Object Idea

A Day in Pompeii

2012-01-02T21:52:00.001-05:00

Having done no pre-visit research at all, I really thought I was going to the Museum of Science to learn about volcanology and archaeological scientific methods – maybe even some forensics – when I chose to take my wife to see “A Day in Pompeii” – a temporary exhibition in Boston, one of its only four destinations on its US tour.

Once inside the exhibit, we were delighted to find richly colored fresco murals, marble and bronze statues of Venus and other patron gods, plates, bowls, and jugs. We were amazed to find fully intact tables and chairs upon which ancient Romans reclined and dined. We found exquisite jewelry and crude pottery. There were charred peach pits and loaves of bread… and… way in the back: I think I saw dead people.

Organization
The organization of the exhibit was not obvious at first, but that quickly cleared. The first arrangement of objects featured discoveries from common households and gardens, and the last display featured objects from across the entire “city town” – from trade businesses, boats, community gathering places, public forums, and burial sites. The middle of the exhibit featured the famous body casts that suspend the horror of the Vesuvius eruption of AD 79 that destroyed (and preserved!) Pompeii under 12 or so feet of ash.

Graphics

Large, illustrated wall graphics created “chapters” in the exhibit whose themes organized the collections and helped the reader envision a living Pompeii: A Typical House, Medicine, Preparing Food, The Public Square, etc.

The remainder of graphics were small object captions. The writing style was interrogative, encouraging the reader to look for details in each of the objects. We were invited to look for the hidden lizard in the fresco, notice the inscription on a piece of jewelry – a gift from a master to his slave, and compare the curvaceous shapes of vessels that once contained different foodstuffs.

It was possible to view every item and read every word in the course of a two hour visit, which indeed we did.

AV Media

Two animated video theaters offered a glimpse into the daily life of Pompeians and what the eruption of Mount Vesuvius may have looked like. The theaterettes offered an informative place to rest and seemed to be popular with kids and families (what kid doesn’t want to witness a whole town get burned and buried by a volcano?!)

Body Casts

The body casts were located in a secluded gallery, appreciable in the round, and complemented by a respectful soundtrack. This presentation fostered reverence in visitors.

Design Critique

I’m mostly critical of the exhibition’s entrance and exit experiences. The serpentine queue line at the front of the gallery held 60-100 people until our entry time. We were held in a rectangular foyer where an introductory video was projected on the narrow-end wall. In this orientation, the video couldn’t be viewed by people in the back of the line and so they chose to entertain themselves through conversation and cellphone use. Perhaps the wider wall would have been a better choice for the video?

I suspect that packaging and promoting this material for science museums has compelled its producers to add scientific content and hands-on elements to the exhibition – at the end. The last gallery takes a look at the Ring of Fire and a history of volcanic eruptions around the globe, a timeline of the excavation of Pompeii, and some “interactive” playthings for busy hands. It really doesn’t fit the character or the mindset of the heart of the exhibition. To me, the conclusion was artificial, it was loud, and it was cheap. The scientific ideas that I was curious about: how the body cavities were found and how the casts were made, how an entire city was discovered and uncovered, and how historians know what they know, were not addressed in any detail.

I really appreciated that the color scheme was unobtrusively dark and that the plinths and pedestals were non-decorative. The warm colors and organic shapes of the objects burst forth. Typographic treatments were equally benign. I was relieved to see no sign of the Herculaneum typeface and no simulated fresco textures. “Classy” I thought. Lighting was both mood-setting and set at the right levels for reading.

I didn’t love that the cast bodies were displayed on beds of lava rock that resembled the chunks I put in the bottom of my Weber grill, but now I’m just getting picky.

If you are able to see this exhibition, it’s an amazing peek beneath the ancient ash. I highly commend it for its authenticity and engaging interpretation.

The exhibit requires an additional fee and a timed entry ticket. It is in Boston through February 12. Just google it to learn more about its touring circuit.

Objects. Ideas. Gleanings from 2011

2011-12-28T23:13:00.004-05:00

Edison and Ford Winter Estates, Ft Meyers, FL

Object: Share the famous homes, inventions, and histories of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.
Idea: A separate arrival center (located across the street) provides parking, orientation, and a narrative overview, explaining how these two famous men and their families came to become neighbors and innovative colleagues. Their houses and workshop buildings are open to the air: the doors and windows swung wide open, and viewing the interiors is achieved through low and transparent barriers.

An audio-wand program facilitates the self-guided tours and recalls many of the memories of living at the estates and humanizes these larger-than-life men and their families. Clear walkways and a good map keep visitors from wandering too much and impacting the historic integrity of the site.

The Strong and National Museum of Play, Rochester, NY

Object: Be a national museum but serve a mostly local visitorship.
Idea: Many of the exhibits are playful, adventurous, and highly interactive – like a children’s museum.

