat, you make your way gingerly towards the box. Cautiously kneeling down, you place your hands on the lid to pop it open. You hesitate for a moment, feeling fear swelling into your chest. Shaking it off, you pull off the lid.

You are suddenly overwhelmed by the contents of the box. It is filled with hundreds of black and white photographs. They are loose, of varying sizes. Negatives and prints are all mixed up together. Hundreds of small, smiling faces are looking up at you. You begin to pick up individual images, flipping the prints over to inspect. The backs are left blank; no information, no handwriting, no numbers, no dates. You grab handfuls of photographs, throwing your head back, yelling,

“Where did you come from!? Who did this!?”
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What a nightmare!

As we chug along in our roles in collections, we will always encounter objects we cannot explain. This is especially true in smaller institutions, when catalogs are not quite complete. Perhaps somewhere along the line the information was lost, displaced. Sometimes, things are incorrectly labelled or dated. Other times, things can be a total mystery. It is an important note to keep in mind that we are only able to work within our capacities and the capacity of our institutions. We must always work to the best of our abilities, and sometimes mysteries are left unsolved.

How do we begin to navigate the scary world of the unknown? Follow along, as I show you some mysterious objects in the collection I work with and some starting points on how to identify.

Stay calm! Work slowly!

First thing’s first. Do not let the work (or amount of work) overwhelm you. You cannot know the answer to everything. Try to be logical in the steps you take. Never rush or you may just end up making assumptions and mislabelling or misdating objects. Take care to do the research.

Yes, here are some cute little pictures in frames. Where did you come from?! Who brought you here?! Photograph courtesy of Defne Inceoglu.

Investigate!

Look to the object(s) for help. Investigate any markings, writing or possible identifiers. This may also be a good moment to start a list of descriptions and best-guesses. Photograph the object(s). Look through your institution’s catalog or equivalent for any keywords or similarities to other objects in the collection that can offer more information.

Look! This one is signed. Perhaps a bit of preliminary Googling will bring up something promising. Photograph courtesy of Defne Inceoglu.

Back track!

Speak with colleagues and supervisors. Ask if they remember the object(s) coming in, if they remember who donated it or if they can aid with identifying it. Go through old emails, letters and files to see if anything has been kept about the provenance of the object.

Ask for help outside of the institution!

It is always a productive method to seek help outside of your own institution. Email local archives, historical associations or other museums with photographs of your mystery work. Sometimes people may recognize things you cannot.

Some sort of lamp, found tucked away, unlabelled, in a box. An email to other institutions would be helpful to help identify this one. Photograph courtesy of Defne Inceoglu.

Look to external resources!

Do some independent research. See if you can locate similar objects online or in other museum’s online resources. Consult other publications on collections management and see if they provide any sound advice.

What steps do you take to help identify mysterious objects?

MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS: ALUMNI CHECK-IN WITH KATE WOLFORTH

Alumni Check-In | Elizabeth Cytko

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Kate Wolforth, MMSt. (1997-1999) has been Manager of Collections, Exhibitions and Technical Services at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery in St. John’s, NL since 2014.

Kate Wolforth is the Manager of Exhibitions, and the Collections/Exhibitions Program Supervisor at The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery . She graduated from the Museum Studies program in 1999. Kate keeps the show running, maintaining schedules, and ensuring that the exhibition changeover is completed smoothly.

What is your favourite memory from your time in the Museum program?

The other students and all the discussions we had. Just having the time to think, talk, read, and we had some good debates. It was a really small program in the late 1990s. We only had about 13 students. Everybody was just so passionate and happy to be there. I enjoyed my internship as well. I did my internship at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. I worked with the education department doing all kinds of things. I developed an exhibition for kids and I worked on their summer camp program. I learned a ton – this museum was very supportive of interns at the time.

Is there anything you wish you had done while you were in the program?

I wish I had put myself out there more. I didn't publish anything. All the time that I spent writing papers for courses and I didn't turn any of [the papers] into a journal article while I had the time to think and write. Yes, so that's probably my biggest regret.

Can you give me a brief overview of where you work?

