Museum Archipelago

Museum Archipelago

Ian Elsner

A tiny show guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums. Museum Archipelago believes that no museum is an island and that museums are not neutral. Taking a broad definition of museums, host Ian Elsner brings you to different museum spaces around the world, dives deep into institutional problems, and introduces you to the people working to fix them. Each episode is never longer than 15 minutes, so let’s get started.

108. The Museum of Utopia and Daily Life

108. The Museum of Utopia and Daily Life

The tension is right there in the name of the Museum of Utopia and Daily Life. It sits inside a 1953 kindergarten building in Eisenhüttenstadt, Germany, a city that was born from utopian socialist ideals. After World War II left Germany in ruins, the newly formed German Democratic Republic (GDR) saw an opportunity to build an ideal socialist society from scratch. This city – originally called Stalinstadt or Stalin’s city – was part of this project, rising out of the forest near a giant steel pla

Dec 9, 2024 • 19:09

107. Crypto and Museums Part 1

107. Crypto and Museums Part 1

In November 2021, an extremely rare first printing of the U.S. Constitution was put up for auction at Sotheby's in New York, attracting a unique bidder: ConstitutionDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization. This group had formed just weeks earlier with the sole purpose of acquiring the Constitution – and would not have been possible without crypto technology. While museums and crypto don't commonly coexist at the moment, they may increasingly intersect in the future. They actually address si

Sep 23, 2024 • 18:35

106. Last Call on 'The Streets of Old Milwaukee'

106. Last Call on 'The Streets of Old Milwaukee'

I remember visiting – and loving – The Streets of Old Milwaukee exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) as a child. Opened in 1965, it’s an immersive space with cobblestone streets and perfect lighting that evokes a fall evening in turn-of-the-20th-century Milwaukee. The visitor experience isn’t peering into a diorama, it’s moving through a diorama, complete with lifelike human figures. And I’m not the only one with fond memories. When the museum announced that the exhibit would n

Jul 29, 2024 • 18:43

105. Building a Better Visitor Experience with Open Source Software

105. Building a Better Visitor Experience with Open Source Software

While working at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History during the pandemic, Dr. Morgan Rehnberg recognized the institution's limited capacity to develop new digitals exhibits with the proprietary solutions that are common in big museums. This challenge led Rehnberg to start work on Exhibitera, a free, open-source suite of software tools tailored for museum exhibit control that took advantage of the touch screens and computers that the museum already had. Today, as Vice Pre

Apr 15, 2024 • 14:58

104. What Large Institutions Can Learn From Small Museums

104. What Large Institutions Can Learn From Small Museums

The Murney Tower Museum in Kingston, Ontario, Canada is a small museum. Open for only four months of the year and featuring only one full-time staff member, the museum is representative of the many small institutions that make up the majority of museums. With only a fraction of the resources of large institutions, this long tail distribution of small museums offers the full range of museum services: collection management, public programs, and curated exhibits. Dr. Simge Erdogan-O'C

Feb 26, 2024 • 14:52

103. How Computers Transformed Museums and Created A New Type of Professional

103. How Computers Transformed Museums and Created A New Type of Professional

Computing work keeps museums running, but it’s largely invisible. That is, unless something goes wrong. For Dr. Paul Marty, Professor in the School of Information at Florida State University and his colleague Kathy Jones, Program Director of the Museum Studies Program at the Harvard Extension School, shining a light on the behind-the-scenes activities of museum technology workers was one of the main reasons to start the Oral Histories of Museum Computing project. The first museum techn

Nov 13, 2023 • 14:59

102. Copies in Museums

102. Copies in Museums

On Berlin’s Museum Island, four stone lion statues perch in the Pergamon Museum. Three of these lions are originals — that is to say, lions carved from dolerite rock between the 10th and 8th centuries BCE in Samʼal (Zincirli) in southern Turkey. And one is a plaster copy made a little over 100 years ago. Pergamon Museum curator Pinar Durgun has heard a range of negative visitor reactions to this copy — from disappointment to feeling tricked — and engages visitors to think more deeply a

Jul 31, 2023 • 14:55

101. Buzludzha Always Centered Visitor Experience. Dora Ivanova is Using Its Structure to Create a New One.

101. Buzludzha Always Centered Visitor Experience. Dora Ivanova is Using Its Structure to Create a New One.

Since it opened in 1981 to celebrate the ruling Bulgarian Communist Party, Buzludzha has centered the visitor experience. Every detail and sightline of the enormous disk of concrete perched on a mountaintop in the middle of Bulgaria was designed to impress, to show how Bulgarian communism was the way of the future – a kind of alternate Tomorrowland in the Balkan mountains. Once inside, visitors were treated to an immersive light show, where the mosaics of Marx and Lenin and Bulgarian pa

Jan 23, 2023 • 19:48

100. The Archipelago Museum

100. The Archipelago Museum

In the early days of this podcast, every time I searched for Museum Archipelago on the internet, the top result would be a small museum in rural Finland called the Archipelago Museum. As my podcast continued to grow and my search rankings improved, I didn’t forget about the Archipelago Museum. Instead, I wondered what they were up to. What were the exhibits about? Did they ever come across my podcast? Were they annoyed by my similar name? And while the museum had a website and a map

Nov 28, 2022 • 11:23

99. Museums in Video Games

99. Museums in Video Games

The Computer Games Museum in Berlin knows that its visitors want to play games, so it lets them. The artifacts are fully-playable video games, from early arcade classics like PacMac to modern console and PC games, all with original hardware and controllers. By putting video games in a museum space, the Computer Games Museum invites visitors to become players. But, players can become visitors too. Video games have been inviting players into museum spaces for decades. In the mid 1990s, interaction

Aug 8, 2022 • 14:20

98. At the Panama Canal Museum, Ana Elizabeth González Creates a Global Connection Point

98. At the Panama Canal Museum, Ana Elizabeth González Creates a Global Connection Point

When Ana Elizabeth González was growing up in Panama, the history she learned about the Panama Canal in school told a narrow story about the engineering feat of the Canal’s construction by the United States. This public history reflected the politics of Panama and control over the Canal. Today, González is executive Director of the Panama Canal Museum, and she’s determined to use the Canal and the struggles over its authority to tell a broader story about the history of Panama – one centered aro

Feb 14, 2022 • 13:03

97. Richard Nixon Hoped to Never Say These Words about Apollo 11. In A New Exhibit, He Does.

97. Richard Nixon Hoped to Never Say These Words about Apollo 11. In A New Exhibit, He Does.

As the Apollo 11 astronauts hurtled towards the moon on July 18th, 1969, members of the Nixon administration realized they should probably make a contingency plan. If the astronauts didn’t make it – or, even more horrible, if they made it to the moon and crashed and had no way to get back to earth – Richard Nixon would have to address the nation. That haunting speech was written but fortunately was never delivered. But you can go to the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City and w

Jan 17, 2022 • 14:58

96. Tegan Kehoe Explores American Healthcare Through 50 Museum Artifacts

96. Tegan Kehoe Explores American Healthcare Through 50 Museum Artifacts

Public historian and writer Tegan Kehoe knows that museum visitors act differently around the same object presented in different contexts—like how the same visitor excited by a bayonet that causes a triangular wound in an exhibit of 18th-century weapons could be disgusted by that same artifact when it’s presented in an exhibit of 18th-century medicine. Kehoe, who specialises in the history of healthcare and medical science, is attuned to how objects can inspire empathy, especially in th

Nov 15, 2021 • 14:57

95. The Museum of Technology in Helsinki, Finland Knows Even the Most Futuristic Technology Will One Day Be History

95. The Museum of Technology in Helsinki, Finland Knows Even the Most Futuristic Technology Will One Day Be History

In 1969, noticing that technological progress was changing their fields, heads of Finish industry came together to found a technology museum in Finland. Today, the Museum of Technology in Helsinki is the only general technological museum in the country. But of course, technical progress didn’t stop changing, as service coordinator Maddie Hentunen notes, and that can be challenging for a museum to keep up. In this episode, Hentunen describes the museum’s philosophical stance on techn

Aug 31, 2021 • 11:31

94. Jazz Dottin Guides Viewers Through Massachusetts’s Buried Black History

94. Jazz Dottin Guides Viewers Through Massachusetts’s Buried Black History

The deliberate exclusion of Black history and the history of slavery in the American South has been slow to reverse. But Jazz Dottin, creator and host of the Black Gems Unearthed YouTube channel says it can be just as slow in New England. Each video features Dottin somewhere in her home state of Massachusetts, often in front of a plaque or historical marker, presenting what’s missing, excluded, or downplayed. The history discussed on Black Gems Unearthed has been left out by conventional museum

Jun 28, 2021 • 11:54

93. Bulgaria’s Narrow Gauge Railway Winds Through History. Ivan Pulevski Helped Turn One of Its Station Stops Into a Museum.