Kids can come often and let their imaginations run. An ambitious program of changing exhibitions and a living butterfly house ensure there’s always something emerging. Then there is the National Toy Hall of Fame — a collections-based display of popular playthings ranging from Lincoln Logs to Barbie Dolls to sticks-turned-fishing poles, slingshots, and marshmallow roasters. Commonly heard from young and old at the Toy Hall of Fame: “Hey! I played with that!”

Micanopy Museum, Micanopy, Florida

Object: Attract museum visitors who have been lured close to the museum by nearby shopping.

Idea: Seek a pittance donation for entry. Be located on the beaten path. Promote perusal, touching, and comparing – a true shopping experience. And then “merchandise the museum” by focusing on charismatic objects interpreted through simple, browsable fact, legend and lore.

Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA

Object: Be as relevant as you can all the time.

Idea: Anchor the museum with a thematic and chronological gallery of object-based exhibitions with richly appealing displays of real things. Create beautiful moments of respite. Offer encounters with artifacts, history, and art: the things people think of when they hear the word “museum.” Season the authentic experience with interactive simulation elements and audiovisual media. Juxtapose this experience with a highly ambitious program of flexible displays. We saw an exhibit about the anniversary of a great wildfire, one on the Day of the Dead (during our October visit), and one on the legacy of John Muir.

Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA

Object: Keep the locals coming.

Idea: Make the museum free for all residents who share the museum's zip code. Lure them time and time again with dynamic programs and events — something new every 6 months. Feature world-class exhibitions. Have a kick-butt gift shop and good food.

Object Idea plans new National Museum

2011-09-23T16:01:00.001-04:00

The Johnson County Museum is ready to change its name and move into a new home. Equipped with a strategic plan and a new interpretive master plan completed by Object Idea, the museum will begin its transformation into a new National Museum of Suburbia and Suburban Policy Forum.

The new museum will capture, commemorate, and critique the ideas of American suburbia, including the story of how the suburbs took hold and played out near Kansas City. By interpreting suburbia through the eyes of agencies, planners, developers, builders, residents, policy-makers, and scholars, the museum will strive to chronicle how America's suburbs came to be; reveal their many physical and cultural dimensions; and encourage people to think about suburbia's real and imagined place in their hearts and minds, and its place in America's future.

A year-long process, the planning was conducted with the support of grants from IMLS and the Johnson County Heritage Trust. Object Idea worked with a task force of volunteers, members of the museum's staff, and museum planning consultant, Museum Insights of Mystic, CT.

Food For Thought

2011-08-24T15:26:00.000-04:00

Having visited the Culinary Arts Museum in Warwick, Rhode Island, I'm left with the following comparisons between going to a restaurant and going to a museum:

National Museum of Australia

Bread and Circus

The food and the ambience in a restaurant both contribute to the quality of the meal just as content and design are inseparable in the museum environment. As a sensual, physical medium, museum exhibition is outwardly expressive of the institution's mission and plays a vital role in branding. The exhibition experience generates enduring memories... good and bad.

Season to Taste

Learning from something is more engaging than learning about something. With a physical encounter at the heart of the exhibition experience, physical things — objects, artifacts, environments, demonstrations, sounds, and smells — are the most tasty items on the menu.

Eat Dessert First

"Real stuff" is irresistibly attractive and should, when possible, be offered first — at the top of the communication hierarchy. Don't expect people to stop and read graphic panels before moving toward artifacts. When planning an exhibition, think: How can real things provoke ideas? versus What idea can be followed up by some real thing? The subtle difference can be sweet.

Celebrity never hurts

The rarest...

The first...

The best example of...

The largest...

Advertise these; the "e-s-t" aspects of your exhibition program. Like celebrity-owned restaurants and Hollywood chefs, people are drawn to the popular and famous.

Museums of Sanibel, Florida

2011-08-24T14:13:00.002-04:00

The Baily-Matthews Shell Museum features world-class shell collections and themed exhibits ranging from "Mmmmmmm Mollusks" (about the flavor differences of mollusks), to the ways in which shells were used by local, native cultures.

Visitor Center: J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge. I developed the exhibits for this center over a dozen years ago. The exhibits have held up pretty well.

Dinosuar Hall | Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

2011-08-09T14:56:00.001-04:00

Most dinosaur exhibits treat museumgoers as observers, said Lauren Gravitz in LA Weekly. Not this one. Rather than lead visitors through Mesozoic history “with an old-school, timeline-based approach,” the Natural History Museum’s new Dinosaur Hall treats visitors as fellow paleontologists, bringing them in on the interpretive process. Much of what we know about dinosaurs is informed conjecture, not indisputable fact. By offering up evidence rather than conclusions, this show’s interactive displays had me “asking more questions, batting ideas around, thinking about the what, the why, and the how of dinosaur research.” Instead of “walking away feeling as if I’d been formally schooled on dinosaurs—an incredible feeling I have every time I leave the dino exhibit at New York’s American Museum of Natural History—I left filled with a completely different, equally exciting feeling of engagement.”

