SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?: CONTEMPLATING THE LONGEVITY OF VIRTUAL MUSEUMS AND AT-HOME PROGRAMMING

Beyond Traditions | Sarah Cozzarin

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Museums have always provided opportunities for culture and education to their communities, with many prioritizing involvement with students and others yearning to learn. Since March 2020, museums have adapted to a new socially-distant world, one forcing them to change the way they reach and engage their audiences. Many organizations turned to social media and other digital platforms, shifting from a primarily physical environment and in-person experience to a digital and distant one.

Before 2020, museums and other GLAM organizations were integrating various technologies – including virtual and digital experiences – into their in-person exhibitions and programming. With the COVID-19 pandemic putting the brick-and-mortar museum experience on pause, museums needed to move beyond traditional in-person programming. The implementation of online virtual programming met the needs of museum audiences in the isolated comfort of their own homes. Some of these programs include virtual tours and field trips, social media challenges, livestreams, video tutorials and much more!

With increasing vaccinations and decreasing case numbers, a post-pandemic world appears to be drawing closer. Currently, museums and other GLAM organizations are beginning to reopen and welcome back visitors. This begs the question: What does the future holds for these new virtual at-home programs?

        Design by Sarah Cozzarin on Canva

 

It is difficult to imagine museums and GLAM organizations fully abandoning virtual at-home programming for several reasons, the first being the uncertainty of the pandemic. Secondly, organizations have spent over a year investing and redistributing staff and resources to provide a variety of virtual offerings and experiences. It would be foolish to completely abandon this financial, and probably labour intensive, investment. Thirdly, virtual programs allow for numerous benefits including access and interaction with fragile objects not suited for display and the ability to reach a wider geographical audience. People have the ability to participate in virtual programs in cities, provinces and countries other than their own. 

In early 2019 (well before the COVID-19 pandemic), Carly Straughan discussed the potential of virtual museums in her article titled, “Is the future of museums online and what might a virtual museum look like?”. After over 18 months locked away from the physical museum space, people are eager to go out and visit museums again. Could the reopening and the surge of in-person visitors threaten the longevity of virtual museums? 

With the ability to host in-person visitors, museums may be inclined to decrease or stop producing and providing at-home virtual programming for operational and financial needs. Museums and GLAM industries rely heavily on support through fundraising during social events, so, it is no surprise to learn that the museum and GLAM industry has taken a large financial hit after being closed for nearly 18 months. Angel Adegbesan’s article “Reopened Museums Lean Into Local Tourism Boom” reveals that visitors and museums are both ready to abandon the remote museum experience and renter the physical museum world. In-person visitors spend more money on entrance tickets and merchandise than at-home visitors, where an abundance of virtual programming is free or available at a lower cost. Reopening the physical museum could shift the operational needs of museums, supporting the needs of in-person visitors. With revenue a main motivating factor for most organizations, in-person visitors and programming will likely move the focus of museums away from the virtual world.

 

Crowds in Vatican Museum | Michal Osmenda

It is hard to imagine that museums and other organizations may abandon virtual at-home programs partially or fully, but with the increase of in-person visitors, available resources and staff will need to be redistributed to accommodate both virtual and in-person visitors. Trying to balance these two spheres of audiences may be a difficult challenge for museums. However, as the last 18 months have taught us, if we can persevere, we are more capable than we think.

What are your views on the longevity of virtual museums and at-home programming?

MUSEUMS AS PLATFORMS IN A POST COVID WORLD

 Beyond Tradition | Erika Serodio

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The many closures and lockdowns of this past year have forced museums to literally think outside their boxes. Museums have long been considered containers for the many artifacts and objects that tell stories about culture. As museums lost access to those containers this year, their storehouses became just that – places for objects, not people. There is mounting pressure to rethink the ways that these institutions engage with culture. A shift from object-based collections to visitor-centred programming is not a new idea in museums. However, a shift from the museum container to museum as platform has become an essential idea for a post-covid world.