93. Bulgaria’s Narrow Gauge Railway Winds Through History. Ivan Pulevski Helped Turn One of Its Station Stops Into a Museum.

In 1916, concerned that the remote Rhodope mountains would be hard to defend against foreign invaders, a young Bulgarian Kingdom decided to build a narrow gauge railway to connect villages and towns to the rest of the country. The Bulgarian King himself, Tsar Boris III, drove the first locomotive to the town of Belitsa to celebrate its opening. But the Septemvri - Dobrinishte Narrow Gauge Railway would far outlast the King and the Kingdom, the communist era that followed, and the rocky

Jun 7, 2021 • 11:10

92. The Pleven Panorama Museum Transports Visitors Through Time, But Not Space

92. The Pleven Panorama Museum Transports Visitors Through Time, But Not Space

The Pleven Panorama transports visitors through time, but not space. The huge, hand-painted panorama features the decisive battles of the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–78, fought at this exact spot, which led to Bulgaria’s Liberation. The landscape of Pleven, Bulgaria depicted is exactly what you see outside the building, making it seem like you’re witnessing the battle on an observation point. Bogomil Stoev is a historian at the Pleven Panorama, which opened in 1977. The opening was ti

May 3, 2021 • 12:22

91. How Fake Museums Are Used in Theme Parks with Shaelyn Amaio

91. How Fake Museums Are Used in Theme Parks with Shaelyn Amaio

Museums can be a shorthand for truth, or for history, or for what a culture values. Disney theme parks all around the world use fake museums as a tool to immerse visitors in the themed environment. This detailed world-building can make the imaginary universe more real—or provide a setup to subvert a narrative. But these fake museums aren’t the only ways the Disney theme parks present history to visitors. Public experience advocate Shaelyn Amaio describes how the parks “traffic in the

Apr 19, 2021 • 12:35

90. Civil Rights Progress Isn't Linear. The Grove Museum Interprets Tallahassee's Struggle in an Unexpected Setting.

90. Civil Rights Progress Isn't Linear. The Grove Museum Interprets Tallahassee's Struggle in an Unexpected Setting.

The Grove Museum inside the historic Call/Collins House is one of Tallahassee’s newest museums, and it’s changing how the city interprets its own history. Instead of focusing on the mansion house’s famous owners, including Florida Governor LeRoy Collins, Executive Director John Grandage oriented the museum around civil rights. Cleverly tracing how Collins’s thinking on race relations evolved, the museum uses the house and the land it sits on to tell the story of the forced removal of in

Mar 15, 2021 • 14:53

89. Tehmina Goskar Critically Engages with Curation, Wherever It Happens

89. Tehmina Goskar Critically Engages with Curation, Wherever It Happens

Dr. Tehmina Goskar, director of the Curatorial Research Centre, co-founded MuseumHour with Sophie Ballinger in October 2014. The weekly peer-to-peer chat on Twitter “holds space for debate” for museum people all around the world. This month, Goskar officially steps back from her role at MuseumHour. This episode serves as both an “exit interview” for Goskar’s MusuemHour work and a chance to highlight other projects that she has founded based on her curatorial philosophy. In this episo

Feb 22, 2021 • 14:47

88. Jérôme Blachon Collects and Transmits Precious Memories at the Museum of Resistance and Deportation in Haute-Garonne, France

88. Jérôme Blachon Collects and Transmits Precious Memories at the Museum of Resistance and Deportation in Haute-Garonne, France

During World War II, a Nazi collbatoring regime governed the south of France, and the city of Toulouse was a Resistance hub. The Vichy Government promoted anti-Semitism and collaborated with the Nazis, most specifically by deporting Jews to concentration and extermination camps. Fragmented Resistance fighters organized to form escape networks and build logistics chains to sabotage and disrupt the regime. In 1977, former Resistance members created a community museum in Toulouse about th

Jan 25, 2021 • 7:25

87. The Vitosha Bear Museum Lives in a Tiny Mountain Hut

87. The Vitosha Bear Museum Lives in a Tiny Mountain Hut

Vitosha Mountain, the southern border of Sofia, Bulgaria, is home to about 15 brown bears and one bear museum. According to Dr. Nikola Doykin, fauna expert at the Vitosha Nature Park Directorate, the bear population is stable—if humans stay away and protect their habitat. To Doykin and his team, teaching children about the bears is the best way forward, and the Vitosha Bear Museum does just that. Founded in 2002 by repurposing an abandoned mountain shelter for the Vitosha mountain rang

Nov 16, 2020 • 9:13

86. Nashid Madyun Fights the Compression of Black History at the Meek-Eaton Black Archives

86. Nashid Madyun Fights the Compression of Black History at the Meek-Eaton Black Archives

History professor Dr. James Eaton taught his students with the mantra: “African American History is the History of America.” As chair of the history department at FAMU, a historically Black University in Tallahassee, Florida, he was used to teaching students how to use interlibrary loan systems and how to access rare book collections for their research. But in the early 1970s, as his students' research questions got more in depth and dove deeper into Black history, he realized that

Sep 21, 2020 • 13:25

85. The John G. Riley House is All That Remains of Smokey Hollow. Althemese Barnes Turned It Into a Museum on Tallahassee’s Black History

85. The John G. Riley House is All That Remains of Smokey Hollow. Althemese Barnes Turned It Into a Museum on Tallahassee’s Black History

During the period of Jim Crow and the Black Codes, a self-sustaining Black enclave called Smokey Hollow developed near downtown Tallahassee, Florida. As the first Black principal of Lincoln High School, John G. Riley was a critical part of the neighborhood. In 1890, he built a two-story house for his family—only about three blocks from where he was born enslaved. In the 1960s, the city of Tallahassee seized and destroyed the neighborhood as part of an urban renewal project through em

Aug 31, 2020 • 14:54

84. On Richmond’s Transformed Monument Avenue, A Group of Historians Erect Rogue Historical Markers

84. On Richmond’s Transformed Monument Avenue, A Group of Historians Erect Rogue Historical Markers

Near the empty pedestals of Confederate figures that used to tower over Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, a new type of historical marker now stands. The markers have most of the trappings of a state-erected historical plaque—but these are rogue markers erected by a group of anonymous historians called History is Illuminating. History is Illuminating decided to use historical markers as a medium to talk about the Black history taking place while those statues were erected as monuments to wh

Aug 10, 2020 • 14:25

83. Chris Newell Forges The Snowshoe Path as the First Wabanaki Leader of the Abbe Museum

83. Chris Newell Forges The Snowshoe Path as the First Wabanaki Leader of the Abbe Museum

Chris Newell remembers the almost giddy level of excitement he felt when he visited the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine as a kid. Every summer, the family drove for more than two hours for his father to perform songs about their Passamaquoddy language at the Native Market and the Native American Festival hosted by the museum. But even as a young person, Newell could clearly see the difference between the the Native Market and the Festival, which were run by members of the Wabanaki Nat