Also refreshing is the rejection of cartoonish artifice, said Edward Rothstein in The New York Times. Trapped in “the age of the diorama,” traditional museums strive to bring scenes to life using preserved fur and skin. “Taxidermic specimens are posed in re-creations of their natural habitats, against meticulously painted backdrops showing, perhaps, the expanse of the veldt or the dense growth of a rain forest.” Here, by contrast, “we are reminded repeatedly that these dinosaurs might as well be posing with their once-unnoticed re-creators,” given the level of subjectivity that such tableaux require. This museum smartly stresses its own newness: So much has changed in paleontology in just the last decade—from advances in preservation techniques to important new field discoveries—that the institution has a leg up even on its more comprehensive competitors.

The centerpiece, hands down, is a trio of Tyrannosaurus rex fossils, said Sophia Lee in the Los Angeles Times. “Crouching, with their great heads and menacing teeth hovering just above an unlucky duck-billed Edmontosaurus skeleton,” these fearsome predators represent a paleontological first, showing a single species at three different ages. They’re also “the youngest T. rex fossils ever found. The oldest, nicknamed Thomas, age 17, is at the peak of puberty, already 34 feet and 7,000 pounds at full body weight. The youngest is a 2-year-old toddler, but at 11 feet tall, he’s no pushover, and neither is the 13-year-old adolescent, at 20 feet and 4,000 pounds.” Which one might have killed the Edmontosaurus? That’s “an ongoing investigation.”

Reprinted from LA Weekly

Visit to the National Civil Rights Museum | Memphis | July 2011

2011-07-15T18:40:00.008-04:00

The National Civil Rights Museum is located in the Lorraine Motel, the site of Martin Luther King's assassination. The museum chronicles key events of the American civil rights movement and the legacy of this movement to inspire participation in civil and human rights efforts today, globally.

The "big moment" is when you encounter the actual site of MLK's murder. The assassin's perch is visible in the distance; the third white-framed window in the boarding house. You find yourself virtually in the path of the bullet. There are bloodstains still visible on the concrete of the balcony.

The boarding house was purchased by the NCRM in 2002 and fitted with a newer exhibition. It chronicles the man-hunt for James Earl Ray. The compelling subject matter makes up for the conventional, graphically intense presentation.

Thank you, exhibit designers, for sharing your organizational method. I'd rather hear if from you than have to figure it out myself.

Some visitors (mostly adults) were first drawn to the large case containing the court evidence used to convict James Earl Ray. Other visitors (mostly kids) were drawn to the touchscreen media stations (located just out of view of this photo). 4 touch screens interrogated the objects with virtual magnification, maps, additional photos, and illustrations.

Artifacts like this (the bullet removed from MLK's body) make this museum a "must talk about."

The assassin's view is an authentic artifact and a powerful, memorable encounter.

Visit to the Memphis Zoo | July 2011

2011-07-15T17:59:00.002-04:00

Big Cats Trail. Nice and shaded. Lots of nooks and special views.

Northwest Passage: seals, brown bears, bald eagles and... polar bears? What are polar bears doing in the context of the Pacific Northwest?

Bald eagles

Underwater viewing of polar bears (?) from a cool, comfortable building

Teton Treck featured grizzly bears, wolves and elk

Oh deer is was hot in Memphis!! Actually, these are elk.

Oh dear, there were too many graphics sometimes!!

Museums, Learning, and the Human Brain

2011-05-27T22:19:00.018-04:00

The Annual Meeting of the American Association of Museums (AAM, Houston) brought me into contact with many educators, curators, and interpretive planners. In processing my thoughts about the conference, I can't help but be present to one of the most influential ideas of learning that I encountered during my career in outdoor education: "brain-based learning" by Caine and Caine. In my former life as a trip leader, outdoor school administrator, and museum educator, this dynamic duo of experiential education offered one of the most appropriate and applicable understandings of how we humans receive and process information. I'm surprised that their work is not better known in the field of exhibition planning and design. Their work influences my work today – as it always has. Here are their 12 principles, simply stated:

1. The brain is a complex adaptive system.
Perhaps the most potent feature of the brain is its capacity to function on many levels and in many ways simultaneously. Thoughts, emotions, imagination, predispositions and physiology operate concurrently and interactively as the entire system interacts with and exchanges information with its environment. Moreover, there are emergent properties of the brain as a whole system that can not be recognized nor understood when the parts alone are explored. Education MUST come to terms with the complex, multifaceted nature of the human learner.

