FRAMING THE CONTEXT OF COLLECTIONS AT THE NMAAHC

Collections Corner | Martin Bierens

---

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.

EXPLORING YOUR DISCOMFORT ZONE

She’s My Muse | Kathleen Lew

---

From October 24-26 I attended my first museum conference, the Ontario Museum Association’s Collaborating for Impact: Not Business as Usual. My nerves about attending a professional conference became relatively minor amidst a larger conversation about the value of discomfort in museums. “Not Business as Usual” means questioning existing assumptions about museum practices and acting to change them to better serve audiences. Difficult conversations of self-criticism are uncomfortable, but worth having. This is why “discomfort”—as a feeling and a practice, is an important ‘muse’ to consider.

OMA's conference "Collaborating for Impact: Not Business as Usual" in Toronto, ON.
Photo courtesy of Selin Kahramanoglu.

Who is already uncomfortable?

There are many people who do not want to visit, or feel unsafe visiting, museums because of their elitism and relationship to colonialism and power. As museum professionals, we must sacrifice our privileges of comfort for communities to feel welcome and engaged in the museum space.

Dr. Deborah L. Mack from the National Museum of African American History and Culture (Smithsonian Institution) expressed similar sentiments in her keynote “The Work You Do, The Person You Are.” She stated that people need to feel heard before you can start a dialogue. Mack spoke about how African American communities have felt historically unwelcome at the Smithsonian, highlighting the importance of going out to communities rather than expecting them to come to the museum.

Source.

Who does discomfort benefit?

There is violence in not engaging with discomfort consciously, or not preparing for the potential consequences of discomfort.

Wendy Ng, J’net Ayayqwayaksheelth, and Sarah Chu from the Royal Ontario Museum emphasized in their talk “In a Good Way…Prioritizing Indigenous Education and Learning” that we need to address legacies of historical grief that persist without tokenizing Indigenous peoples. Our discomfort does not benefit communities if we are speaking for others or relying on western academic frameworks. Ally is a verb, not a noun— there needs to be action and we need to hold each other accountable.

As an emerging professional, I hope to become increasingly comfortable at conferences and increasingly uncomfortable when challenging my existing perceptions of museum work.

What does discomfort look like at your institution?

RAPID RESPONSE COLLECTING: ADAPTING MUSEUM PRACTICE IN MOMENTS OF CRISIS

GREATEST HITS

BY: AMY INTRATOR

Welcome back to Greatest Hits, where I bring back some of the great work of past contributors! One of the greatest parts of writing this column is the chance to see what questions, ideas, and museum innovations were circulating in the recent past. So far, I have been shocked to find that the innovations in the museum world today aren’t so new after all.

My latest dive into the Musings archive led me all the way back to Alexandra Jeffery’s June 2014 post, Contemporary Collecting. I was absolutely shocked that this article, written over three years ago, discussed rapid response collecting, a trend I had thought was pretty new to the museum world.

Rapid response collecting, as Alexandra describes in her article, is a museum collecting practice that emphasizes collecting items of cultural significance in the moment that they become significant, so collecting items of the now in the now. I have become increasingly aware of this new approach to collecting, but I had no idea that the Victoria and Albert Museum had been engaging in rapid response collecting and exhibiting since 2014. The museum’s first rapid response exhibit in 2014 evolved into an ongoing collecting practice at the museum.

The V&A have an ongoing commitment to Rapid Response Collecting. Source.

The V&A Rapid Response Collecting team focuses on collecting items related to design and manufacturing that can provide a window into our world today. Alexandra’s article ponders how collecting and exhibiting objects of immediate significance could lead to valuable insights about contemporary culture, but she also questions if this collecting practice could lead to a devaluation of collections down the road when museums are faced with an overflow of ephemera of little value.

Alexandra’s article brings up some of the major issues facing museums that engage in rapid response collecting, especially concerns with collecting items that may not hold lasting significance, but a lot has changed since then. The practice of rapid response collecting has reacted to the massive political turmoil of our time.

A recent New York Times article In an Era of Strife, Museums Collect History as It Happens explores how the National Museum of African American History and Culture has responded to unfolding racial tension in America by collecting posters, buttons, clothing, gas masks and countless other objects from rallies, protests, and other historically significant moments. 

Two shirts collected by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Source.

In the article, Aaron Bryant, a curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, states “we are in times that require us to acknowledge that history is happening before our eyes.” Rapid response collecting acknowledges the significance of now, and it preserves these moments of extreme tension and strife for the future.

Rapid response collecting is one of the ways museums can reactively adapt to a society in turmoil, but I am left wondering how many museums will rise to the challenge of responding to the tensions of our times by adapting existing practices and adopting new approaches.

In the past year alone, museums have reacted to political upheaval in various ways. In February, when U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order that led to the now infamous "travel ban," the Davis Museum at Wellesley College in Massachusetts responded with #Art-Less. The project removed over 20% of the gallery's artwork, all of which was created or donated by immigrants, to show the devastating reality of a world without immigrant contributions. 

The Davis Museum temporarily removed artwork made or contributed by immigrants as a response to the travel ban. Source.

Project #Art-Less and rapid response collecting are more radical examples of museums adapting to political turmoil, but museums have also responded to crises within their societies in subtler ways like offering free admission on January 20th, the date of Trump's inauguration. 

Rapid response collecting, like other reactive developments in the museum world, is an opportunity for museums to enter into dialogue with contemporary life and present turmoil. I think it is critical for museums to respond and adapt to the society they exist within, and this new form of collecting offers an opportunity to reflect a rapidly changing society in the collections.

Do you think museums have a responsibility to adapt their practices? Should rapid response collecting be adopted by more institutions?