Platforms can take us many places | Sources

Earlier this week I attended a zoom panel that was part of the Bihar Museum Biennale. The title of the panel was “Container vs Platform: Museum as an open space for conversation.” The panelists spoke of the importance of this idea in visitor research studies and how not so long ago, the idea of museums being for people was radical. The shift in thinking throughout the last few decades has been gradually moving in this direction, but the pandemic has heightened the need for urgent change in the museum sector.

The Cooper Hewitt responded to this critical moment for museums by convening with over a dozen museum professionals to create a toolkit titled “Tools and Approaches for Transforming Museum Experience.” In the toolkit, the authors describe the necessity and direction for change as follows:

“The rapidly shifting conditions of this past year have disrupted the sense of safety and familiarity offered by the creation and re-creation of formulaic museum experiences, but have not yet resulted in the kind of self-aware examination necessary for museums to break out of the hierarchical paradigms reinforced by those formulas. How might we interrogate the idea that expertise should be seated squarely in the hands of museum experts, or that audiences should learn from us instead of the other way around?”

Museums all over the world are finally asking their communities, their visitors, what they want to engage with and how. The Bentway has recently released a new initiative for its community called Digital and/as Public Space. The project, still in its development phase, invites anyone to contribute ideas on what it could and should be through a digital platform called Are.na. (You need to make an account to access it, but it’s free and easy and I highly recommend checking it out.)

Many museums have been transitioning to the platform mentality long before physical institutions were forced to close their doors. And some museums have formed without any building at all. Myseum of Toronto, Toronto’s museum without walls, creates programming and exhibits that incorporate the community at every step. Everyone is invited to share ideas, stories, art, music, and artifacts with the museum for its future programming. The Myseum website claims that "the more you get involved, the better the experience of Myseum will be." 

Places for people Source

The future of museums is unclear right now but it's exciting. The pandemic has created an opportunity for a wild reimagining of cultural institutions that will centre on visitors like never before. And we certainly aren't short on ideas. 

THE COMMUNITY IS THE GALLERY: “THREE-THIRTY” AT THE DORIS MCCARTHY GALLERY AND BEYOND

Exhibition Reviews | Rachel Deiterding

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While online exhibitions have become the new norm over the past year, there are many exhibitions and media that are not easily transformed for the digital world. Despite this, galleries such as the Doris McCarthy Gallery (DMG) have continued to engage audiences with their in-person offerings without any bodies passing through the gallery space. 

On October 3rd the DMG opened their first exhibition since their unexpected closure due to COVID-19 in March. Three-Thirty, curated by Scarborough native Anique Jordan, features work by Aaron Jones, Kelly Fyfe-Marshall, and Ebti Nabag. For a few short weeks, visitors were able to visit the exhibition in person before the gallery closed its physical space again to limit the transmission of COVID-19. Elements of the exhibition resisted being transformed into an online format. Kelly Fyfe-Marshall’s three-channel video POWER asks Scarborough community members “what does power look like for you in the midst of this moment of revolution?” The conversation that it presents calls for a three-dimensional interaction with the videos as the viewer is swept into the conversation from multiple directions. Creative curatorial approaches that focused on public art and making the exhibition accessible for, and in fact a part of, the wider Scarborough community, allowed some elements of the exhibition to continue to thrive at a distance.

Kelly Fyfe-Marshall, POWER (still from three-channel video installation), 2020. Image: Toni Hafkenscheid. [Source]

As a whole, Three-Thirty focuses on the after-school hour to explore the way that young people assert their authority and more generally, how power is constructed and manipulated in particular spaces. The exhibition is concerned with how individuals influence their environments when they are told that they do not have the power to do so. While the gallery portion of the exhibition is presented at the DMG, Three-Thirty, is also made up of satellite installations at Malvern Public Library and Lester B. Pearson Collegiate which features monumental murals installed on the exterior of each structure. 

These exterior elements kept the exhibition alive in the COVID-19 era, however, they were not built into the exhibition to help keep us apart, but rather to bring the community together. Aaron Jones, worked with the Rita Cox Black and Caribbean Heritage Collection to develop Seeing Knowledge, a series of collages that reflect on alternative models of classifying and building knowledge based in the body and ancestral worlds. The collages were combined to create the 23-foot mural that adorns Malvern Public Library.