2. The brain is a social brain.
"For the first year or two of life outside the womb, our brains are in the most pliable, impressionable, and receptive state they will ever be in" (Zen Physics, P.18). We begin to be shaped as our immensely receptive brain/minds interact with our early environment and interpersonal relationships. Vygotsky was partially responsible for bringing the social construction of knowledge to our awareness. It is through this dynamical interaction with others that therapy works, for instance. It is now clear that throughout our lives, our brain/minds change in response to their engagement with others - so much so that individuals must always be seen to be integral parts of larger social systems. Indeed, part of our identity depends on establishing community and finding ways to belong. Learning, therefore, is profoundly influenced by the nature of the social relationships within which people find themselves.

3. The search for meaning is innate.
In general terms the search for meaning refers to making sense of our experiences. This is survival-oriented and basic to the human brain/mind. While the ways in which we make sense of our experience change over time, the central drive to do so is life long. At its core the search for meaning is purpose and value driven. Something of the extent of human purposes was expressed by Maslow. Included are such basic questions as "who am I?" and "why am I here?" Thus, the search for meaning ranges from the need to eat and find safety, through the development of relationships and a sense of identity, to an exploration of our potential and the quest for transcendence.

4. The search for meaning occurs through "patterning."
In patterning we include schematic maps and categories, both acquired and innate. The brain/mind needs and automatically registers the familiar while simultaneously searching for and responding to novel stimuli. In a way, therefore, the brain/mind is both scientist and artist, attempting to discern and understand patterns as they occur and giving expression to unique and creative patterns of its own. It resists having meaninglessness imposed on it. By meaninglessness we mean isolated pieces of information unrelated to what makes sense to a particular learner. Really effective education must give learners an opportunity to formulate their own patterns of understanding.

5. Emotions are critical to patterning.
What we learn is influenced and organized by emotions and mind-sets involving expectancy, personal biases and prejudices, self-esteem and the need for social interaction. Emotions and thoughts literally shape each other and cannot be separated. Emotions color meaning. Metaphors are an example as Lakov so aptly describes. Moreover, the emotional impact of any lesson or life experience may continue to reverberate long after the specific event that triggers it. Hence an appropriate emotional climate is indispensable to sound education.

6. Every brain simultaneously perceives and creates parts and wholes.
Although there is some truth to the "left-brain right-brain" distinction, that is not the whole story. In a healthy person, both hemispheres interact in every activity, from art and computing to sales and accounting. The "two brain" doctrine is most useful for reminding us that the brain reduces information into parts and perceives holistically at the same time. Good training and education recognize this, for instance, by introducing natural "global" projects and ideas from the very beginning.

7. Learning involves both focused attention and peripheral perception.
The brain absorbs information of which it is directly aware, but it also directly absorbs information that lies beyond the immediate focus of attention. In fact it responds to the larger sensory context in which teaching and communication occur. "Peripheral signals" are extremely potent. Even the unconscious signals that reveal our own inner attitudes and beliefs have a powerful impact on students. Educators, therefore, can and should pay extensive attention to all facets of the educational environment.

8. Learning always involves conscious and unconscious processes.
One aspect of consciousness is awareness. Much of our learning is unconscious in that experience and sensory input is processed below the level of awareness. That means that much understanding may NOT occur during a class, but may occur hours, weeks or months later. It also means that educators must organize what they do so as to facilitate that subsequent unconscious processing of experience by students. In practice this includes proper design of the context, the incorporation of reflection and metacognitive activities and ways to help learners creatively elaborate on the ideas, skills and experiences. Teaching largely becomes a matter of helping learners make visible what is invisible.

9. We have at least two ways of organizing memory.
Although there are many models of memory, one that provides an excellent platform for educators is the distinction made by O'Keefe and Nadel between taxon and locale memories. They suggest that we have a set of systems for recalling relatively unrelated information (taxon systems, from "taxonomies"). These systems are motivated by reward and punishment. O'Keefe and Nadel also suggest that we have a spatial/ autobiographical memory which does not need rehearsal and allows for "instant" recall of experiences. This is the system that registers the details of your meal last night. It is always engaged, is inexhaustible and is motivated by novelty. Thus we are biologically supplied with the capacity to register complete experiences. It is through a combination of both approaches to memory that meaningful learning occurs. Thus meaningful and meaningless information are organized and stored differently.

10. Learning is developmental.
Development occurs in several ways. In part, the brain is "plastic." That means that much of its hard wiring is shaped by the experiences that people have. In part, there are predetermined sequences of development in childhood, including windows of opportunity for laying down the basic hardware necessary for later learning. That is why new languages as well as the arts ought to be introduced to children very early in life. And finally, in many respects there is no limit to growth and to the capacities of humans to learn more. Neurons continue to be capable of making new connections throughout life.