Jul 6, 2020 • 14:59

82. Statues and Museums

82. Statues and Museums

In the wake of the racist murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol tore down a statue of Edward Colston, a prominent 17th Century slave trader. Protesters rolled the statue through the street and pushed it into Bristol Harbor — the same harbor where Colston’s Royal African Company ships that forcibly carried 80,000 people from Africa to the Americas used to dock. In this episode, we examine the relationship of statues and museums. Why do so many c

Jun 15, 2020 • 11:01

81. Living History in a Pandemic at Old Sturbridge Village

81. Living History in a Pandemic at Old Sturbridge Village

Old Sturbridge Village is a living history museum in Massachusetts depicting life in rural New England during the early 19th century. But the early 19th century isn’t specific enough for the site’s historical interpreters—to immerse visitors in the world they’re recreating, knowing exactly what year it “is” matters. Tom Kelleher, Historian and Curator of Mechanical Arts at Old Sturbridge Village was tasked with choosing that “default” date. He chose 1838 in part because the social and

Jun 1, 2020 • 12:30

80. British Museum Curator Sushma Jansari Shares Stories and Experiments of Decolonising Museums

80. British Museum Curator Sushma Jansari Shares Stories and Experiments of Decolonising Museums

The British Museum’s South Asia Collection is full of Indian objects. Dr. Sushma Jansari, Tabor Foundation Curator of South Asia at the British Museum, does not want visitors to overlook the violence of how these objects were brought to the UK to be held in a museum. So for the 2017 renovation of the South Asia Collection, Jansari, who is the first curator of Indian descent of this collection, made sure to create unexpected moments in the gallery. She highlighted artifacts bequeathed to the muse

May 4, 2020 • 15:25

79. The Future of Hands-On Museum Exhibits with Paul Orselli

79. The Future of Hands-On Museum Exhibits with Paul Orselli

The modern museum invites you to touch. Or it would, if it wasn’t closed due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The screens inside the Fossil Hall at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC say “touch to begin” to an empty room. The normally cacophonous hands-on exhibits at the Exploratorium in San Francisco sit eerily silent. Museum exhibit developer Paul Orselli of Paul Orselli Workshop says he’ll be reluctant to use hands-on exhibits once museums open up again. But he hopes that fut

Apr 20, 2020 • 13:44

78. How Museums Present Public Health with Raven Forest Fruscalzo

78. How Museums Present Public Health with Raven Forest Fruscalzo

Museums across the globe are now closed because of Covid-19. Some of those shuttered galleries presented the science behind outbreaks like the one we’re living through. As Raven Forrest Fruscalzo, Content Developer at the Field Museum in Chicago and host of the Tiny Vampires Podcast points out, the fact that museums are closed is an important statement: they trust the scientific information. In this episode, Forrest Fruscalzo discusses the people that make up public health, how museum

Mar 30, 2020 • 13:05

77. Trump Asks, “Who's Next?” Lyra Monteiro Answers, Washington’s Next!

77. Trump Asks, “Who's Next?” Lyra Monteiro Answers, Washington’s Next!

The statue of George Washington in New York City's Union Square commemorates him on a particular day—November 25th, 1783—the date when the defeated British Army left Manhattan after the American Revolutionary War. The statue celebrates the idea that Washington brought freedom to the country, but professor of history at Rutgers University-Newark Dr. Lyra D. Monteiro researched how many people of African descent that Washington was enslaving on that same date: 271. Representing these people formed

Mar 16, 2020 • 14:37

76. 400 Years Post-Mayflower, the Provincetown Museum Rethinks Its Historical Branding

76. 400 Years Post-Mayflower, the Provincetown Museum Rethinks Its Historical Branding

Sometimes, a historical event is all about the branding. And the brand of Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts as the spot where the Mayflower pilgrims first disembarked 400 years ago this year is pretty strong. The branding is strong enough to override the fact that the Mayflower actually first landed on the other side of Cape Cod, in what is now Provincetown. The Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum commemorates that site. And even within a museum that’s trying to correct an

Mar 2, 2020 • 12:39

75. Museduino: Using Open Source Hardware to Power Museum Exhibits

75. Museduino: Using Open Source Hardware to Power Museum Exhibits

Proprietary technology that runs museum interactives—everything from buttons to proximity sensors—tends to be expensive to purchase and maintain. But Rianne Trujillo, lead developer of the Cultural Technology Development Lab at New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU), realized that one way museums can avoid expensive, proprietary solutions to their technology needs is by choosing open source alternatives. She is part of the team behind Museduino, an open-source system for exhibits and

Feb 17, 2020 • 10:07

74. 'Houston, We Have A Restoration' with Sandra Tetley

74. 'Houston, We Have A Restoration' with Sandra Tetley

Every time an Apollo astronaut said the word Houston, they were referring not just to a city, but a specific room in that city: Mission Control. In that room on July 20, 1969, NASA engineers answered radio calls from the surface of the moon. Sitting in front of rows of green consoles, cigarettes in hand, they guided humans safely back to earth, channeling the efforts of the thousands and thousands of people who worked on the program through one room. But until recently, that room was k

Jan 13, 2020 • 14:13

73. Sanchita Balachandran Shifts the Framework for Conservation with Untold Stories

73. Sanchita Balachandran Shifts the Framework for Conservation with Untold Stories

The field of conservation was created to fight change: to prevent objects from becoming dusty, broken, or rusted. But fighting to keep cultural objects preserved creates a certain mindset — a mindset where it’s too easy to imagine objects and cultures in a state of stasis. Sanchita Balachandran, Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, founded Untold Stories to change that mindset in the conservation profession. Through events at the annual meetings of the American Institu

Dec 2, 2019 • 14:59

72. ‘Speechless: Different by Design’ Reframes Accessibility and Communication in a Museum Context

72. ‘Speechless: Different by Design’ Reframes Accessibility and Communication in a Museum Context

Museums tend to be verbal spaces: there’s usually a lot of words. Galleries open with walls of text, visitors are presented with rules of do and don'ts, and audio guides lead headphone-ed users from one piece to the next, paragraph by paragraph. But Speechless: Different by Design, a new exhibit at the Dallas Art Museum and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, guides visitors as far away as possible from words with six custom art installations. In this episode, curator Sarah Schle

Nov 18, 2019 • 14:42

71. Assessing Curatorial Work for Social Justice With Elena Gonzales

71. Assessing Curatorial Work for Social Justice With Elena Gonzales

Museums are seen as trustworthy, but what if that trust is misplaced? Chicago-based independent curator Elena Gonzales provides a solid jumping off point for thinking critically about museums in her new book, Exhibitions for Social Justice. The book is a whirlwind tour of different museums, examining how they approach social justice. It’s also a guide map for anyone interested in a way forward. In this episode, Gonzales takes us on a tour of some of the main themes of the book, exa

Oct 28, 2019 • 15:06

70. The Gabrovo Museum of Humor Bolsters Its Legacy of Political Satire Post-Communism

70. The Gabrovo Museum of Humor Bolsters Its Legacy of Political Satire Post-Communism

To the extent that there was a Communist capital of humor in the last half of the 20th century, it was Gabrovo, Bulgaria. Situated in a valley of the Balkan mountains, the city prides itself on its unique brand of self-effacing humor. In 1972, the Museum House of Humor and Satire opened here, and the city celebrated political humor with people in Soviet block countries and even some invited Western guests. Today, three decades after the collapse of Communism, the Museum House of Humor