Aaron Jones, Seeing Knowledge, 2020. Public installation at the Malvern Public Library. Image: Toni Hafkenscheid. [Source]

Ebti Nabag’s photo-murals were developed with students from Lester B. Pearson Collegiate, depicting them smiling, laughing with friends, in their element, and in control of their own images. Two murals are installed on the exterior of Lester B. Pearson Collegiate, and a third at the DMG. The scale of the murals commands the viewer's attention and conveys the agency of the youth, depicting worlds of seriousness and playfulness where they are in control of the present and the future.

 

Ebti Nabag, Bubble of Youth, 2020. Public installation at Lester B. Pearson Collegiate Institute. Image: Toni Hafkenscheid. [Source]

Together, these murals take on the themes of power and agency taken up by Three-Thirty, while also thinking about where power and decision-making lie in particular communities. While DMG exhibitions are free, the external elements of the exhibition extend notions of accessibility, acknowledging that not all groups represented feel welcome or in control in traditional gallery spaces. Taking the work beyond the physical limits of the gallery and placing them at the epicenter of the wider community functions to promote engagement with art from different audiences and brings these themes into discussion in community spaces rather than exclusively in the gallery. The proximity of the installations also facilitates the opportunity for community members to stop and reflect on their neighbourhood as they move among important local landmarks. Jones and Nabag’s murals embody a sense of empowerment, exuding the agency and knowledge of those who are often cast aside. While they promote discussions surrounding power, agency, and place, they implicitly, and maybe even more powerfully, serve as a reminder of the individual agency of each member of the Scarborough community.

  

Three-Thirty, 2020. Installation view. Image: Toni Hafkenscheid. [Source]

Online spaces have provided a platform for museums and galleries to continue sharing information and presenting exhibitions when it has been dangerous to gather inside. While expanding access in some senses, digital spaces have limited others, neatly packaging the world into disconnected 2D realities. Perhaps, thinking about land, exterior spaces, and direct community access are worthy open-air alternatives as COVID-19 persists and as we enter into a post-COVID era of curatorial practice.

 

Ebti Nabag, I'm Listening, 2020. Public installation at the Doris McCarthy Gallery, UTSC. [Source]

For more information about Three-Thirty, and to watch the short documentary about the show click here!

GET OUTSIDE, STAY HOME: VIRTUAL NATURE AND MENTAL WELLNESS

 GLAM Gets Mindful | Melissa Mertsis 

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Anyone else battling a case of the winter blues these past few weeks? Finding yourself itching to go outside, but wanting to stay safe at home? Missing the glorious rush of serotonin that comes from being immersed in nature? Never fear — virtual nature is here!

Being outside immersed in nature is always fun, but also has proven benefits. Research shows that exposure to nature and the outdoors might help reduce stress, increase attention span, and improve overall emotional wellness. Green, tree-filled spaces are also known to have an impact on blood pressure, lowering it as well as other stress-inducing hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Even though we're all stuck at home (for good reason, of course) it's still important to get your fix of nature and all the good things that come along with it. Take a look at some of the tours and experiences below to get you outside, while staying home. 

A Clipper butterfly (Parthenos sylvia). Image retrieved from Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory website.

Visit the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory through a 360-degree YouTube video featuring beautiful greenery, tons of natural light, and, of course, butterflies! If you want to venture a little further than Cambridge, Ontario, the American Museum of Natural History also has a 360-degree tour of their conservatory (complete with classical music, of course). 

Butterflies aren't your thing? No problem! Parks Canada has put together an extensive list of National Parks and Historic Sites to explore, powered by Google Street View. Venture all over the country, from Terra Nova National Park in Newfoundland and Labrador to the S.S. Keno National Historic Site in the Yukon. 

Terra Nova National Park. Image retrieved from Parks Canada. 

If you're less about the trees and more about flowers and foliage, you can also tour botanical gardens from all around the world. Check out the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens in New York with a virtual tour, or head across the ocean to the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland and take a peek at their herbarium or Palm House. 

