MANAGED RETREAT AS PREVENTATIVE CONSERVATION?

Collections Corner | Martin Bierens

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In order to mitigate the risk that climate change poses to museums, should museums in coastal areas begin a managed retreat?

One of the proposed solutions for dealing with climate change, specifically the threat of rising sea levels is managed retreat. This involves a coordinated movement of people, and if possible, buildings away from threatened areas. Unfortunately, if we continue to ignore the warning signs of climate change and do not change our behaviour, this may become our only choice.

Climate change is a global issue facing many museums. In the United States, over a third of museums in the US are within 100km of the coast, and a quarter of these museums are located in high-risk areas. This means that they will almost certainly have to deal with potentially permanent flooding and increased severe weather that posses a massive threat of damaging or destroying museum collections.

Museums within 100km of the Gulf Coast and associated risk level of sea-level rise. (Source)

There are various pros and cons that museums will need to consider if they decide that a managed retreat is necessary.

Pros:

• Lowers the risk of environmental damage.
• It may be the only available option to save the museum.

Cons:

• The cost of a total collection move, and a new building.
• High risk of potentially damaging the collection during the move.
• Abandonment of community connections.

Flood Damage at the 9/11 Memorial Museums in New York City after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. (Source)

Along with the pros and cons of a managed retreat, there are also significant obstacles that will make the process extremely difficult.

• Coastal areas currently offer massive benefits to museums, they have high tourism, and the coast is the location of major economic centres.
• Currently there is no political agreement on the best course of action for undertaking a managed retreat. (Or responding to climate change in general.)
• There is still uncertainly of the level of risk.
• We are attached to our homes.
• Finally, and must crucially, museums abandoning communities which they have been situated in for years sends a bad message to those that they are leaving behind. This will clearly make evident the economic inequity of the organization compared to those who do not have the opportunity to retreat despite the risk.

It is difficult to argue for or against a managed retreat. On the collections management and preservation side of the argument, a managed retreat may be the only way to ensure the preservation of museum collections in the future. If this is considered the main purpose of a museum then a managed retreat is what is best for the museum. But, if the purpose of a museum is a place to bring together diverse voices, participatory experiences, and as a centre for community togetherness, then a managed retreat is abandoning the people who we should be serving.

I really hope that this is a theoretical situation and that collectively we will find other ways to address climate change before it gets to the point of having to abandon entire cities. But, if one day in the future it gets to the tipping point where managed retreat is necessary, I do not envy whoever has to make the ultimate decision.

"JUST A FEW CLICKS AWAY": A CONVERSATION WITH KAREN MACKE

Collections Corner | Martin Bierens

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Recently I had the chance to speak with Karen Macke, admin of the new Facebook group Museum Collections Management. I spoke to her during her lunch break at the Museum of the Aleutians in Unalaska, Alaska. She shares her thinking behind founding the group, how the group has helped her and other members, and the importance of connecting with other museum professionals.

Karen Macke, admin of Museum Collections Management, Collections Manager at Museum of the Aleutians, 2020 MMSt, and MI Graduate. (Photo courtesy of Karen Macke)

MARTIN: Can you introduce yourself, your name, job title, and one or two sentences about what most interests you about collections management?

KAREN: Hi, I'm Karen Macke. I graduated in May 2020 from the University of Toronto with a dual masters in archives and records management and museum studies. I currently work for the Museum of the Aleutians, I’m the collections manager here.

We're based out of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. If you know the geography of Alaska, that little chain of islands that goes off towards Russia, we're in that chain. We're pretty remote. The nearest hospital is about eight hundred miles away by plane or helicopter.

It's a unique situation here, mostly just because we're on the ring of fire. This means we have the threat of volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, just about any natural disaster you could have you can have here.

I think that's what really drew me to collections management, the challenge of figuring it out, figuring out how you can get materials, artifacts, and different objects to last as long as possible. Because, we always talk about best practices, trying to keep things alive for the next five hundred years. I also got drawn into collections management because I really like archives, and in my view, a collections manager is actually really similar to an archivist.

I feel that most people find recordkeeping boring. They don't like to organize and file, things like that. I absolutely love it. So this field gives me that opportunity to do data management, record-keeping, everything like that while working hands-on with artifacts. I also really love to build things, so mount making is one of my favourite things to do.

 Home Page of Facebook group Museum Collections Management. (Photo courtesy of Martin Bierens)

MARTIN: You recently launched a Facebook group called Museum Collections Management. What was your thinking behind starting this group?

KAREN: I think the idea really came from a Facebook group I was in called the Archivist's Think Tank, I found it in one of my archive classes at U of T. I had a question regarding a deteriorated photograph and got a response. I thought, “wow, that's really cool that someone would be able to tell me that.” Researching would have taken me probably 20 hours to figure out what was going on. I got an answer in five minutes from someone that is an archivist that works with photographs all the time and who knew the solution for my problem.

