CONSCIOUS DESIGN: ALUMNI CHECK-IN WITH BRITT BRAATEN

 Alumni Check-In | Elizabeth Cytko

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Britt Braaten poses wearing a vintage apron.
Photo courtesy of Britt Braaten

Britt Braaten is the Creative Development Specialist at the Canadian War Museum. She graduated from the Museum Studies program in 2009, after switching from a law career to museums. Her museum internship was at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne, Australia where she worked in the Community Engagement/Curatorial department. 

The Canadian War Museum
Photo Courtesy of Britt Braaten

What does a typical day entail at your job?

My job is focused on the development of exhibitions; given the staff size (small!) and pace of work (fast!) at the War Museum, that means on any given day, I can expect to bounce between several different exhibitions and that each project will be at a different stage. For example, today, I reviewed and corrected design elevations for a traveling war art exhibition; reviewed English and French text for our major temporary exhibition about the Second World War, working with the historian, comparative editor, my manager and the project manager to finalize text; reviewed preliminary graphic layouts for that same exhibition and prepared comments for the designer; met with the historian to determine how we were going to fulfill a request from our Directors by adding content to that same exhibition; brainstormed potential visitor experiences for a proposed major temporary exhibition about war games; and corresponded with a colleague at another museum about balancing fun and learning in museum interactives.

What’s the best way to communicate with a team while creating exhibitions?

I think it’s important to be strategic in how you work with people:
I figure out what each person’s preoccupations are, and show that the approach I’m proposing addresses that—or, if it doesn’t, acknowledge that and invite them to help share their expertise.
I pay attention how each person likes to work—in person or on paper? Informal walk-and-talk conversations or extended workshops? —and tailor my work style to meet theirs.

It comes down to respect: respecting each others time, expertise and genuine desire to do good work. The more I’m able to understand my colleagues, the more I’m able to demonstrate my respect for them, and the better our long-term work relationships are. I find this kind of deliberate relationship management to be a critical ingredient in getting the support I need to do my job effectively.

Accessibility Guidelines
Photo courtesy of Britt Braaten

How do you approach creating visitor focused exhibitions?

In this role, my role as “visitor’s advocate” it’s my job to ask the right questions, and push back where needed.

Here is a list of the questions I consider:

Can visitors get to the exhibition?
Will they be comfortable in there?
Can they participate in a full and meaningful way?
Can visitors understand the exhibition?
Are we assuming prior knowledge in a way that will alienate people?
Will visitors care about what we have to say?
Have we totally missed the point?
Are we talking about what the subject-matter expert wants to talk about or what the visitor actually cares about?
How do we know what we know about visitors?
Can we actually talk to visitors to test our ideas before they make it on the floor?
Do we have research from past projects that could inform current decision-making?
Can we learn from our peers at other museums? Or am I relying on my own opinion and/or unreliable anecdotes?

Each of those questions plays out in innumerable ways, from intellectual decisions around the interpretive approach and content selection, to design decisions around fonts and colours, etc.

What’s the best way to include community voices/diversity in museum work?

A lot of it comes down to calling attention to instances where colleagues are treating “white man” as human-neutral (to borrow a phrase from comedian Hannah Gadsby) and see if there are other options that make sense in that case—sometimes it is a white man because that is what is authentic, accurate and appropriate for the topic. Other times, it’s just laziness, or a feeling that using someone other than a (straight, able-bodied) white man is somehow controversial or a “statement” in a way that defaulting to white-man isn’t. This isn’t always (or even often) a conscious decision, and I’ve found that calling attention to it and offering alternatives is an important and effective way to push for more diverse representation in exhibitions.

There are real impediments to representation—including attitudes and weaknesses in the collection—but I believe that this is an area where doing the work can pay off in real ways.

Britt Braaten delivering a talk during construction.
Photo courtesy of Britt Braaten

What is one of your failures that was a great learning experience?

One example that I think legitimately counts as a failure and that has influenced my approach to my job ever since comes from my first temporary exhibition at the War Museum. It was a pretty traditional art exhibition, but I was quite happy with it.

 What was the problem?

We had to reprint all of the labels—an unnecessary cost to the institution—because I had failed to account for two factors: first, in choosing fonts and colours, I worked exclusively in my office space. I didn’t think to print out samples and bring them down somewhere where the lighting matched the exhibition conditions. If I had, I would have increased the font size. But since I didn’t, it meant many visitors had to get in close to read the label. Unfortunately, I also didn’t account for how our decisions on security would impact the visitor experience: while some high-value artworks had individual alarms, for most of the exhibition, we opted for the less-expensive approach of curtain alarms—which were triggered when visitors stepped too close to the artwork. The combination of these two factors meant that many visitors were not able to get close enough to read the labels without also triggering the alarms. So the alarms went off all the time. We were able to correct this by reprinting the labels at a large enough font.

But I learned some important lessons. Now, I ALWAYS look at panels in as-close-to-real conditions as I can, early enough in the design stage that we can make changes. I also have developed a more holistic approach to exhibition development, and more of an awareness of how a decision in one department affects things in another department.

How does someone become the best ambassador for their museum?

Preparing in advance makes a real difference. In my undergraduate program, there was an unstated attitude that we should all be aiming for effortless brilliance at all things. Winging it was the highest ideal, while advanced preparation gave away that your brilliance was maybe not so effortless after all. It took me longer than it should have to move beyond that attitude and understand that what seems like effortless brilliance in others is usually the result of a lot of preparation. So the other part of being a good ambassador for the museum is being willing to do the work behind the scenes so that what you put forward into the world feels spontaneous and compelling, while in fact being very well planned.

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

I’m not a “regrets” sort of person. So while I’m sure there are things I could have done “better” in the sense that I half-assed a few assignments (especially in second semester of second year), I gave it the amount of time and effort that I was able to given the other competing priorities—working two part-time jobs, enjoying hobbies, seeing family and friends, etc. In fact, to answer the opposite of the question you asked, here’s a tip: nobody, not once, has ever asked me what my grades were. So, yes, I could have focused more on schoolwork and dropped one of my jobs—except that one of those jobs turned into a full-time gig after graduation, and the other covered food and rent and resulted in lifelong friendships. Or, yes, I could have stopped doing hobbies or seeing friends and put more time into my schoolwork—but those hobbies and friendships were what kept me happy and sane. So the lesson I really learned was: do what you have to do to get the degree, but not at the expense of your health and your future. Be kind to yourself, and understand that there’s a lot more to life than school.