I work at The Rooms, which is the major provincial facility in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Rooms is home to the provincial art gallery, museum and archives. We manage all of the important objects related to this place. It's a really exciting institution - especially if you're someone like me, who likes art, but also likes history. This place has a truly fascinating past and a very vibrant culture. It’s a great place to live and work.

What does a typical day entail at your job?

A lot of my work is sitting at a desk, writing emails to people, buying things… it could be any administrative job. There's also the interesting part where we're working with an artist to develop a commission or sculpture, and you're trying to get plans together for exhibitions and reading over texts that the curators create. That kind of thing is what's really fun. We change over exhibitions every three months. Even when you're finished an exhibition, you're going right into another one. There's not really time to relax!

Since Newfoundland is an island, are there any island-specific challenges in running a museum, like getting items out or in?

Definitely, people from the mainland don't know exactly how far we are. It takes seven to ten days of shipping from Montreal or Toronto, and I have to allow for the fact that the ferry might shut down. In wintertime, we can have weeks sometimes when the ferry doesn't cross and we have no other link. If something's really urgent, I try to ship it by air, but in general our shipping costs are very expensive. So again, when we're doing tours of exhibitions from here, people in central Canada are used to sending things out for a few thousand dollars; it can be tens of thousands of dollars for us to send an exhibition. We have to make a special request in wintertime for the transport trucks to find a spot on the ferry where they can plug in so that they can keep things at a regulated temperature. Transport is probably the biggest issue and also access to colleagues.

The Rooms presented SakKijâjuk: Art and Craft of Nunatsiavut in Fall 2016. It is currently touring across Canada and is set to open at the Art Gallery of Windsor in October 2019.
Photo courtesy of Kate Wolforth

Which traveling exhibition did you find most challenging to supervise?

A current exhibition we are touring right now is called SakKijâjuk: Art and Craft of Nunatsiavut, curated by Dr. Heather Igloliorte. It is a very challenging to tour because it involves 40 artists and 80 artworks. All of those artists required a contract, all of those objects have to be tracked and installed in each venue. We found, after we developed it, that there weren't a lot of venues that could take a show that big. It's a beautiful show. We're so proud that our institution was able to put it together and tour it. It has received huge, wonderful accolades. It was a bit of a beast, challenging but worth it.

Do you have any tips for negotiating (with suppliers/team/other museums)?

Clarity of communication is probably the biggest recommendation. Make sure emails are straightforward, say what you want to do and why, because we're all really busy. Be clear about what your limits are. When you’re not clear up front it generally leads to trouble down the line. We’ve tried to make sure our contracts are airtight pieces of legal language.

What are some of the greatest risks you have taken in your career?

Every time you move jobs: I've left jobs that I really enjoyed for other opportunities, when I felt it was time to make a change. It's always a risk when you take a new job, because you don't know exactly what you’re going into. So far, I’ve been very lucky – the jobs I’ve moved into in my career have given me opportunities to grow and learn.

The current major summer exhibition at The Rooms Future Possible: Art of Newfoundland and Labrador from 1949 to Present is a comprehensive look at the art history of the province.
Photo courtesy of Jordan Blackburn

What are some of the long term trends that you think young museum professionals need to be aware of?

I think we all need to think more about environmental sustainability in everything we do. Exhibitions, in particular, can be very wasteful and I think that's something that people need to think about more and more. There need to be different design strategies, different ways of producing materials, and just different ways of doing exhibitions, that isn't so wasteful, that's a direction we need to go in. It is hard to do when people are used to doing things in the same way.

We also need to consider how museums can help people connect in meaningful ways. I think we're all connected to our phones - we're all connected digitally – but we’re all craving real, meaningful connections and experiences. When we do surveys asking why people come to The Rooms, they tell us “we're coming for peace”, “we're coming for calm”, “we're coming to get away”, “we're coming to escape.” When I was doing museum studies we were taught that people come to museums to be social with each other and to learn, but that's not what we're hearing from visitors now. People want to get away, so that kind of changes the way you think about how you design your spaces. All that stuff changes when the goal is to help people relax and find peace. I think that people can learn anything now from their phones, they can learn all the basic facts, anything they want to know, they can look up on Wikipedia. What they come to museums and galleries for is an immersive experience, some way to just be totally enveloped in some other reality. I think that's something that we're going to have to do better.

