The long awaited Reading Week is here! Once you've made your way through Maya's museum related movie recommendations, I hope you can take some time off from your school work to get out to some of these events.
1. Thursdays at Gibson House Museum
Every Thursday between 5:00 and 8:00 pm Gibson House Museum hosts a pay-what-you-can social evening, 1850s style. On the last Thursday of each month, between 6:00 and 8:00 pm, they also welcome beginner and veteran quilters to their Community Quilt Group. You can bring along your own quilting project, or purchase supplies for a reasonable price. Best of all, this program is free! If, like me, you are daunted by the prospect of making your way all the way out to North York, don't be. Gibson House Museum is only 25 mins from the U of T campus on the subway.
2. iSchool Colloquia Series presents: Elizabeth Semmelhack and Alison Matthews David
Elizabeth Semmelhack, the senior curator at the Bata Shoe Museum, and Alison Matthews David, an associate professor at Ryerson University, discuss the Fashion Victims exhibit which is currently on at the Bata Shoe Museum. They will discuss their partnership, as well as the context, content, and the process of creating the exhibit. Don't forget to visit the Fashion Victims exhibit before it closes in June 2016!
Where: 140 St. George St, Bissell Building room 728
When: Thursday, February 25th, 5:00–7:00 pm
Cost: free!
Photo credit: Maya Donkers.
3. The Gardiner Museum's New Exhibit: Beneath the Surface, Life, Death, Gold and Ceramics in Ancient Panama
Opening tomorrow, this exhibit features incredible finds from the banks of the Rio Grande Coclé in Panama. A cemetery used by the Coclé people that was undisturbed for more than one thousand years yielded incredible finds to the Penn Museum archaeological team that excavated it in the 1940s. How crazy that we can now stroll over to the Gardiner to see these finds right here in Toronto?!
The archaeological site in Panama, c. 1940s. Source.
Our honourable mention goes to the Alliance Française which often hosts free cultural events like concerts, film screenings, and lectures. If you're feeling a little fancy, you can even attend their monthly wine and cheese events for 20$.
Well that's all from me this week. Enjoy your Reading Week if you're a student, and try not to be too jealous if you aren't!
The contemporary museum or gallery understand that their curatorial practices are altered by the spaces in which occur. So, what do curators do? As fundamental changes to contemporary curation are required in a wide range of institutions, the Museum Studies Colloquia Series at the Faculty of Information led a panel with John Summers (Curator at Halton Region’s Museum), Alysa Procida (Director of the Inuit Art Foundation), and Lauren Williams (Collections Manager at the Museum of Inuit Art) to discuss their respective curatorial practices.
Panelists ready for student and guest Q&A. Photo Source: Maya Donkers.
About the Speakers
Photo Source: John Summers
Since graduating from the Master of Museum Studies program in the mid-1980s, John Summers has worked as a curator, educator, exhibit designer and administrator for museums and cultural institutions in Canada and the United States. He is currently Manager of Heritage Services and Curator for the Regional Municipality of Halton and Course Director for Exhibit Planning & Design in the Ontario Museum Association’s Certificate in Museum Studies program.
Photo Source: Lauren Williams
Alysa Procida is currently the Director of the Inuit Art Foundation (IAF). Prior to her position at the IAF, she served as Executive Director and Curator of the Museum of Inuit Art. She studied English Literature and Art History at the University of Vermont, University of London and University of Toronto.
Photo Source: Lauren Williams
Lauren Williams holds a Bachelor of Arts with Combined Honours in English and Contemporary Studies from University of King’s College and a Master of Museum Studies from the University of Toronto. She is currently working as the Collections Manager at the Museum of Inuit Art. She likes to think outside of the archival box when it comes to engaging the public with museum collections.
What did the speakers present?
Programmatically, curators are engaged in a somewhat uneasy dialogue with interpretive planners, who are assuming an ever-larger role in exhibit development. Revenue pressures lead some curators to spend more time courting and curating donors and special events than artifacts. In collections storage, there’s just too much stuff to even inventory, let alone catalogue properly. Is it time to articulate a new model of curatorial practice that embraces and works with these challenges and turns them into opportunities? This presentation explored this issue in the context of the ongoing project to implement a new Master Plan for the Halton Region Museum.
- John Summers, Halton Region Museum
In 2013 the Museum of Inuit Art completed a re-curation of the permanent display. This presentation explored how the introduction of the “Follow Your Art” program and Regional Diversity Gallery have engaged visitors with contemporary art and confronted assumptions of What is Inuit Art?