I posted in that group asking if anybody knew of museum specific groups like the archivists one because when I tried to find them, all I could find was like regional ones that had about one hundred people in them. I heard from a lot of people that said, “you know, why don't we just make one, what a great idea!”

I actually didn’t create the group, the other admin, Austin Justice, runs the group because Alaska is too remote for me to effectively run the day-to-day operations. Austin created the group and he made me an admin so that I could help look over it, as I had the original idea for the group. He helped me really grow the group.

That's what made me really think about starting this group, to start something similar to the archives group, but targeted for museum people.


MARTIN: What do you think are going to be some of the main benefits of a group focusing exclusively on collections management?

KAREN: I think it will have a lot of good benefits, but the big one, is continuing education and having people and resources at your fingertips immediately. We are all on listservs, but Facebook is very convenient. You can add photos easily to Facebook and you can try to figure out a solution for any issue. As we are now in a digital age, resources become more readily available, and it is easy to quickly respond to a Facebook post, more so than an email. So, I think the biggest benefit is definitely just having people all over the world easily connected. I was able to find, a past museum that I worked at called the Seward House Museum. Their collections manager joined the group but we had never met, it was really exciting we got to talk. I was able to help her with one of the questions that she had. I never would have had the chance to speak to this person without the group. I think it just really helps to show the interconnected nature of our field and how easy it is to find people that have had similar issues and how much more immediate your response can be with them.


MARTIN: Have you already learned some new interesting practices that you plan to implement into your own work? Maybe you could provide an example or any fun facts that you've come across from this group?

KAREN: I haven’t had the chance to personally post any questions yet, but lots of other members have already contributed some amazing content to the group. What I think has been really great is one member has created a lot of files that have different articles. These files include resources from the Canadian Conservation Institute, and a YouTube playlist, that has multiple videos about handling, care, or cleaning. When I have an issue in the future, like I recently had to learn how to clean a gut skin parka, a Chigdax, which was very difficult, one of my first steps might be to go look at this YouTube playlist that he put up about cleaning artifacts.

Another thing I have quickly learned from the group is there are a lot more resources out there than you may think.

Perhaps one of the biggest benefits is that we have people from all around the world in this Facebook group, we have members in Israel, and South Africa, to name a few.

This can be very helpful if you have cultural items in your museum from a far-off location. Group members could help answer questions through their own lived experience. For example, my museum recently had an issue with a gut skin parka which the previous conservator had attempted to repair, but the adhesive they used has begun to peel away and be rejected by the gut skin. If we had talked with someone from the local Indigenous group, the Unangax, we could have learned the Indigenous way to repair a suit and that probably would have lasted longer, would have contributed more to the provenance of the item, and probably overall would have been a better fix. Ideally, this group could have the benefit of connecting people near and far. You're always a few clicks away from someone that actually knows what you're talking about and can help you even if you don't know what you're talking about. What I've learned the most from the group is that there's a long line of collections managers out there willing and able to help.

Karen photographing the Chigax (gut-skin) Parka. (Photo courtesy of Karen Macke)

MARTIN: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me, Karen. Do you have any final thoughts you would like to share?

KAREN: I want to take the opportunity to encourage people to join, it's open to students and recent graduates, basically anybody that wants to be a part of it. Like I said, everybody has different experiences and knowledge in different places, the more of us there are, the more likely we can help each other figure something out.

On a personal note, this group has really helped me, it is something that has really helped me realize that there are so many other people interested and have a deep love for the field. Like I said, I'm in remote Alaska, before I made the group, I was starting to feel a little bit isolated. Everyone I wanted to call for help was either in Anchorage eight hundred miles away or Seattle. The group has really made me feel closer to collection management professionals and people that know what I'm talking about and I can nerd out with a little bit. I can have a conversation about something that's interesting or constructive conversation where we argue about what something is or isn't, or what might be wrong with it. I think it's been good for my mental health to stay in touch with people that also share the same passion I do.

It's rare that you find someone that's really passionate about our field unless they're in the field. It's really nice to have that social aspect of the group. It has definitely made me feel more connected to Toronto, mostly because a lot of my friends from Toronto have joined the group. It helps me feel a little more connected to them, seeing them commenting and posting on it and stuff felt really nice. I get to learn more this way, see more things, and I think that's great. I am really excited to see where the future takes the group, and I hope it can help in big and small ways.


MARTIN: This has been such an amazing chat, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me. Remember to join the group on Facebook at Museum Collections Management. For soon-to-be MMSt graduates, keep an eye on the group for job opportunities. 

RAPID RESPONSE COLLECTING: COVID-19

Collections Corner | Martin Bierens

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Perhaps unsurprisingly, the year 2020 has led to an uptick of rapid response collecting, particularly related to the pandemic.