If you're more of an animal person, we've got you covered — after all, "nature" can mean a lot of things! Lucky for you, places like The Toronto Zoo are also bringing nature to you. You can watch live streams of gorillas, giraffes, penguins, and meerkats on The Toronto Zoo's Twitch, TorontoZooLife, with zookeeper talks every weekday at 2pm EST. If you want more options to watch your favourite furry (or non-furry) friends, Explore.org offers live videos from all around the world — when else will you be able to watch Brown Bears fish at Katmai National Park in Alaska? 

A Brown Bear from Katmai National Park in Alaska. Image retrieved from National Park Service.

No matter your interests (or the state of our stay-at-home advisory) it's never impossible to enjoy nature. One of the benefits of operating online is that institutions and organizations are getting more and more clever with how to bring their in-person experiences to you at home, so take advantage of these amazing digital experiences.  Let's not forget the benefits that nature (virtual or otherwise) can have on our wellbeing —  get outside, stay home, and take care of yourself!

WHAT NOW?: MUSEUM TECHNOLOGY POST-PANDEMIC

Technology Tuesdays | Jaime Meier

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This winter, my roommates and I have been kept very warm, at times much TOO warm, by the radiators in our apartment. The design of this intense heating system was to combat a previous pandemic – the Spanish Influenza in 1918. Radiators were created to be so hot that occupants would open their windows to maintain a livable temperature, which would also allow fresh air to circulate through homes, schools, and workplaces. There is no doubt that CoVID-19 will have a similar impact on museum infrastructure which will affect interpretation and engagement technology.

3D-printed replicas of stone spear points. | Source

One of the greatest opportunities for new technology in museums is through ensuring there is not a backslide in sensory museology, primarily through touch and hands-on experiences, while implementing important health and safety measures. Tactile objects may still be utilized as 3D printed replicas because the plastic is easily sanitized, and the object can easily be replaced after significant wear. It is also important to keep in mind possible barriers for blind people who rely on touch for reading and interpreting information. One of the most simple and cost-efficient solutions is raised drawing boards that allow for an easily embossed and readable handout. 

With museums and their exhibitions moving online, ideally there would be a continuation in forms of remote museum learning. In addition to exhibitions and educational programming available online, a possible accompaniment would be travelling outreach kits that would be available to not only teachers, but also other organizations and groups that promote learning and play. While this form of engagement is on hold for now, as the pandemic retreats it will likely become a popular option to fulfill educational desires and maintain the health of users.

Example of a museum mobile app. | Source

A final key in maintaining engagement is museums taking advantage of their mobile apps. The level of usability for museum apps fluctuates from institution to institution, with some museums charging for their content and others offering little more than a few audio guides or a map. A mobile app provides the opportunity for personal engagement via built-in tours and programming within museums as well as opportunities for learning outside of the museum. However, there are still accessibility issues with this form of engagement, as not everyone is able to own a mobile device or a mobile device with the required operating system. 

One of the highlights for me when visiting museums is experiencing new or exciting interpretation strategies. I am looking forward to the day when I am able to return to museums and for the technological innovations that will be implemented. What form of museum engagement are you hoping to see when museums open again?

UPCOMING ONLINE EVENTS TO KEEP YOU INSPIRED

Friday Special | Erika Serodio

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As Toronto settles into this new phase of pandemic lockdown, we hope you're finding ways to stay engaged and inspired in the museum world. Here are a few free events you can attend from home in the coming weeks. Stay strong, friends. There are so many real world museum experiences waiting for us on the other side. In the meantime...

Saturday, November 28th, 6:00 to 8:00 PM — Beyond the Block: A Celebration

The final event in a digital series presented by the Toronto Ward Museum will feature live music, spoken word performances, a live trivia game, and video storytelling.

Register here

Toronto Sculpture Garden | Source

Tuesday, December 1st, 1:15 to 3:00 PM —Becoming Public Art: Temporary Programming

After a historical presentation on the Toronto Sculpture Garden, major voices in temporary public art programming will discuss the significance of the project and its impact on projects that came after it.

Register here



Wednesday, December 2nd, 1:00 to 2:00 PM —Where is the love? 

The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) has brought three artists and researchers together to discuss the exhibition Losing Venus. Through this exhibition, they will consider how ethnographic museum collections can bring emotion, intimacy, care, and love into their work. 