- Alysa Procida and Lauren Williams, MIA
What does it mean for curation?
The Museum of Inuit Art (MIA) opened to the public in 2007. The curatorial approach until 2013 was problematic as it provided a limited scope of interpretation, limited representation of artistic media, limited reflection of reality of Inuit life and art production, elided differences within Inuit culture, and encouraged a passive visitor experience.
In response to these limitations, a new curatorial approach was developed with the aim of increasing visitor knowledge of collections to emphasize art by Inuit and to emphasize artistic merits of the collections to demonstrate that art by Inuit is in fact, art, and not artefacts.
What is Inuit Art? Photo Source: Lauren Williams.
The "Follow your Art" program was developed to break down the monolith of Inuit art form, to focus on individualization and encourage the creation of personal relationships. Employing colour-coding techniques and Western art historical reference points worked a means of encouraging close-viewing and critical thinking while developing art literacy skills in visitors.
It was a success! Visitor responses in 2014 demonstrated that 86% of visitors felt their understanding of Inuit art grew.
In 2014, the Halton Region Museum faced curatorial limitations as a result of a poor framework for collections management in previous years of operation. Housing more than 250,000 artifacts, some of the artifacts had no records, some records had no artifacts, and some had both artifact and record present. The first order of business was to gain physical and intellectual control of the collections as Summer describes, "to be the custodians of regional artifacts".
In response to these limitations, a 5-step plan is currently in motion to build a strong curatorial practice:
1. Re-think
2. Face out
3. Engage
4. Listen
5. Speak
The ultimate goal of this plan is to be able to curate exhibitions that straddle both the past and the present, talk to non-specialist audiences, and to provide authenticity and control against the tools of today. What this means for curatorial practice is that there has to be a willingness to try anything, a recourse of philosophy, and a debate over fundamentals.
So what was the recurring theme and/or similarity within the two models of contemporary curatorial practice? Exhibits should be connected to peoples lives.
As the Faculty of Information welcomed us bright-eyed students to the start of a new school year, the MMST program also made great efforts in welcoming a handful of museum studies pioneers hailing from a variety of fields, places, and expertise. The Museum Studies Colloquia Series, which has taken form as a series of public talks, has brought these speakers to our Bissell Building.
If you were inundated with assignments and missed attending, here is a recap of these engaging and informative events:
1. Arun Wolf, freelance writer, translator and independent filmmaker "Between Memory and Museum: A Dialogue with Folk and Tribal Artists"
Arun Wolf joined us as part of a collective of writers, designers, filmmakers, and artists, working with Tara Books. Founded in 1994, Tara Books is an independent publisher of picture books for adults and children based in Chennai, South India. Operating outside of the commercial pressures commonly faced by publishing houses, Tara Books works with a range of indigenous and folk communities in India to provide a platform for those who do not usually have a voice. Working collaboratively with a variety of artists and artistic practices, Tara Books works to collectively build an alternative culture of ‘the book’.
Tara Books operates under a handmade printing process, which is uniquely important to their publishing process. As Arun described, “The physical object of the book is important… The actual material object… It is important to have the sense of touch, feel, and smell, in such a digital age”.
Take a look at the handmade process developed by Tara Books:
Now watch and listen to a reading of a completed Tara Books publication:
As Arun discussed literature, art, and film, he also surveyed a project that was run in correspondence with The Museum of Mankind in Bhopal. The cultural aim of the project was to bring together different artists cultures to create a pan-Indian identity. One example was the art of tattooing. The base of the arts in India, tattooing is also a ritualistic and healing tradition. In this case, the museum was an important intervention to give the root of this art form recognition that it doesn’t have. The museum provided the artists a new meaning to art forms that is traditionally practiced by being able to put the designs on canvas, rather than the body.
Here is a takeaway quote from one of the Gond tribal artists: “Museums store cultural heritage as a mouse stores dropped grains”. Beautiful, isn’t it?
2. Laura Katzman, Professor of Art History at James Madison University "Mining the Archive: Photography, Modernity, and the Status of Puerto Rico in the 1940s"
Dr. Laura Katzman joined us from James Madison University where she is currently a Professor of Art History. Dr. Katzman’s lecture examined a critical yet neglected post-World War II photographic project set up by the Office of Information for Puerto Rico (OIPR) within the U.S.-appointed governor’s office. Run by progressive New Dealers from the continental United States, the OIPR documented the island’s monumental shift from an agricultural to an industrial economy and the establishment of its semi-autonomous status as a commonwealth (Estado Libre Asociado). Dr. Katzman analyzed the OIPR archive in the context of the complex U.S.-Puerto Rico relationship and the Caribbean island’s still-contested political status as an unincorporated territory that “belongs to but is not a part of” the United States.