Sep 30, 2019 • 11:30

69. Soviet Spacecraft in the American Heartland: The Story of the Kansas Cosmosphere

69. Soviet Spacecraft in the American Heartland: The Story of the Kansas Cosmosphere

From Apollo Mission Control in Houston, Texas, to the field in southeastern Russia where Yuri Gargarin finished his first orbit, there are many sites on earth that played a role in space exploration. But Hutchinson, Kansas isn’t one of them. And yet, Hutchinson—a town of 40,000 people—is home to the Cosmosphere, a massive space museum. The Cosmosphere boasts an enormous collection of spacecraft, including the largest collection of Soviet space hardware anywhere outside Russia. How did

Aug 26, 2019 • 11:53

68. The Akomawt Educational Initiative Forges a Snowshoe Path to Indigenize Museums

68. The Akomawt Educational Initiative Forges a Snowshoe Path to Indigenize Museums

Akomawt is a Passamaquoddy word for the snowshoe path. At the beginning of winter, the snowshoe path is hard to find. But the more people pass along and carve out this path through the snow during the season, the easier it becomes for everyone to walk it together. endawnis Spears (Diné/ Ojibwe/ Chickasaw/ Choctaw) is director of programming and outreach for the Akomawt Educational Initiative. She saw a need to supply regional educators with the tools to implement competent education on

Aug 5, 2019 • 14:42

67. Cité de l'Espace Celebrates Apollo Day from the Middle of the Space Race

67. Cité de l'Espace Celebrates Apollo Day from the Middle of the Space Race

Cité de l'Espace in Toulouse, France is a museum in the middle. It is in the middle of France’s Aerospace Valley and the European Space Industry. But it is also geographically in the middle of the two competing superpowers in the Space Race that ended with Apollo 11. From its vantage point in the middle, Cité de l'Espace has its own story to tell. The museum features a mix of Soviet and American space hardware, like an American Apollo lunar module and a Soviet Soyuz capsule. Th

Jul 15, 2019 • 8:08

66. From ‘Extinct Monsters’ to ‘Deep Time’: A History of the Smithsonian Fossil Hall

66. From ‘Extinct Monsters’ to ‘Deep Time’: A History of the Smithsonian Fossil Hall

The most-visited room in the most-visited science museum in the world reopened last week after a massive, five year renovation. Deep Time, as the new gallery is colloquially known, is the latest iteration of the Fossil Hall at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. It might not seem like much in geologic time, but the Smithsonian Fossil Hall has been welcoming visitors for more than 100 years. Over those years, the dinosaur bones and other fossils—even

Jun 17, 2019 • 14:35

65. Sarah Nguyen Helps Fight Digital Decay with Preserve This Podcast

65. Sarah Nguyen Helps Fight Digital Decay with Preserve This Podcast

Everything decays. In the past, human heritage that decayed slowly enough on stone, vellum, bamboo, silk, or paper could be put in a museum—still decaying, but at least visible. Today, human heritage is decaying on hard drives. Sarah Nguyen, a MLIS student at the University of Washington, is the project coordinator of Preserve This Podcast, a project and podcast of the same name that proposes solutions to fight against the threats of digital decay for podcasts. Alongside archivists Ma

Jun 3, 2019 • 11:08

64. Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Atlantis Experience Is Part Museum, Part Themed Attraction

64. Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Atlantis Experience Is Part Museum, Part Themed Attraction

The Space Shuttle Atlantis Experience, which opened at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida in 2013 brings visitors “nose to nose” with one of the three remaining Space Shuttle orbiters. The team that built it used principles of themed attraction design to introduce visitors to the orbiter and the rest of the exhibits. Atlantis is introduced linearly and deliberately: visitors see two movies about the shuttle before the actual orbiter is dramatically reveale

May 13, 2019 • 13:33

63. Sex and Death Are on Display at The Museum of Old and New Art

63. Sex and Death Are on Display at The Museum of Old and New Art

The Museum of Old and New Art opened in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia in 2011. With a name like that, MONA could include any type of art. But looking at the collection, it’s clear that its creator, millionaire gambler David Walsh, has a fascination with sex and death -- and bets that the rest of us do too. Walsh himself calls MONA a “subversive adult Disneyland.” The building’s architecture is designed to make you feel lost, and the art is displayed without any labels whatsoever. It’s j

Apr 29, 2019 • 9:57

62. David Gough Reclaims Stewardship of Tiagarra for Aboriginal Tasmanians

62. David Gough Reclaims Stewardship of Tiagarra for Aboriginal Tasmanians

The displays at the Tiagarra Cultural Centre and Museum in Devonport, Tasmania, Australia were built in 1976 by non-indigenous citizens and scientists without consulting Aboriginal Tasmanians. David Gough, chairperson of the Six Rivers Aboriginal Corporation, remembers visiting the museum when he was younger and seeing his own culture presented as extinct. Today, Gough is the manager of Tiagarra. When he took over, one of the first things he did was put masking tape over the inappropri

Apr 15, 2019 • 14:32

61. Jody Steele Centers the Convict Women of Tasmania's Penal Colonies at the Female Factory

61. Jody Steele Centers the Convict Women of Tasmania's Penal Colonies at the Female Factory

Penal transportation from England to Australia from the late 1700s to the mid-1800s was used to expand Britain's spheres of influence and to reduce overcrowding in British prisons. The male convict experience is well-known, but the Cascades Female Factory in Hobart is at the center of a shift in how Australians think of the role that female convicts played in the colonization of Tasmania. Dr. Jody Steele, the heritage interpretation manager for the Port Arthur Historic Site Manage

Apr 1, 2019 • 14:44

60. Stephanie Cunningham on the Creation and Growth of Museum Hue

60. Stephanie Cunningham on the Creation and Growth of Museum Hue

The fight for racial diversity in museums and other cultural institutions is not new: people of color have been fighting for inclusion in white mainstream museums for over 50 years. Dispose these efforts, change has been limited. A 2018 survey by the Mellon Foundation found that 88% of people in museum leadership positions are white. Stephanie Cunningham has a clear answer for why these white institutions aren’t changing: “When you’ve been practicing exclusion for so long, you can’t c

Mar 18, 2019 • 14:28

59. Faith Displayed As Science: How Creationists Co-opted Museums with Julie Garcia

59. Faith Displayed As Science: How Creationists Co-opted Museums with Julie Garcia

There’s a new tool in young-Earth creationists' quest for scientific legitimacy: the museum. Over the past 25 years, dozens of so-called creation museums have been built, including the Answers in Genesis (AiG) Creation Museum in Kentucky. Borrowing the style of natural history museums and science centers, these public display spaces use the form and rhetoric of mainstream science to support a belief in the literal truth of the Bible, including the creation of the universe in six day

Mar 4, 2019 • 14:01

58. Joe Galliano Fills In The UK’s Family Tree At The Queer Britain Museum

58. Joe Galliano Fills In The UK’s Family Tree At The Queer Britain Museum

Joe Galliano came up with the idea for Queer Britain, the UK’s national LGBTQ+ museum, during the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalization of homosexual acts in England and Wales. Discouraged by the focus on male homosexuality and on legislation, he launched a bid to preserve histories that have been ignored or destroyed. If all goes well, the museum will open in London in a few years. In this episode, Galliano talks about the UK’s history of anti-gay legislation, how he is wo

Feb 11, 2019 • 13:45

57. The Colored Conventions Project Resurrects Disremembered History With Denise Burgher, Jim Casey, Gabrielle Foreman, & Many Others

57. The Colored Conventions Project Resurrects Disremembered History With Denise Burgher, Jim Casey, Gabrielle Foreman, & Many Others

In American history most often told, the vitality of Black activism has been obscured in favor of celebrating white-lead movements. In the 19th century, an enormous network of African American activists created a series of state and national political meetings known as the Colored Conventions Movement. The Colored Conventions Project (CCP) is a Black digital humanities initiative dedicated to identifying, collecting, and curating all of the documents produced by the Colored Convention