11. Complex learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by threat.
The brain/mind learns optimally - it makes maximum connections - when appropriately challenged in an environment which encourages taking risks. However, the brain/mind "downshifts" under perceived threat. It then becomes less flexible, and reverts to primitive attitudes and procedures. That is why we must create and maintain an atmosphere of relaxed alertness, involving low threat and high challenge. However, low threat is NOT synonymous with simply "feeling good". The essential element of perceived threat is a feeling of helplessness or fatigue. Occasional stress and anxiety are inevitable and are to be expected in genuine learning. The reason is that genuine learning involves changes that lead to a reorganization of the self. Such learning can be intrinsically stressful, irrespective of the skill of, and support offered by, a teacher.

12. Every brain is uniquely organized.
We all have the same set of systems, and yet are all different. Some of this difference is a consequence of our genetic endowment. Some of it is a consequence of differing experiences and differing environments. The differences express themselves in terms of learning styles, differing talents and intelligences and so on. An important corollary is both to appreciate that learners are different and need choice, while ensuring that they are exposed to a multiplicity of inputs. Multiple intelligences and vast ranges in diversity are, therefore, characteristic of what it means to be human.

(See R. Caine and Caine, G. (1994) Making Connections: Teaching and the Human Brain, Addison-Wesley)

Mummies in Miniature | Impressive Immersion

2011-02-26T00:27:00.012-05:00

I've been a fan of the Egypt exhibition at the Field Museum in Chicago since it opened in the late 1980s. I was especially drawn to the tiny dioramas that depict the elaborate mummification shops of Egypt's Middle Kingdom. In four sides of the display, you can peer into small, highly detailed scenes. There are memorable tableaus like the extraction of guts, the salting and draining of corpses, the carving of coffins, and the wrapping of bodies in linen strips. The human figures are barely a few inches tall, but the viewing experience is highly immersive nonetheless. I visited recently, and these mummies in miniature still prove that compelling theatrical immersion need not be large scale to be engaging. Guests are certainly drawn-in and are very captivated.

The popularity of this display, and other mini-immersive exhibitions like it I've seen, prove to me that the fine art of the miniature diorama is one that should not be wrapped up and laid to rest.

On-site Museum Excursions

2011-02-25T20:42:00.046-05:00

Museum visitors can step back in time and tour a 1950's all-electric house.

Visitors can explore a Chinese House that was once located 11,000 miles away in a rural village near Shanghai.

Museum guests can visit a forested park and wander among tree ferns, waterfalls, and caves.

These experiences are offered by the Johnson County Museum (Shawnee, KS); The Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA); and Te Papa Tongarewa (Wellington, NZ), respectively. Exciting, educational, and memorable, they are among these museums' signature experiences. Once ticketed to any of these museums, one can tour the indoor galleries and at some point, venture outside the museum to enjoy these destination attractions. These outdoor exhibitions are accessible only after visitors have entered the museum proper.

In the All-electric House, you can smile at the memorably stylish furnishings of the 1950s and contemplate how the suburban lifestyle – with all its modern conveniences – was marketed to those who originally toured the model home. In Yin Yu Tang – a Chinese House, you can discover a rare example of Chinese architecture and learn about the daily life the Huang family, who resided in the house for over 200 years. In Bush City, you can wander a re-created natural area replete with indigenous plants and geological specimens. And when you’re finished with any of these, you can return to the mother ship museum and take in other exhibits, spend time in the gift shop, or enjoy refreshments.

These types of exhibitions represent, what I call, on-site excursions. I find that these “in-then-out-then-back-in” exhibitions offer a great sense of value, a refreshing change of scenery, a breath of fresh air, and an immersive contrast to the formal museum. They break up a typical visit structure and reduce fatigue. Also, many museums offer them under a separate ticket, and as such, they are revenue generators. I think they're a good idea.

Reality TV meets the Museum

2011-01-15T18:00:00.012-05:00

Museums are where America displays its wondrous treasures of the past — often strange and curious remnants of the momentous events that have shaped our history. Behind each artifact is yet another story to be told and secrets to be revealed — tales brimming with scandal, mystery, murder and intrigue. Whether a diary from an Arctic exploration, a stone giant thought to be the remnant of a race of enormous people, or a futuristic house that almost changed the world, iconic museum artifacts help us uncover who we are and what we've become.

Each hour of the television series, Mysteries at the Museum (on the Travel Channel) takes viewers on a captivating, revealing and at times surprising tour of America's past, revisiting its most crucial events by reexamining what has been left behind. The series casts its net wide, exploring the corners and backrooms of institutions dedicated to a variety of popular and entertaining subjects — invisible spies, cold-blooded assassins, dinosaurs, the paranormal, the Old West, the Cold War and more. The series tackles some of history's most enduring mysteries — both familiar tales and little-known anecdotes.