Louise Rosskam, Making dolls in the Manual Industries Division of the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company. Near Isla Verde, Puerto Rico, May 1947. Gelatin silver print. Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York. Source: Laura Katzman.
Dr. Katzman discussed the status of Puerto Rico as a ‘Free Associated State’, which she describes as meaning, “midway between statehood and independence”. The OIPR archive Dr. Katzman works with contains 10,000 photographs and is one of the most extensive and important documentations of mid 20th century Puerto Rican life. Leading documentary photographers of the time – and essential to Dr. Katzman’s research – were Edwin and Louise Rosskam who used photography as instruments to instigate social change. The Rosskam’s left Puerto Rico in 1953, and never had they produced so much meaningful work in what the saw as a 'Golden Age'.
3. Randi Korn, Founding Director of RK&A, Inc. "The Value of Intentionality for Museums"
“Good design is about good communication, I take that concept with me every single day.”
- Randi Korn
RK&A, Inc., is a company that works with cultural organizations to plan their work to achieve impact, evaluate programs, and conduct research. Randi Korn’s publication, “The Case for Holistic Intentionality,” underscores her commitment to helping staff in museums work collaboratively to pursue intentional practice to achieve impact. She strives to help museums demonstrate their value in people’s lives and communities.
"Cycle of Intentional Practice". Source: Randi Korn.
Hailing from Washington D.C. Randi Korn joined us to present “The Cycle of Intentional Practice”, which she developed to help museums become more intentional. The workshop follows a system of planning, aligning, evaluating, and reflecting, so that museums can clarify the impact they would like to achieve and realign all practices and resources to achieve that impact, to ensure they are operating holistically within a cycle of intentionality. Randi emphasizes that having a practice of hearing and listening is what creates holistic intentionality – you have to bring people together.
Discussing museums south of the border, Randi truly believes American museums do too much and have gotten way too big. Taking into account that museums are unable to live beyond their means, she states that she does not think museums can be for everybody, “What you’re the best at is what/who your museum should be for.”
Randi’s presentation left us (future) museum professionals to ponder: What about your work in museums is most important to you?
4. Henry Kim, Director and CEO of the Aga Khan Museum "The Aga Khan Museum, connecting cultures through the arts: A year in review"
“My hope is that the Museum will also be a centre of education and learning, and that it will act as a catalyst for mutual understanding and tolerance.” – His Highness the Aga Khan
It is not often that students are given the chance to learn about a museum, directly from the Director. This past week Henry Kim joined us from the Aga Khan Museum to discuss programming, outreach strategies and community engagement practices in the museum’s first year. The talk also reflected on the museum’s relation with its communities in Toronto and beyond.
The museum and its areas were imparted by His Highness the Aga Khan who developed the museum so that it would offer unique insights and new perspectives into Islamic civilizations and the cultural threads that weave through history binding us all together. “The Aga Khan Museum has been founded on a lot of big ideas on how museums can engage with social change… These ideas have been challenged with changing perceptions to make people realize that Islamic art is part of the equation of world cultural history, ” said Director Kim.
The Aga Khan Museum & Gardens and the Ismaili Centre. Source.
The three primary interest of the museum are social development, economic development, and cultural development, as they work to “connect cultures through art”. Although the Aga Khan collection is small, with only 956 objects to date, the museum brings in exhibitions from other institutions as well as hosts 75 performances a year in their large auditorium to educate visitors. Currently operating on a budget of 16 million per year, Director Kim emphasizes that within the first year of operations the museum saw unanticipated success in their volunteer program, membership program, education program, ‘Free Wednesdays’, private hires, and events.
Director Kim left us with an important message: in order to to create social change the Aga Khan needs to see more visitors come through the door. There you have it, fellow museum studies cohorts. Let's do our part in raising the number of visitors as the Aga Khan Museum goes into its second year.
I look forward to seeing you all at the last Museum Studies Colloquia of THIS semester…
John Summers, Curator of the Halton Regional Museum & Alysa Procida, Curator & Lauren Williams, Collections Manager at the Museum of Inuit Art "Contemporary Curatorial Practices" (panel)
When: Thursday, November 19th from 4-6pm in BL 728.
* All events are FREE and open to the public
Sources
Aga Khan Museum. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.agakhanmuseum.org/about.
RK&A, Inc. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.randikorn.com/about/.
Tara Books. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.tarabooks.com/.