Jan 28, 2019 • 15:48

56. Lana Pajdas Trains Her ‘Fun Museums’ Lens to Croatian Heritage Sites, From The Battle of Vukovar to Over-Tourism in Dubrovnik

56. Lana Pajdas Trains Her ‘Fun Museums’ Lens to Croatian Heritage Sites, From The Battle of Vukovar to Over-Tourism in Dubrovnik

Lana Pajdas is the founder of Fun Museums, a heritage and culture travel blog with a radical idea: museums are fun. It is the guiding principle of her museum marketing, consulting work, and even her photographs. In this episode, Pajdas describes Heritage Sites in her native Croatia, from the interpretation of the 1991 Battle of Vukovar at the Vukovar Municipal Museum to the Game of Thrones-inspired Over-Tourism in Dubrovnik Museum Archipelago is a tiny show guiding you through the roc

Jan 7, 2019 • 10:49

55. Barbara Hicks-Collins Is Turning Her Family Home Into the Bogalusa Civil Rights Museum

55. Barbara Hicks-Collins Is Turning Her Family Home Into the Bogalusa Civil Rights Museum

Barbara Hicks-Collins grew up in a Civil Rights house in Bogalusa, Louisiana. In her family breakfast room in 1965, her father, the late Robert “Bob” Hicks, founded the Bogalusa chapter of the Deacons for Defense and Justice. The armed self-defense force was formed in response to local anti-integration violence that the local police force complicitly supported. The house became a communication hub, a safe house, and a medical triage station for injured activists denied medical service

Dec 3, 2018 • 14:58

54. Buzludzha Is Deteriorating. Brian Muthaliff Wants To Turn It Into A Winery.

54. Buzludzha Is Deteriorating. Brian Muthaliff Wants To Turn It Into A Winery.

High in the Balkan mountains, Buzludzha monument is deteriorating. Designed to emphasize the power and modernity of the Bulgarian Communist Party, Buzludzha is now at the center of a debate over how Bulgaria remembers its past. Architect Brian Muthaliff wants the building to evolve along with Bulgaria. His master’s thesis on Buzludzha describes a re-adaption of the site to subvert the original intention of the architecture, including installing a winery and a theater. Unlike architec

Nov 19, 2018 • 14:08

53. Tribal Historic Preservation Office Helps Students Map Seminole Life for the Ah-tah-thi-ki Museum

53. Tribal Historic Preservation Office Helps Students Map Seminole Life for the Ah-tah-thi-ki Museum

The Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Seminole Indian Museum, on the Big Cypress Reservation in the Florida Everglades, serves as the public face of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. But the museum collaborates with the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Tribal Historic Preservation Office (THPO) next door to preserve the tribe's culture, working for and with the community through various shared projects. One of the projects is called Are We There Yet: Engaging the Tribal Youth with Story Maps, which is now

Nov 5, 2018 • 12:31

52. Paula Santos Dives Into The "How" of Museum Work on Cultura Conscious

52. Paula Santos Dives Into The "How" of Museum Work on Cultura Conscious

By day, Paula Santos is Community Engagement Manager at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. By night, she hosts the excellent Cultura Conscious podcast. On Cultura Conscious, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary, Santos interviews cultural workers on their work with justice and equity. The discussions dive deep into what Santos calls the "nuts and bolts" of museum work. On this episode, Santos describes her thoughts about the relationship between cultural instit

Oct 15, 2018 • 10:26

51. Yulina Mihaylova Presents a Moral Lesson at the Sofia Jewish Museum of History

51. Yulina Mihaylova Presents a Moral Lesson at the Sofia Jewish Museum of History

The Jewish Museum of History in Sofia, Bulgaria is housed on the second floor of the Sofia Synagogue in the center of Bulgaria's capital, just steps away from an Orthodox Church, and Sofia's Mosque. This clustering of places of worship — it's hard to find another example of this in Europe — is part of the unique story of Jewish people in Bulgaria. While the museum tells the full story of the Jewish people in Bulgaria from ancient Roman times to today, Yulina Mihaylova of t

Oct 1, 2018 • 12:42

50. Allison Sansone Connects Writers and Readers at the American Writers Museum

50. Allison Sansone Connects Writers and Readers at the American Writers Museum

When the American Writers Museum opened in Chicago in 2017, it became the first museum in the US to celebrate all genres of writing. Early in the planning phase, founder Malcolm O’Hagan made a couple of key decisions: no artifacts and no single curator. In this episode, the museum’s programs director Allison Sansone explains how these decisions continue to shape the museum, from a timeline of 100 significant authors of fiction and nonfiction to galleries honoring the craft of writing.

Sep 17, 2018 • 9:37

49. Deyana Kostova Centers ‘The Little Man’ in War at the Bulgarian National Museum of Military History

49. Deyana Kostova Centers ‘The Little Man’ in War at the Bulgarian National Museum of Military History

The campus of the Bulgarian National Museum of Military History in Sofia is defended on all sides by a garden of missiles and tanks. But as Director of Public Relations Deyana Kostova points out, many of the exhibits inside focus on the consequences of war rather than the tools of warfare. One of these exhibits, called 'The Little Man in the Great War', explores the Bulgarian World War I experience through overarching emotions. In this episode, Kostova gives a tour of the exhibit, expl

Sep 3, 2018 • 10:13

48. Museums Are Really Sensitive To Critique. Palace Shaw & Ariana Lee Decided They Don’t Care.

48. Museums Are Really Sensitive To Critique. Palace Shaw & Ariana Lee Decided They Don’t Care.

Ariana Lee and Palace Shaw create The Whitest Cube, an excellent new museum podcast about people of color and their experiences with art institutions as artists, visitors, workers, activists, or casual admirers. The podcast interrogates the city of Boston and its museums through the lens of race. In this episode, Lee and Shaw talk about the reasons for starting the podcast, what diversity in museums really means, and how to pressure cultural institutions to change. If you’re interested

Aug 20, 2018 • 12:03

47. Buzludzha is Deteriorating. Dora Ivanova Wants To Turn It Into A Museum.

47. Buzludzha is Deteriorating. Dora Ivanova Wants To Turn It Into A Museum.

High in the Bulgarian mountains, Buzludzha monument is deteriorating. Commemorating early Bulgarian Marxists, it was designed to emphasize the power and modernity of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Buzludzha is now at the center of a debate over how Bulgaria remembers its past. Some people want to destroy it, some people want to restore it to its former glory, but Bulgarian architect Dora Ivanova has a better idea.Ivanova wants to turn it into a museum, and she founde

Jul 23, 2018 • 9:59

46. Vessela Gercheva Directs Playful Exhibits at Bulgaria’s First Children’s Museum

46. Vessela Gercheva Directs Playful Exhibits at Bulgaria’s First Children’s Museum

There were no children’s museums in the Balkans before Muzeiko opened in Sofia, Bulgaria in 2015. Days before Muzeiko’s historic opening, I interviewed Vessela Gercheva, the museum’s Programs and Exhibits Director. Gercheva talked about the challenges of opening the museum, not the least of which was how few people actually knew what a children’s museum was.Today, almost three years later, Gercheva says things have changed. Muzeiko is packed with kids, careening through exhibits designe

Jul 9, 2018 • 10:01

45. Margaret Middleton Designs Museum Exhibits for All Ages

45. Margaret Middleton Designs Museum Exhibits for All Ages

Margaret Middleton is an independent exhibit designer and museum consultant based in Providence, RI, USA. Middleton recently completed the design of the children's exhibits at the Discovery Museum in Acton, MA, USA. Driven by a background in industrial design and queer activism, Middleton is passionate about creating visitor-centered museum experiences, and writes and speaks about inclusion in museums. In 2014 Middleton developed the Family Inclusive Language Chart, now widely used in m