Register here



Thursday, December 3rd, 7:30 to 9:00 PM — A Virtual “Music in the Museum”

The American University Museum at the Kaizen Arts Centre will be live streaming an iconic bytebeat duo performance between Washington, DC and Toronto.

Register here



Friday, December 4th, 9:00 to 10:00 PM — DISplace Curator’s Talk

The Five Oaks Museum provides a platform for culturally embedded storytelling with this conversation between curators who will share personal stories alongside the research of this online exhibition.

Register here



Sunday, December 6th, 4:00 to 5:00 PM — Counter Attack: Artists and Curators Creating Change

New Wave brings together four artists and curators to discuss the roles they play in challenging dominant cultural narratives and institutional practices. 

Register here

Abstract Work by Rothko | Source

Tuesday, December 8th, 7:00 to 8:00 PM — Driven to Abstraction: A Panel Discussion on Art & Authenticity in Practice

Join what is sure to be a lively discussion with art world experts who will discuss the recent documentary Driven to Abstraction which looks at an $80 million forgery scandal in a New York City gallery.

Register here



Friday, December 11th, 9:00 to 11:00 AM — Museums and Digital Culture after the Pandemic

This online symposium will look at how museums adapted to changes during the pandemic and what the new future of digital will look like in museums after the pandemic.

Register here

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.

THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN OF THE AGO

Weekend Edition | Jessica Lanziner

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The Art Gallery of Ontario reopened to visitors with annual passes on July 2nd and is reopening to the public on July 23rd. I was at the AGO on the last day it was open, nearly 4 months ago on March 13th, frantically rushing to get in and gather enough information on an exhibit in order to finish a class assignment before the shutdown. And while that day feels like a lifetime ago, the AGO is still there and it is just the same. . . but also different.

I have been going to the Art Gallery of Ontario for as long as I can remember – but my return visit on July 5th was unlike any other visit I had experienced before. There were no funky modern seating options in any exhibition spaces, no children in the AGO summer camp, and no "Pop Up On the Dot" tours. What there was, however, was a plentiful number of masked visitors. Before the City of Toronto implemented a mandatory mask bylaw, the AGO had already announced that masks would be mandatory for all visitors upon the reopening. And I can confirm, I did not see even one person without a mask – or even wearing a mask improperly – for my entire visit. Every visitor services associate, security personnel, child (over the age of two), and adult, was wearing a mask of some kind. All the new rules are outlined by a unique ad campaign, featuring modified versions of some of their most famous art works.

View this post on Instagram

It’s hard to believe it’s been more than three months since we last saw you at the AGO. We’re beyond thrilled to announce that we’re re-opening on July 2 to AGO Members and Annual Pass Holders and on July 23 to everyone purchasing single tickets. Members will be able to book timed-entry tickets starting June 25 and Annual Pass Holders starting June 26. Timed-entry single tickets can be purchased starting July 16. We‘re taking our advice from health officials and will be implementing some new health and safety measures and strict capacity limits so that we can all stay safe while seeing our favorite art again. • Here’s what you need to know about visiting the AGO during this period: ⏰ We will be open Thursday through Sunday, from 10:30 AM to 5 PM 👥 Only AGO Members and AGO Annual Pass Holders can visit starting July 2. We open to the public on July 23. If you’re not a Member or Annual Pass holder, it’s not too late to sign up! 💻 Timed tickets must be booked in advance. Tickets will NOT be available onsite. 😷↔️😷All staff and visitors are required to wear a mask and adhere to social distancing. 🤒 If you are feeling unwell - please stay home. Staff will do the same. 🧼We have increased our cleaning schedule and will be disinfecting high touch and high traffic areas multiple times a day. ❤️ We cannot wait to welcome you back - we’ve missed you!

A post shared by Art Gallery of Ontario (@agotoronto) on Jun 23, 2020 at 9:08am PDT

To visit the AGO, you now must book a timed entry ticket online through their website in advance, then download it to a device, or print out the ticket to bring with you. Upon arrival, visitors are greeted at the Dundas Street entrance with the banners bearing some incredible “AGO From Home” recreations of famous artworks.  Behind the banner posts is a spotted line of 6-foot spaced, social-distancing stickers – the same ones that we see in every store, sidewalk, and public indoor space. The line leads to one opened doorway, monitored by a staff member wearing a face shield. Inside, you follow the stickers to a staff member behind plexiglass, scan your own ticket under the machine, and enter the gallery. 