Here's a slide show (link) of the series' top 10 museum mysteries.

Virginia is for [science] lovers.

2010-11-09T15:31:00.038-05:00

Recently, I found myself in a conversation with some of the staff at the Science Museum of Virginia. They are in the process of master planning their architectural and exhibition spaces and have identified that they’d like the character of the visitor's experience to be one of a “Virginia style of learning.”
By reading their strategic plan and through conversation, I gathered that they’d like to use the State of Virginia’s history to provide context for identifying scientific content for the new museum. After all, one could easily turn to Monticello to contemplate the inventive genius of Jefferson or venture to any of the State’s civil war sites to find highly engaging context for subjects like typhus and trajectory; saltpeter and submarines.
In response to this “road trip” idea, I brought up the notion of employing a heritage science approach and although I’ve found that this term does exist in other arenas outside of the museum interpretation field, I’d like to take the opportunity of this blog to identify what I meant by, what I thought was, this admittedly spontaneous term. I think heritage is the full range of
our inherited traditions, objects and culture. Most importantly, it is the range of contemporary activities, emotions, meanings and behaviors that we draw from them. Objects and culture; activities and meanings – it’s the stuff museums are made of. Since this conversation, I encountered an article in AAM’s Museum magazine written by Lonnie Bunch, Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (issue Nov/Dec 2010). In it, I read “The best museum presentations can help people find a meaningful and useable past.”
The idea of a “usable past” made me think of
Virginia and the idea of heritage science again. Perhaps the Science Museum of Virginia should not only be interested in a style of learning but should also be interested in a way of shaping Virginia itself.
I think the idea of a heritage science is a good one, and I now think that its definition is rather multidimensional:

1. It is a context for science through regional and inherited traditions, objects and culture;
2. It is an approach to scientific education through the actions of investigating and uncovering the past, preservation and conservation of heritage resources; and identifying how the past can be useful; and
3. It is a brand for heritage tourism – one that aligns scientific achievement with a powerful sense of place that can certainly found in the State of Virginia, yesterday and today.

Light is Art | Salem, MA | October 1, 2010

2010-10-03T21:05:00.014-04:00

The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) has launched FreePort, its newest contemporary art initiative, with a commission by internationally renowned artist Charles Sandison.

Figurehead, which opened 2 October 2010, activates handwritten words from 18th-century ship logs and journals, creating an immersive environment of swirling, luminous language. Inspired by PEM's 18th-century origins in global trade, Sandison gives poetic visual form to the thoughts and aspirations of America's first global entrepreneurs in East India Marine Hall. The elegant neoclassical room — PEM's original display hall — features immense sculptures from the prows of vessels that once set sail from Salem harbor.Working at the intersection of visual art and computer programming, he uses his own customized software to map trajectories around the room; the projected images respond to algorithms that guide their behavior.

In Figurehead, Sandison's algorithms draw on real-time weather data from the internet, making the installation organic and ever-evolving.

Here's a rather bad mobile phone video I shot at the opening event. It's of pretty bad quality, but you can get an idea for how immersive the installation is.

Organized by PEM's curator of contemporary art, Trevor Smith, the installation is the first in a series of projects inviting artists to establish a unique dialogue with the museum and its visitors. "Each year, we'll work with artists and our audience to explore the effects of global give-and-take on our culture," says Smith. "For over 200 years," Smith says, "PEM has been tracing the ways in which trade, exchange and translation drive cultural change. This is something unique to our museum. These are also the questions that contemporary art explores."

National Rivers Center Opens | Dubuque, Iowa

2010-07-28T11:00:00.021-04:00

Object Idea celebrated the opening of a new project in the summer of 2010. An indoor water fall greets visitors as they prepare to celebrate America's great rivers in the National Rivers Center, a phase-two expansion of the National Mississippi River Museum.

The immersive RiverWays gallery invites visitors to enter a canal; explore a river cave; and discover the history, culture, artifacts, and people of the diverse and watery interior of the United States.

Rivers to the Sea traces the story of water and rivers as they flow from streams to rivers to the ocean. Visitors enjoy four salt-water aquariums including a 40,000 gallon Gulf of Mexico tank holding sharks, rays, and the beautiful schooling fish found at the mouth of the Mississippi.

RiverWorks invites children of all ages to explore through hands-on, water-based activities. They learn about rivers and what rivers mean to all of us. This children's "museum within a museum" keeps its river focus, with a crawl through beaver lodge, water table and a pedal-powered "water cycle."