Jun 25, 2018 • 11:06

44. Vassil Makarinov Presents Technology and History at the Bulgarian Polytechnical Museum

44. Vassil Makarinov Presents Technology and History at the Bulgarian Polytechnical Museum

The Bulgarian National Polytechnical Museum is a science museum that also tells the story of Bulgarian and world history. The building itself once housed a museum of a Bulgarian communist leader, and the technical artifacts on display, from simple machines to Bulgarian-made computers from the 1980s present both scientific concepts and the political contexts in which they were developed.In this episode, curator Vassil Macaranov describes how the increasing role of technology in our lives

Jun 11, 2018 • 11:27

43. Blake Bradford Aims To Increase Number of Black Museum Professionals with Lincoln University Program

43. Blake Bradford Aims To Increase Number of Black Museum Professionals with Lincoln University Program

In episode 36 of this podcast, Bill Bradberry, Chair of the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Area Commission, described encountering the glaring lack of cultural diversity within and around the museum industry, particularly in leadership. He cited the new Museum Studies program at Lincoln University as an example of a program that addresses the problem directly. Blake Bradford is the director of that Museum Studies Program, a partnership between Lincoln University and the Ba

May 28, 2018 • 11:36

42. Freddi Williams Evans and Luther Gray Are Erecting Historic Markers on the Slave Trade in New Orleans

42. Freddi Williams Evans and Luther Gray Are Erecting Historic Markers on the Slave Trade in New Orleans

Until a few weeks ago, one of the only places in downtown New Orleans acknowledging the city’s slave-trading past was a marker in Congo Square, erected in 1997. The New Orleans Committee to Erect Historic Markers on the Slave Trade has since put up two new markers, one on the transatlantic slave trade along the Moonwalk and another on the domestic slave trade at the intersection of Esplanade Avenue and Chartres Street. Author and historian Freddi Williams Evans and activist Luther Gray

May 14, 2018 • 13:16

41. 16,000 Years at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter with David Scofield

41. 16,000 Years at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter with David Scofield

View Shownotes As the oldest site of human habitation in North America, the Meadowcroft Rockshelter has a challenge: how to convey its mind-boggling timescale, spanning from prehistory to the 19th century? David Scofield, director of the Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village, describes how the museum is designed to connect the big changes in how people lived through 16,000 years of history. The Meadowcroft Rockshelter opens for its 50th season on May 5th, 2018. It is part of the Senator

Apr 30, 2018 • 9:43

40. Conserving Digital Photos with Jenny Mathiasson and Kloe Rumsey

40. Conserving Digital Photos with Jenny Mathiasson and Kloe Rumsey

View Shownotes Jenny Mathiasson and Kloe Rumsey started The C Word: The Conservators’ Podcast to broadcast their friendly and professional discussions about conservation. Each episode features a different hot topic in the conservation world, and the podcast stands out for its hosts willingness to tackle complex topics.In this episode, the hosts discuss whether photos are data or objects, the Digitized Photograph Project at the Rwandan Genocide Memorial Centre, and museums asking people

Apr 16, 2018 • 9:58

39. Hans Sloane and the Origins of the British Museum with James Delbourgo

39. Hans Sloane and the Origins of the British Museum with James Delbourgo

Over the course of his long life, Hans Sloane collected tens of thousands of items which became the basis for what is today the British Museum. Funded in large part by his marriage into the enslaving plantocracy of Jamaica and the Atlantic slave trade, and aided by Britain’s rising colonial power and global reach, he assembled an encyclopedic collection of specimens and objects from all around the world.James Delbourgo, professor of History of Science and Atlantic World at Rutgers Unive

Apr 2, 2018 • 12:33

38. Conservation in the 21st Century with Sanchita Balachandran

38. Conservation in the 21st Century with Sanchita Balachandran

Image: Sanchita Balachandran. Photo Credit: James Rensselaer. Sanchita Balachandran, Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum, hopes to see the field of conservation develop into more of a social process, rather than simply a technical one.From her 2016 talk at the American Institute for Conservation’s Annual Meeting, to teaching her students how to interrogate an object in person, to her Untold Stories project, Balachandran has thought critically about the role of

Mar 19, 2018 • 13:35

37. The National Public Housing Museum with Robert J. Smith III

37. The National Public Housing Museum with Robert J. Smith III

It would have been much easier to build the National Public Housing Museum from scratch instead of retrofitting it in the last remaining building of the Jane Addams Homes, the first public housing development in Chicago. But doing so would have undermined one of the core principles of the museum: that place has power. Robert J. Smith III, the associate director of the National Public Housing Museum, describes the mission of the museum as preserving, promoting, and propelling housing as a hu

Mar 5, 2018 • 13:09

36. The Underground Railroad in Niagara Falls with Bill Bradberry

36. The Underground Railroad in Niagara Falls with Bill Bradberry

Bill Bradberry, the President and Chairman of the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Area Commission, thinks of the entire city of Niagara Falls, NY as an open crime scene from “the crime of holding people in bondage, and the man-made crime of trying to escape.” With Canada just across the Niagara river, the Commission conducts research on the Underground Railroad as it relates to Niagara Falls and the surrounding area — for some, the last terminus in the United States.The Comm

Feb 19, 2018 • 12:52

35. Cartoons from the Museum Floor with Attendants View

35. Cartoons from the Museum Floor with Attendants View

Attendants View is a blog of hand-drawn, single page cartoons that capture a slice of a museum attendant’s day. The comics show confused visitors, tourists asking the same questions over and over again, and museum board members flouting the rules.The writer and illustrator behind Attendants View has been creating comics about her experiences in museums for the past seven years. About 60% of the comics are about something that has happened to her or around her personally, and the rest co

Feb 5, 2018 • 10:01

34. Erotic Heritage Museum with Dr. Victoria Hartmann

34. Erotic Heritage Museum with Dr. Victoria Hartmann

The Las Vegas Erotic Heritage Museum is the largest erotic museum in the world. Sex scholar Dr. Victoria Hartmann has been the museum’s director since 2014, and her mission is to create a space for people to safely explore and engage the topic of human sexuality.Dr. Hartmann thinks museums too often tell the visitor what to think. She would rather use visitors’ responses to the galleries as a starting point to further discussions.At the Erotic Heritage Museum, there is a lot to react to

Jan 22, 2018 • 7:36

33. Icelandic Museums with Hannah Hethmon

33. Icelandic Museums with Hannah Hethmon

Iceland has many more museums per person than the UK and the US. The country is also in the middle of a massive tourism boom: there are several times more tourists than residents. Hannah Hethmon, an American museum professional and Fulbright Fellow living in Reykjavík, was interested in this abundance of museums and the nature of museum tourism in Iceland.Her Fulbright project is the podcast Museums in Strange Places, which explores these and other Icelandic museum topics. In each episo

Jan 8, 2018 • 12:28

32. What a Museum on the Moon Might Look Like With Michelle Hanlon

32. What a Museum on the Moon Might Look Like With Michelle Hanlon

Image: The Lower Half of the Apollo 17 Lunar Lander in a debris field in the Taurus–Littrow valley. This view was captured minutes after the last humans left the moon and it would look exactly the same today. What humans left behind on the moon are part of our human heritage, on par with Laetoli and Lascaux. Unlike human heritage sites on earth, the lunar landing sites are pristine, completely untouched by natural erosion or human disruption. But the lunar landing sites are also unprot

Dec 25, 2017 • 13:27

31. Habemus with Romina Frontini & Christian Díaz

31. Habemus with Romina Frontini & Christian Díaz

Habemus is a Spanish-language radio program about museum topics broadcasting out of Bahía Blanca, Argentina. Every Friday from 9 to 11pm, team members interview museum people and promote an ideology of fun and hacks in museums.The title is a play on words — linking the Spanish word “museos” with the Latin verb “we have.” Since the show is on a popular radio station, Habemus team members Romina Frontini and Christian Díaz say it’s up to them to introduce museum topics to a general audience.In thi