Photograph courtesy of Jessica Lanziner.

Once inside, you are barraged by a floor covered in directional stickers, with hand sanitization stations at every turn. The stairs are one way up, one way down, the elevators speckled with social distance stickers and hand sanitizer stations, and every single gallery has a panel sticker at the entrance that informs visitors of how many people are permitted in that gallery space. The special exhibitions, Diane Arbus:Photographs 1956-1971 and Illusions: The Art of Magic, are monitored by a staff member, who counts and limits the total number of visitors in the space. The magic shows in the Illusions exhibit are cancelled, leaving a hauntingly empty curtain where the magic shows used to run. Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room is likewise closed, which while understandable, seems like a missed opportunity for an addition of masked-selfies to the visitors’ camera rolls.  

While odd, it was a welcome glimpse back to what I have been missing for months. Familiar faces and scenes looked out from frames across the galleries, remaining exactly where I remembered them to be. They remain unchanged, continuing to exist in a completely normal state, despite the lack of normalcy in the world beyond their frames. The whole experience was a breath of fresh (but mask-filtered) air. It was quiet, calm, and exactly as I remember the AGO being on a quiet day – a small number of visitors, soaking in text panels and a diverse range of art in almost complete silence. 

Photograph courtesy of Jessica Lanziner.

Once in a while, though, I couldn’t help but snap back into reality – remembering my masked self, in a room full of masked visitors, in the AGO – in the current era, perfectly normal. In my life overall, incredibly out of the ordinary.  If you want to visit yourself, you can book your tickets through the AGO’s website. Or if you want a more distanced, yet still rather different experience of it, you can watch their video that they made with the Toronto Zoo, where two tortoises demonstrate how to navigate the renovated space. I can attest, it is quite accurate to the real experience – slow and weird, yet somehow, familiar.  

Snapshot from the AGO's walk through video. 

A PANDEMIC TIME CAPSULE

Beyond Tradition | Erika Serodio

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At the beginning of April, as the world I knew closed its doors, I read something that has stayed with me. George Saunders, an English professor at Syracuse University, wrote a letter to his students that was published in The New Yorker. In his letter, he described the pandemic as an event "where all of the drama is happening in private." He asked his students, urgently, “Are you keeping records of the e-mails and texts you’re getting, the thoughts you’re having, the way your hearts and minds are reacting to this strange new way of living?” The records you keep, Saunders advised them, will convince future generations of what happened to us.

Time Capsule | Source

This sentiment seems so important to me as I continue to question the future of museums. I wondered how this pandemic would be remembered by others in the future and around the world. And I wondered how the local experiences of this pandemic would be different from each other. How could museums foster this kind of remembering as the pandemic is happening? Especially while museum doors remained closed. The pandemic has forced so many of us to live moment to moment. It is not as easy as it sounds to record our feelings and fears right now.

Remember | Source

I recently came across a project designed by The Bentway. Their city-wide public art installation is a brilliant answer to George Saunders’ demand for records of the pandemic. The Bentway commissioned twenty Toronto artists to respond to the question: “What words are you living by right now?” The artists responded with illustrated words that were projected on billboards, painted on building walls, and plastered on trucks that drove through the city. The project is called #ItsAllRightNow. The next phase of the project asks the public to respond to the same question and submit their words. In 2021, these public submissions will be made into a new exhibition that will aim to help us remember Toronto’s psyche during this moment.

Artwork by Anne Michaels | Photograph by Marzena Pogorzaly | Source

How are you recording this moment? What would you put in a pandemic time capsule to explain this to future generations?