What is your advice for becoming a great leader?

Recognizing that you're only as strong as the people around you, always thank other people around you; always give credit where credit is due. I think that's really important. Generally we're all moving so fast and we don't get to hear from people about how well we've done. Within our team, I always try to make sure that if we get a compliment from a visitor, it's passed along to the person who actually did the work. If someone's done a good job, they should hear about it, because it motivates them to keep going.

What advice would you give to museum professionals entering the sector today?

I think just be really flexible. Take opportunities when they come. Sometimes you think you might not be interested in something, but try it anyway. You never know what you might learn from that experience. I think in museology, you have so many opportunities to try lots of different things. I've switched back and forth between art and heritage, and I've had a really rich career because of that.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

MANNEQUINS IN THE MUSEUM

Sew What | Enya Barbeau 

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Mannequins are a mainstay of fashion and historic dress exhibitions. Not only can they act as an effective conservational mount for fragile garments, but they also provide visitors with a sense of how clothing items were intended to appear and function on the human body. However, behind the polished public gallery exists a thorny set of practical and intellectual challenges associated with using mannequins in a museum context.

Robe à la française, mannequin à la Met (source). 

A baseline issue is one of sizing and fit. The proportions of commercially available mannequins don’t correspond well with historic clothing, leaving it up to museum professionals to try to retrofit the mounts to better support the garments in their collections. A variety of techniques are used: padding and carving out retail mannequins, as well as fashioning portions of the figure from Fosshape and Ethafoam. These approaches are labour-intensive and require a discerning (and perhaps artistically trained) eye for the human form. Of course, the issue of fit could be eliminated through the use of custom mounts—but based on the financial reality in which most museums operate, it seems almost cruel to present pricey made-to-measure mannequins as a workable solution.

What is this "funding" of which you speak? (source).

Fitting mannequins to the garments is just the tip of the iceberg. In “Exhibiting Gender: Exploring the Dynamic Relationships between Fashion, Gender, and Mannequins in Museum Display,” Chloe Chapin, Denise Nicole Green, and Samuel Neuberg offer a thoughtful analysis of how the use of mannequins in exhibitions is entangled with broader questions of aesthetics and identity. In their survey of North American museum professionals, the authors found that the postures and poses of retail mannequins not only stand out as anachronistic and when displaying dress from eras past, but also reinforce exclusionary gender and beauty archetypes: “In addition to feeling that mannequins did not represent the breadth of gender expression, respondents also were critical for their not representing the diversity of fashioned bodies that exist globally and highlighted other intersecting subject positions like age, ethnicity, and ability as lacking.” The article highlights some of the creative work that people are doing to overcome the dearth of representative mannequins—such as the padding out of a dress form to represent a body that undergone top surgery for the Iowa State University exhibition Queer Fashion & Style: Stories from the Heartland.

Chant "Masahiro Mori" three times and he appears (source).

Another layer of thought revolves around questions of animation and materiality. Clothes are meant to be worn on a living body; although mannequins act as effective stand-in, garments still undergo a process of disembodiment and decontextualization when they sit static on these humanoid forms. Joanne Entwistle and Elizabeth Wilson outline this phenomenon in the essay “The Body Clothed”: “Dress, the body and the self constitute a totality, and when dress and body are pulled apart, as in the costume museum, we grasp only a fragment, a partial snapshot of dress … Its displays cannot tell us how a garment moved when on the body, what it sounded like when it moved and how it felt to the wearer.” Museum workers try to close this gap in a number of ways. Some displays try to create a sense of embodiment through the use hyper-realistic mannequins—although this direction easily veers into Uncanny Valley. Others try to conjure the dynamism of a living body by augmenting mannequin displays with audio-visual content, live actors, and other special effects. In the 2011 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts exhibition The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier,  clothed mannequins rotated around the gallery on a motorized belt. The same year, the Met exhibition Savage Beauty: Alexander McQueen deployed fans to produce a gentle movement in the garments on display.

Like so many aspects of the museum field, mounting clothing for exhibitions involves extensive consideration and preparations behind the scenes before the finished product is brought into public view.  Next time you see a mannequin on display, try to evaluate the interpretive and aesthetic impact it has on your museum experience.