Dec 11, 2017 • 11:20

30. Visitors of Color with Dr. Porchia Moore

30. Visitors of Color with Dr. Porchia Moore

Dr. Porchia Moore, Inclusion Catalyst at the Columbia Museum of Art, started Visitors of Color with nikhil trivedi in 2015.Visitors of Color is a Tumblr project that documents the perspectives and experiences of marginalized people in museums. It is a record of what the museum experience can be like for people who are often discussed but whose voices are rarely privileged, people that don’t feel welcome in museums, and people that don’t feel like nearby museum spaces are for them.In thi

Nov 6, 2017 • 11:20

29. A Digital Approach to Museum Maps

29. A Digital Approach to Museum Maps

Image: An example of a digital mapping tool, Mapbox Studio Classic. Everything happens at a time and a place. In a museum, that coordinate system can help keep a story straight, even if it is not at the forefront of a gallery. And when designing maps for museums, we should keep in mind how humanistic digital tools are — and how helpful they can be to museum visitors.We should pay close attention to mental map matching. Museum visitors have a sense of geography marked by their own lived experienc

Oct 23, 2017 • 4:19

28. Leaving the Museum Field with Marieke Van Damme

28. Leaving the Museum Field with Marieke Van Damme

Executive Director of the Cambridge Historical Society Marieke Van Damme affectionately calls anyone working in the museum field “Museum People.” On her excellent podcast of the same name, she interviews museum people every episode. Many museum people are museum workers.In 2016, together with other noted museum professionals (Sarah Erdman, Claudia Ocello and Dawn Estabrooks Salerno), Marieke asked why museum workers leave the field. Last month, they published a summary of the findings t

Oct 9, 2017 • 11:51

27. Yo, Museum Professionals

27. Yo, Museum Professionals

Yo, museum professionals: exhibitions aimed at kids should not include interactive screens in galleries. You're undermining your mission!— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) September 4, 2017 Notably missing from discussions like these is a willingness to defend the interactive screen. The defense is simple: concepts that museums are tasked with teaching aren’t tangible anymore. Today’s students learn complex concepts that kids weren’t exposed to a generation ago. Even basic knowledge of sci

Sep 11, 2017 • 4:28

26. Arab American National Museum with Devon Akmon

26. Arab American National Museum with Devon Akmon

Image: Arab American National Museum photo by knightfoundation CC BY-SA 2.0. Before the Arab American National Museum opened in Dearborn, MI in 2005, there wasn’t a singular museum telling the Arab American story. The museum defines the Arab World as 22 countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Southeast Michigan has the highest concentration of people from the Arab World in North America, and much of the social, religious, cultural, and commercial enterprises are centered in

Aug 28, 2017 • 12:22

25. The Museum of Socialist Art in Sofia, Bulgaria is Figuring Out What to Do With All the Lenins

25. The Museum of Socialist Art in Sofia, Bulgaria is Figuring Out What to Do With All the Lenins

After the fall of communism in Bulgaria in 1989, statues of Bulgarian communist leaders, idealized revolutionary workers, and Lenins were taken down all over the county. Some of these statues are now in the Museum of Socialist Art in Sofia. Bulgaria doesn’t have a history museum that explores its communist past. The Museum of Socialist Art doesn’t fill that void, exactly: it is an extension of the Bulgarian National Gallery of Art. In this episode, museum director Nikolai Ushtavaliisk

Jul 17, 2017 • 8:06

24. College Hill and the International Slave Trade Walking Tour with Elon Cook

24. College Hill and the International Slave Trade Walking Tour with Elon Cook

Elon Cook created the College Hill and the International Slave Trade Walking Tour in Providence after researching the crucial and massive role that Rhode Island played in the history of slavery.The walking tour covers an an area of about one square mile in and around Brown University. Here, wealth and stability were created off of the buying and selling of enslaved people in Rhode Island and elsewhere.The built landscape of Providence serves as a museum without walls, and Elon considers

Jul 3, 2017 • 10:39

23. Museum-Metro Station Hybrids

23. Museum-Metro Station Hybrids

Image: An early rendering of the Serdika station in Sofia, Bulgaria, displaying Roman ruins on the first level underneath the street. During the planning stages for the Sofia Metro in Bulgaria, ruins of an old Roman fortress and city wall were discovered at the network’s proposed Serdika station. This wasn’t a surprise. People have been living in what is now Sofia for at least 4,000 years, and when you dig a tunnel, you’re bound to find something. The agendas of archaeologi

Jun 5, 2017 • 5:53

22. Guide Training at Akagera National Park with Lisa Brochu

22. Guide Training at Akagera National Park with Lisa Brochu

I met interpretive planner Lisa Brochu in Akagara National Park in Rwanda. I was there as a tourist, and she was there as a guide trainer.Lisa’s teaching stresses that the best way to communicate with the visiting public is by having strong, central theme. At Akagara National Park, park-employed and community freelance guides are the ones doing that communication. By working with them, Lisa hopes visitors’ experience in Akegara will stick with them longer. Lisa teaches that instead of rattl

May 15, 2017 • 10:25

21. Apollo 11 Historic Site

21. Apollo 11 Historic Site

Even before I started working in the museum field, I was thinking about the future museum at the Apollo 11 landing site at Tranquility Base on the moon. The site is special. No matter how the human experiment turns out, the site will represent the first step off earth. Now Tranquility Base is a pile of historical artifacts in their original context. Even the astronauts' footprints in the delicate, powder-like dust of the lunar surface are still there. How should we tr

May 1, 2017 • 5:14

20. Universal Design at the White House Visitor Center with Sherril York

20. Universal Design at the White House Visitor Center with Sherril York

Dr. Sherril York, executive director of the National Center on Accessibility, was part of the team that renovated the White House Visitor Center in 2012. Design priorities included making the experience accessible for all visitors.The new visitor center features raised line floor plans, tactile 3D models, and physical directional keys adjacent to touchscreens.In this episode, based on her case study for the fall 2015 issue of the Exhibitionist, Dr. York describes the process of working on

Apr 18, 2017 • 9:57

19. Remembering the Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre

19. Remembering the Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre

When the Kigali Genocide Memorial was first built in 1999, it was a burial site outside the Rwandan capitol city for thousands of victims of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi. Rwandans came to visit the final resting place of friends and family. Today, the city has expanded to envelop the memorial, which has also expanded to include a museum and archive.We talk with Honoré Gatera, the manager of the memorial, about what the center means to the city and country in 2017 and why

Apr 3, 2017 • 15:02

18. Maps and the 20th Century at the British Library

18. Maps and the 20th Century at the British Library

Image: Two propaganda maps at the Maps and the 20th Century exhibit at the British Library. The Maps and the 20th Century exhibit at the British Library is quick to get to central theme of the exhibition: in order to understand a map, you must understand how and why it was made. Maps are not neutral. In a museum context, however, it can be tempting to present a map as the source of truth.Topics Discussed:00:00: Intro00:14: Maps in Museums01:08: Limiting the Gallery to the 20th Cen

Feb 27, 2017 • 4:48

17. Entertainment and History at Disney's America

17. Entertainment and History at Disney's America

Image: A Civil War-era village that would have served as the hub of Disney's America. Image (c) Disney In 1994, Disney was hard at work on a new theme park called Disney's America. The park, which would open in Virginia not far from Washington DC, would showcase the “sweep of American History.” Confident and enthusiastic, Disney executives were walking a tightrope between entertainment and history.Topics Discussed:00:00: Intro00:14: Disney's America00:37: "The Complexity of th