Rapid response collecting is a fairly recent addition to museum collections management mandates with the goal being to collect the meaningful present. This has largely come from a shifting public and internal demand of what museums should provide their visitors. From the origin of museums in the 1800s, they have been a place where visitors can expect to encounter objects from the past, but now museums are placing a much greater emphasis on the present. Museums can be places where the public gathers to interact with contemporary history that directly impacts their lives.

A notable moment where rapid response collecting hit the mainstream and began to be recognized outside of the professional museum community was in 2017 after the Women’s March on Washington protesting the inauguration of Donald Trump. In response to the march, many museums collected the now-iconic pink pussyhats worn by protestors.

Protestors wearing pussyhats at the Women's March on Washington. (Source)

In 2020, rapid response collecting is how many museums have answered to the Covid-19 pandemic. After the initial global shut-down and the frantic development of online educational material, museums have been adding pandemic related objects to their collection.

A museum that took on a leading role in rapid response collecting in 2017 was the V&A, and this pattern continues today as they collect during the pandemic. Some of the objects that the V&A and other museums have collected include the obvious pandemic essentials, such as homemade facemasks, social distancing signs, ventilators, and heartwarming signs made by children. Other materials collected are oral histories from medical and essential workers, video footage of hospitals including a video created by a doctoral resident of Mount Sinai Queens —one of the worst-hit hospitals in New York City, and a cowbell that was rung every time a Covid patient was discharged from the Samaritan’s Purse Hospital, also in New York City.

Cowbell rung at Samaritan's Purse Hospital, now part of the New-York Historical Society's Collection. (Source)

Though there has been a very quick reaction by many museums to begin rapid response collecting, there are some museums that are taking measured steps to ensure that they are not reacting too quickly. Dean Oliver, the director of research at the Canadian Museum of History expressed that now, more than ever, there is a need to act deliberately, respectfully, and sensitively. The Royal B.C. Museum’s website has put a call out on its website for objects related to the pandemic, but they are holding off on formally accessioning any material at this time. This is a general cautiousness to ensure that they are acting appropriately and ethically, rather than making rash decisions.

Museums currently find themselves in something of a catch-22. If a museum chooses that they must undertake rapid response collecting at this time, they will be able to acquire a large amount of valuable material, but there is a possibility that the museum could take advantage of a bad situation, and may be treating donors unethically, be it unwittingly or not. However, if a museum decides to wait, ensuring that they are respectful and deliberate, there is the possibility that much of the material history of the pandemic may be lost forever. Joanne Orr of the Royal B.C. Museum expresses this concern, 

“Often in an emergency situation, things are thrown away, so a lot of things will be discarded at the end of this and we want to make sure we can capture examples of that.” 

Pandemic essentials, such as facemasks, are quickly being added to museum collections. (Source).

Museums are now faced with the difficult choice of collecting material but perhaps making best-practice mistakes, whereas on the other hand, if they decide to be cautious, there is a chance that they will never be able to collect material because it will already be gone. Museums are tasked with the difficult demand of practicing rapid response collecting, but balancing it with due diligence and ethical collecting practices.

Thank you to Chloé Houde for her assistance with this article.

FRAMING THE CONTEXT OF COLLECTIONS AT THE NMAAHC

Collections Corner | Martin Bierens

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After I have graduated from the MMSt program my goal is to be hired as a collection manager. I assume that I will find myself in two possible situations. First, I find myself at a well-established museum with a larger collection, that is well documented and it will now be my job to continue this excellent care. Or perhaps I am hired by a small institution that is in desperate need of somebody to come in and document their collection which has not been housed or organized efficiently in the past. What I would never imagine is coming to a museum with not a single object, and then being asked to amass a complete collection in little more than a decade.

Lately, I have been reading A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump, a new book by Lonnie Bunch, Secretary of the Smithsonian and former director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. During the development of the new NMAAHC, which opened in 2016, Bunch was in charge of the exact task I have described above. Bunch and his small team of curatorial staff and collections managers had to travel the United States to establish a brand new museum collection — from scratch.

Trumpet owned by jazz musician Louis Armstrong, part of the NMAAHC collection. (Source)

I could tell the story of how Bunch went about finding objects to collect, all the interesting people he met on this mission, and the collection’s lasting impact on the Smithsonian. All of these stories are fascinating, but I guarantee that in his book Bunch tells these stories much better than I could. Rather, I would like to ponder the differences between a “new” collection and an “old” collection, and the implications of each.

Museums are constantly trying to innovate and stay relevant in the twenty-first century, and many are doing an excellent job engaging with their communities, but there are still many issues. Perhaps an origin of these contemporary issues is that collections reflect radically different methodologies and values from those today. Could part of the reason that these collections do not serve their communities be due to the age of the collection?