THE MUSEUM IN MY KITCHEN: TRYING WWI RECIPES

A Muse Bouche | Dominica Tang and Lindsay Chisholm

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The National WWI Museum and Memorial launched the online exhibition “War Front: From the Home Front to the Front Lines,” in 2014. To compliment the exhibit, it features a 1918 cookbook entitled “Win the War in the Kitchen,” and invites the audience to re-create war-time recipes. With the support of the Woodrow Wilson government, the United States Food Administration originally published this cookbook to further inspire women to “take up arms” and mobilize certain skills on the homefront.

                 

National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, United States. Source.

Blogs and news outlets have rediscovered this exhibit to provide the public with ideas on how to adapt their meals to the increased food shortages and to support their audience emotionally during this time of extreme stress. The increase of food shortages are brought on by mass hoarding of resources and a shortfall of agricultural labourers. The exhibit is finding relevance and purpose in a COVID-19 context, and we aim to find what new meanings have emerged because of it and the differences between cooking historic recipes in the museum and our homes. Lindsay and I chose two recipes to make and eat with our families at home and shared our experiences with each other.

Dominica: I chose to make potato bread and poultry with peas because their flavours were complementary. They also shared quite a few ingredients, which kept my grocery list nice and short.

Potato Bread  [Left] and a Poultry with Peas dish [Right]. Photographs courtesy of Dominica Tang. 

Lindsay: I made a scalloped cabbage dish and a tomato and bean stew, akin to a “Meatless Monday” menu. The United States became a major contributor for food supplies for the frontline when they joined the war. Meat consumption was restricted on the home front so that the meat could be exported for the frontline.

Scalloped Cabbage dish [left] and Tomato and Bean Stew [Right]. Photographs courtesy of Lindsay Chisholm.

Dominica: My family had trouble purchasing fresh meat, especially at the beginning of the lockdown. The number of dairy products that customers can purchase are also being limited in many grocery stores. So how did you find cooking and eating these dishes?

Lindsay: My prior experience in museology and food stems from the realm of edible archaeology. The key to unearthing stories from the past is through the systematic study of the archaeological record. It was this mindset that restricted any creative decision-making during cooking. It took every morsel of my being not to doctor up these recipes and alter the steps of seasoning to retain historical credibility. The lack of aromatics [onions, garlic, and herbs] made the food bland. For instance, without browning your butter first, it lacks a nutty richness and a pleasant aroma. This blandness may be accredited to the food shortages during the war. Did you have similar sensory issues?

Lindsay put on a cute, frilly apron for the occasion! Photograph courtesy of Lindsay Chisholm.

Dominica:  I actually used the recipe more as an inspiration than as a strict guide and as such, I took a creative licence in “recreating” the historic recipes. To the poultry and peas recipe, I added MSG, bacon, parsley, and garlic to add more flavour and colour. Both recipes called for bacon fat, so it made economical sense to also add the meat and not waste it. The mashed potato kept the bread wonderfully moist and fluffy, but the bread was extremely bland. I generously coated each slice with salted butter.

Slices of potato bread toast paired with a hot cup of coffee. Photograph courtesy of Dominica Tang.

Lindsay: Did you find your cooking was drastically altered when experimenting in your at-home kitchen rather than within a historic kitchen at a house museum?

Dominica: Yes! I have made potato bread before from a 19th century recipe in Mackenzie House’s historic kitchen, where I bake in a wood-fired iron stove and followed the recipe to a tee. An unofficial exception of the museum and our visitors was to recreate the recipe as accurately as possible. At home, I was free to incorporate and accommodate for my personal tastes and my family’s dietary preferences. My family was more interested in trying something new, rather than sampling food from a specific historic period. All the extra ingredients were still historically accurate to the period and location, MSG can be found naturally in products like cheese, and cooks have always altered their recipes to suit their diners.

Dominica's potato bread loaf in the historic oven at Mackenzie House museum [Left]. The bread tasted delicious with a bit of butter, jam, and marmalade [Right]. Photograph courtesy of Dominica Tang. 

Lindsay: That’s very true. By tracing histories from the past through food, we can make similar comparisons between how we examine recipes of the early 20th century to that from ancient societies. In “Win the War in the Kitchen” and Roman culinary sources, like Apicius, both lack detailed information on measurements, amounts of foodstuffs, and cooking times. The writers expected the audience to be experts in their field who would have taken liberties with their art. Dominica, you interpreted the record like a chef from the past by adding your own fixings! We were both able to incorporate museum based-programming for at home use. It is through creativity and connection that a person can figuratively leave the confines of their home isolation and be transported into a past world of exploration.