Feb 6, 2017 • 6:44

 16. Visitation Trends at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Seminole Indian Museum

16. Visitation Trends at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Seminole Indian Museum

The Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Seminole Indian Museum is commemorating three anniversaries in 2017: the 200-year anniversary of the first attack of the Seminole War, the 60th anniversary of federal recognition of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the 20th anniversary of the opening of the museum.Carrie Dilley, Visitor Services and Development Manager at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki museum, compiles data collected from visitors. Last year, she discovered that visitors from one third of countries visited the mu

Jan 16, 2017 • 11:07

15. Tamar Avishai's The Lonely Palette

15. Tamar Avishai's The Lonely Palette

The Lonely Palette is the best museum podcast out there. Host Tamar Avishai wants to make art more accessible and to help people feel more comfortable talking about what they see in museums. She uses her experience as a Spotlight Lecturer at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston as a jumping off point for her relaxed and unconventional approach to art history. Topics discussed:00:00 Intro00:16 Tamar Avishai00:29 The Lonely Palette01:26 Museum education as a recent addition to the museum

Jan 2, 2017 • 12:16

14. Early Interpretive Planning at the National Museum of African American History and Culture

14. Early Interpretive Planning at the National Museum of African American History and Culture

Image: Guard tower from Camp H at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola at the National Museum Of African American History And Culture The National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) opened in September 2016. Today we will talk to some of the people who were thinking about the museum in 2007.Sara Smith and Andrew Anway were part of the Interpretive Planing team. They discuss NMAAHC director Lonnie Bunch's guiding principals for the museum as a whole, trips to other muse

Dec 12, 2016 • 11:59

13. Museums at a Crossroads with Rainey Tisdale

13. Museums at a Crossroads with Rainey Tisdale

Curator Rainey Tisdale sees two possible futures for museums: they play a more interdisciplinary role for their audiences or keep going down the same path they're on, becoming less and less relevant each year.Why should it be the job of the museum to enter the domain of other traditional institutions? And how can museums engage the public in new ways? By bringing together brain, body and spirit.Notes:- City Stories- @raineytisdale

Jun 23, 2016 • 4:34

12. Dead Bodies in Museums Part 2

12. Dead Bodies in Museums Part 2

Image: Lenin's mausoleum, Moscow. CC by Veni The American Association of Museums (AAM) has this to say about human remains in its code of ethics: “The unique and special nature of human remains and funerary and sacred objects is recognized as the basis of all decisions concerning such collections collections-related activities promote the public good rather than individual financial gain.” When AAM uses the word “special,” it means that every instance of a dead body is special, not

May 24, 2016 • 7:16

11. Dead Bodies in Museums Part 1

11. Dead Bodies in Museums Part 1

Image: A rendering of Minik in the New York World When Robert Peary brought six Inuits from Greenland back from his Arctic expedition, they landed in the care of the American Museum of Natural History. Among these people were an eight year old boy named Minik and his father Qisuk.After Qisuk became ill and died, the museum staged a fake burial and put his remains in the museum as artifacts. This is part one of a two-part series on dead bodies in museums.NOTES: Give Me My Fath

Apr 22, 2016 • 6:47

10. Framework For Engaging with Art

10. Framework For Engaging with Art

At an art museum, would you rather listen to a detailed guided tour or just enjoy the art without any interpretative support? Are you more comfortable visiting with a friend, or do you prefer being in a group of interested strangers? The Dallas Museum of Art has determined that visitors fall into one of four clusters, based on their preferred learning styles. While she was director of the museum, Bonnie Pitman applied the results of the survey to make the museum more engaging to a

Apr 4, 2016 • 9:01

9. The Museum Selfie with Dustin Growick

9. The Museum Selfie with Dustin Growick

Dustin Growick is in charge of audience development and the team lead for science at Museum Hack. Growick and Museum Hack treat a museum as a platform to build something more personal and fun. One of the tools that they use to make it more personal and fun is the museum selfie. The theory is that taking selfies is easy way to put yourself literally and figuratively in the context of the museum. In this this episode, Growick discusses the philosophy (as well as some dos and don'ts

Mar 11, 2016 • 4:57

8. Calatrava and the Museum Icon

8. Calatrava and the Museum Icon

This week, we visit two museum works by architect Santiago Calatrava: the Prince Felipe Museum of Science in Valencia, Spain and the Milwaukee Art Museum in Milwaukee, USA. Both museums look nothing like the museum icon on maps and in mapping programs. Do these facades have anything to say about about what the museum icon might look like in 50 years? Do these buildings even make good museums?Correction: This episode misidentifies the Milwaukee Art Museum as the Milwaukee Public Museum. Note

Feb 10, 2016 • 6:06

7. What Happens to Dead Amusement Parks?

7. What Happens to Dead Amusement Parks?

Most of the time, nothing.This week, special guest Carole Sanderson of the National Roller Coaster Museum and Archives describes the process and challenges of documenting the entertainment industry.Notes:Six Flags New Orleans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaNational Roller Coaster Museum: WelcomeMatterhorn Bobsleds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaSpecial thanks to Carole Sanderson

Jan 27, 2016 • 9:11

6. Muzeiko

6. Muzeiko

Until Muzeiko opened in Sofia, Bulgaria on October 1st 2015, there were no children’s museums in the Balkans. One of the reasons for the lack of children’s museums was a cultural attitude towards childhood education during communist times, according to Vessela Gercheva, the Programs and Exhibits Director for Muzeiko.In this episode, Museum of Museums visits Muzeiko to find a shifting attitude towards children's education. Notes:Muzeiko - Official SiteA Children’s Museum Comes

Oct 1, 2015 • 6:41

5. StalinWorld

5. StalinWorld

Image: Monika Bernotas and her family interact with statues of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin that were previously located in the cities of Lithuania at Grutas park. Go to the central square of any Soviet influenced country like Lithuania, and you will find empty pedestals.The pedestals used hold monuments to Soviet leaders. Where there once were statues of Lenin and Stalin, you now find overgrown bushes and pop-up cell phone stores. Where are the statues now? In Lithuania, t

Jul 24, 2015 • 7:11

4. Bison Hunt on Horseback

4. Bison Hunt on Horseback

Built in 1966, the Bison Hunt on Horseback diorama at the Milwaukee Public Museum is a throwback to an older style of exhibit, without projectors or screens. In this epsiode, Dr. Ellen Censky, Senior Vice President and Academic Dean at the Milwaukee Public Museum, talks about the diorama and modern exhibit design. Museum Archipelago is a tiny show guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, or Spotify to ne

May 27, 2015 • 6:44

3. Museum Authority in a World of User-Generated Content with Seb Chan

3. Museum Authority in a World of User-Generated Content with Seb Chan

As one of the nation's most-trusted category of institutions, museums project an enormous amount of authority over their subject matter. In this episode, Seb Chan, Director of Digital & Emerging Technologies at Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, talks about the ways that museums can share that authority with museum visitors comfortable with a less top-down approach to authority. For discussions on how museum's got to amass so much authority, stay tuned to Museum Archi

May 5, 2015 • 10:13

2. Labels

2. Labels

Early 20th century cartoons showed exhausted visitors craning their necks to read labels and stopping over to examine artifacts. What's the story 100 years later? Topics and LinksExhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach by Beverly SerrellMUSEUM FATIGUE, 1928, JAMA Museum Archipelago is a tiny show guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, or Spotify to never miss an epsiode.

Apr 15, 2015 • 5:53

1. Lobby

1. Lobby

The lobby is where you transform from an ordinary person into a museum visitor. In this first episode of Museum Archipelago, host Ian Elsner introduces the show and describes the transformative power of the museum lobby. Topics Discussed: The British Museum by J. Mordaunt Crook The museum foyer as a transformative space of communication by Ditte Laursen, Erik Kristiansen, and Kirsten Drotner. Museum Archipelago is a tiny show guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums. Sub

Apr 3, 2015 • 4:10

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