I would like to make it clear that the age of the objects within a collection is not the issue, but rather the context in which the object has been collected which can dictate the stories that museums convey centuries later. Many large institutions such as the ROM, the British Museum, and the Louvre were founded in the nineteenth or early twentieth century. As a result, the objects that were chosen to be included in these museum collections were influenced by this time period.

Some museums, like the Brooklyn Museum pictured here, have opted to promote transparency in the museum's practises with "open collections" visitors can explore as additions to traditional galleries. (Source)

It is not the fault of the objects, but many of these objects reflect the attitudes and beliefs of this time. For example, in ethnographic museums, the collection reflects a history of Western colonial exploitation and the theft of material culture from marginalized colonial populations. Art museums on the other hand may reflect gender, class, and racial prejudices of the past. Think of all the white-male artists hanging in galleries all over the world. Of course, the great tragedy of collecting practices of the past that were based on deeply held prejudices is to think of what we have lost because it was not considered worth preserving at the time.

Ole Worm's "Musei Wormiani Historia" the original colonial collecting practise, the Cabinet of Curiosity (Source)

In a sense, the new collection at the NMAAHC is free from the dubious collecting practices of the past. However, perhaps in one-hundred years, future museum professionals will look back at the material collected today and identify issues that we are now foolishly unable to recognize. This highlights the assumptions, and reminds us that collections are so much more than their objects, the act of collecting itself has long-lasting implications, reaching beyond the objects, and the lowly collection manager themselves.

JOB TITLES: TO BE OR NOT TO BE ELITIST

COLLECTIONS CORNER

BY KATLYN WOODER

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In today's article of Collections Corner, I'm going to explore the responsibility of the people in charge of presenting collections to the public. Let's make a little room in the corner for their role to be explored in contemporary society.

Recently I’ve been thinking about the definition of "curator" because the weather has been great and I've been escaping the heat by touring galleries and museums. Blessed are the museums, which due to condition management practices, are air conditioned. I can’t get the first class of Curatorial Practice, taught by Matthew Brower, out of my head. Prof. Brower raised an interesting question of what it means to be a curator in a society where everyone is donning their curating hats, arranging their stuff in an artsy and intent filled way, and calling themselves curators.

Which is okay, they can do that. Most job titles are made up, and are just a way of communicating your purpose in life to strangers.

But in our program, and in the larger museum field, being a curator is a serious job. One that means you research, interpret, and develop an exhibit. A curator, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is “a keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection.” It’s a lot of work, and work that tends to be reliant on people not only getting what you are doing, but finding it interesting enough to be worth it. It is a cross your fingers and pray to your deity be it a god or analytical data scenario.

Source.

Last Friday, as I was waiting in line, I couldn’t help but think about how coffee shops are curated. The products are selected to fit certain criteria, are researched (we all know or are someone who will pose questions to their local barista), and are presented to attract customers. If I was a braver person, I would take pictures of the coffee shops I go in the mornings. They are purists places that I adore, where coffee/tea/pastry specialists expose us, the uneducated masses, to the wonders of organic, sourced products. However, I usually end up in those places early in the morning, impersonating a zombie amongst a horde of other zombies. I decide to just get my hot beverage, and maybe a croissant.

Source.

The collection manager may be a more accurate representation of the coffee shop job than a curator. They are in charge of the collection, cataloging, keeping conditions optimum, dealing with bureaucracy, and much more. How many times in a coffee shop do you hear someone call themselves a collection manager? I haven't yet.

We now have this weird role in society where people are calling themselves curators, but are really a hybridization of the roles and responsibilities of curators and collection managers. I'm not upset about it because it all boils down to a bunch of people who have a passion about one thing, and want people to take them and their collections seriously. However, I don't think the existing terminology really applies to how people are using it because being a curator or a collection manager is steeped ( ;) ) in a rich/diverse history of the cultural heritage sector.

The difference between a coffee shop and a museum is standards. If a coffee shop turned out to be fraudulently misrepresenting their products I would be mad, and I wouldn’t go back. If a museum, gallery, or/and hall of fame failed their ethics test I would be outraged. Perhaps this is a result of over a hundred years of higher expectations, but I don’t think so. A museum's responsibility is to its collection or cultural product. I would hold curators to a higher standard if they worked in a museum, gallery or hall of fame. I worry about the responsibility of a curator or other museum professional diminishing when that responsibility isn’t understood by people outside of the museum world.

Maybe what we need is a new name… how about "supreme overlord of particular tastes" for curators and "supreme overlord of keeping their feet on the ground" for collection managers. Those would be fun business cards.

Source.

I'm not sure if I'm being elitist and devoutly bowing to the hierarchical structure of museums, where certain roles mean certain things done by certain people, most likely highly educated, specialists. Please let me know your opinions in the comments section.