The Large Format 3D/4D Immersion Theater presents 3D high definition sights, and 4D special effects including dramatic sound, wind, mist, seat movement and smells of the on-screen action.

At the Arabia Steamboat Museum, the "felt message" is precious cargo | Kansas City | February 2010

2010-03-04T21:45:00.018-05:00

In an oftentimes heady profession such as exhibition design, it’s easy to over-think the idea of the coveted “take-home message.” We interpretive developers identify, write, and hone big idea statements, core themes and primary messages all the time, and hope that visitors will stop and read the graphic panels upon which these messages often blatantly reside. And we hope they will take these messages home as insight and education.

I suspect, however, that most take-home messages are gathered viscerally – felt rather than read. A recent visit to the Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City reminded me of this in a powerful way.

The Arabia Steamboat Museum is home to a true time capsule of frontier life in America in the 1800s. The Arabia was headed up the Missouri River in the fall of 1856 when she struck a tree snag and sank just north of Kansas City. Her cargo hold was full of 200 tons of supplies bound for general stores and pioneer settlements. As the years passed, the river changed course and left the Arabia buried beneath the mud of a Kansas cornfield. Finally, in 1988 a group of modern-day adventurers uncovered the lost Arabia and her magnificent cargo.

The presentation of Arabia's artifacts is, for the most part, not noteworthy. Simple, “storefront” displays of dishes, tools, bottled foodstuffs, clothing and personal items recall the familiar experience of window-shopping at a Crate and Barrel or an Old Navy (or, in this case: Really Old Brown).

What IS extraordinary and memorable, is the omnipresent take-home message that was best articulated by my tour guide. She said, “We wanted to show visitors how much stuff a 170-foot steamboat could carry. It’s that simple.” I immediately thought “...of course!,” for they nailed it in the design of the experience.

I also thought how tempted many designers would be to bring context murals, layered story panels, and object interrogation technologies to the interpretive palette. But here, less was truly more. With its one-of-a-kind story, close encounters with authentic evidence of history, and a mix of emotional, historic and technical interpretation (mostly delivered live), the Arabia Steamboat Museum offered everything I seek in a museum.

And its felt message shined though a lack of mud.

Cast Figure Update | February 2010

2010-02-11T23:52:00.008-05:00

The first photos are in of the voyageur figure that will bear my likeness. I now know how the process works for creating museum-quality life-cast figures and that StudioEIS is among the best.

The casting of my head took 3o minutes and two attempts.

Below, you can compare the photo of the real me, striking the original costumed pose, and the nearly completed (yet-to-be-painted) cast figure.

Aquarium Design: Top 10 Trends

2010-02-05T11:57:00.005-05:00

Recent visits and collaborations with public aquariums and their designers, have revealed the following trends in design and interpretation for live animal exhibitions:

1. Interpretation includes stories about individual animals.

To engage the mind with scientific interpretation is perhaps not enough anymore; people like to have their heartstrings tugged. At the John G. Shedd Aquarium (Chicago), visitors learn of Bubba, the grouper who's grappling with cancer; and Nickel, the sea turtle who swallowed a 5¢ coin that lodged in his throat (photo). Bubba's message: The aquarium went to great lengths to partner with the local hospital to take really good care of me. Nickel's message: animals need safe homes too – and the way that humans use (or abuse) the natural environment has effects.

2. A visit is more than just animal exhibits.

Spectacular animal collections and beautiful exhibitions will not compensate for inadequate amenities. Inconvenient parking, a lackluster arrival experience (photo), and lousy food service and gift shops will eclipse the reason why visitors think they came in the first place: to see the animals. Many of the Las Vegas aquariums (like that at the Mirage) have done well to incorporate views into animal habitats while visitors are being ticketed, while they are dining, and while they are shopping. These kinds of incidental encounters with the animals ensure that good impressions and a sense of value are being made across the structure of the visit.

3. Size matters.

BIG is memorable. Most of the Japanese aquariums and the new "world class" aquariums in the US are featuring numbers in the 6 million gallons-per-tank range. Acrylic configurations are interesting and immersive, designed to heighten the thrill factor and maximize viewing. We're seeing a trend toward wider and shallower big views in order to surround visitors in the immensity of ocean environments.

4. Offer a One-and-Only.

At the Radisson Blu Hotel in Berlin, the precariously perched AquaDom tank, located in the lobby, features an elevator ride through the middle of the cylindrical aquarium (photo). You can do this only in Berlin.

The Nagoya Public Aquarium is the only place where you can visit at night and witness captive sea turtles laying their eggs on replicated beaches.

In Sydney, Australia, you may see rare, Southern Ocean dugongs.