Digitizing and sharing these historic recipes with the public gives the audience control over their edible museum experience and provides access to them when people need it most. We chose to write about “Win the War in the Kitchen,” because it became a COVID-19 relevant project through public interest instead of the museum's. People are interested in museum programming that distracts them but also helps make sense of the world. Being a community-centered museum and appealing to an audience during COVID-19 goes beyond providing online education, entertainment, and emotional support. In times of crisis, museums should, as Nina Simon argues, serve the needs of people who are most vulnerable to the social, mental, and physical consequences of the pandemic. The Brooklyn Museum, for example, partnered with Campaign Against Hunger and donated their parking space to serve as a free food-pick up site. Will museums continue this type of community work in a post-lockdown world? We sure hope so.

OPERATING ONLINE: TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF IN A DIGITAL WORLD

GLAM Gets Mindful | Melissa Mertsis
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Welcome back to the first summer post of GLAM Gets Mindful — I'm excited to be back! In my last article, "Mitigating Loneliness by Moving Online," I shared with you some of the coolest online exhibitions, digital tours, and museum resources for curing that quarantine loneliness. Two months later,  the GLAM sector continues to operate exclusively online. Although many of us are grateful to be able to experience our favourite institutions digitally, the internet is exhausting. How do you balance staying connected to your sector while still being mindful of your well-being? 

Social media is just one way we've been able to stay connected in the GLAM sector, especially during times of distancing and isolation. Instagram has been an especially useful tool for many of our favourite institutions, providing a great platform for new online campaigns. For example, you can check out the Royal Ontario Museum's (@romtoronto) Instagram campaign "Ask ROM Anything" where they share expertise from their curators and staff, or Bata Shoe Museum's (@batashoemuseum) Trivia Thursdays. Museum twitter is also especially active and generates some incredible content (we're looking at you, Museum of English Rural Life) that you don't want to miss out on.

Told you @TheMERL's twitter was great. Go check it out!

Unfortunately, as the saying goes, you can have too much of a good thing. Social media can easily exhaust its users and cause them to feel even further away from their community. Social media fatigue results in people visiting social media less because of feelings of anxiety and overstimulation. If you're starting to feel this way, it's okay to take a step back and take a break! Museum Twitter will still be there when you get back, and you might be able to enjoy it more with a rested mind. 

Zoom and other video platforms have also become an asset for collaboration during COVID-19. Museums and other GLAM institutions have been implementing webinars and digital talks about professional development, online engagement, and more. The Group of Emerging Museum Professionals has compiled a list of online resources, including an extensive list of webinars, that you can check out here. 

Learn more about the Group of Emerging Museum Professionals here. 

Although we can learn a lot from the experts in our sector in an online webinar, it's important to consider the impact these calls have on our mental health. Zoom exhaustion is real, and the quality of our attention differs in an online lecture. Often we are multitasking while online, visually over-stimulated, and - quite frankly - that much eye contact is not normal. If you've been feeling Zoom exhausted, simple tricks like turning your camera off or relocating outside while taking a call can help you be more productive, and feel less drained. Give it a shot on your next conference call, it can make a world of a difference. 

You can also turn to the GLAM sector for assistance with mindfulness tips and tricks (while keeping the previously mentioned suggestions in mind). The Rubin Museum of Art has been sharing a number of resources on Instagram TV (@rubinmuseum) including guided curatorial object tours, musical performances, and philosophical discussions. The National Museum of Asian Art is offering free online meditation workshops with no previous experience required - take a look at their workshop schedule for the next session. Our own Inforum has also transitioned their Mindful Moments workshops to a digital format, which you can find on their Instagram  (@uoftinforum) every Wednesday. 

Times may be tough, confusing, and uncertain right now, but two things we know for sure: 

1) Pay attention to your well-being, and don't hesitate to take a break or a step back.

2) We sure are lucky to be a part of the GLAM sector. Thanks for reading everyone — until next time!