More and more, aquarium designers are being driven by the criteria to create a one-and-only attraction. In the future, we'll see more large-scale habitats, more motion, more interesting husbandry protocol, more conservation practices (like breeding/re-introduction programs) on view, and more charismatic animals like manta rays, giant sharks, and huge schools of pelagic fish.

5. You can be linear and free-flowing.

People appreciate a sense of cognitive organization but they tend to move through physical space in random patterns – like serial clicking on the internet. Linear exhibits with narrative interpretation are becoming shorter to coincide with visitors' dwindling attention spans, and many aquariums now offer several thematically-structured exhibits (rather than an overarching narrative) to facilitate choice. At the Georgia Aquarium, visitors depart from a central hub and journey through any of five divers' experiences in a classic hub-and-spoke arrangement that is basically a "shopping mall" of experiences. I suspect that the public consensus would jive with my own: I felt in control and empowered to make selections, I felt fine about splitting up and regrouping with my party, and I even re-visited favorite attractions all within the frame of a single visit.

6. Offer kid-friendly exhibit experiences.

With families being most aquariums' key audience, they must offer something for young, energetic visitors. Kids need things to touch, and safe places to run, jump and play

7. Perhaps water and technology do not mix.

Viewing animals IS interactive – and if it isn't broke, don't fix it. Computer-based technology in front of tank windows is a bad idea. Consultation with several institutions suggests that their visitors actually came to get away from computers and simulated experiences. According to Mike Delfini, Director of Design at the Shedd Aquarium, their electronic animal ID systems (photo) have met with visitors' approval, however their other technological offerings are not so popular.

8. People come to see the animals – end of story.

"Learning Galleries" with little or no animals: bad idea. "Conservation Labs" with preachy messages and few living animals: bad idea. When it comes to education, people do enjoy demonstrations, guided programs, and privileged tours of the back-of-the-house like those offered by the Georgia Aquarium. Here, live animals and human/animal interactions are featured and appreciated.

9. Punctuate the self-guided visit with guided events.

From behavioral demonstrations with marine mammals to smaller-scale trained fish shows and timed feeding programs, people love to gain access to the world of the trainers and animal keepers. The Shedd is delighting its guests in smaller venues (40 people at a time) with programs such as Trainer for a Day, and special animal encounters.

10. Offer indoor and outdoor experiences in order to provide a sense of place and a change of pace.

Outdoor venues can host large and unique experiences and strengthen an institution's connection to its city or setting. The Puerto Rico Aquarium features 40,000 square feet of exhibits under usually sunny skies, and Orlando's Discovery Cove has the feel of a tropical inlet. Fee-flight aviaries serve to remove the perception of barriers. In my own city of Boston, the New England Aquarium's new marine mammal facility (photos) features wonderful views of Boston Harbor and above- and below-water views of..... California sea lions?

Number 11 bonus trend: Be local and exotic.

California sea lions in Boston? Aquariums and zoos are strengthening their interpretation of local and regional ecology in an effort to create relevancy for local visitors and align with state science curriculum standards for school kids. At the same time, they're offering enticingly exotic animals and habitats in an effort to lure thrill-seekers and prove themselves as world-class attractions.

Ballet Méchanique | Boston Modern Orchestra Project | November 13

2009-11-15T22:16:00.000-05:00

The avante-garde and complexity of George Antheil's Ballet Méchanique probably explains why it hasn't been performed for a live audience since 2001 and why it's only been performed a few times since its original composition in 1924.

Last Friday, the 13th, I heard it as presented by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. I wouldn't describe it as music to my ears but I loved the privilege and experience it provided. At times I was uneasy with the "noise" of it; at times I found myself laughing out loud; and in the end, it brought me and the audience at Boston's Jordan Hall to our feet. It was an amazing and amusing aural experience and a true ballet of mallets, musicians, and mechanical mayhem.

The 20-minute percussive composition features 16 player pianos synchronized by computer (which meant Antheil never heard the piece as he truly composed it), numerous xylophones, a suite of electric bells and sirens (displayed prominently at center stage) and a few random airplane propellers and engines.

Here (link) is a good .mov clip from a documentary.

Modeling for the Museum | New York City | November 2009

2009-11-13T19:26:00.000-05:00

About six months ago, I completed the design development for an expansion of the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium, home of the National Rivers Hall of Fam e in Dubuque, Iowa. When the project opens next spring, one of the many things visitors will encounter will be a full-scale re-creation of a scene from the North American fur trade. The scene will feature life-cast human figures of voyageurs and Native Americans, a rocky shoreline, trees, and a cascading stream.

I visited StudioEIS in New York City last week to workshop and establish the poses for the figures. One voyageur will be trading goods with an Ojibwa Indian, while another will be preparing for portage by pulling the 90-pound packs from the birchbark canoe. With makeshift costuming and props, we determined the staging for the scene.

We tried a variety of poses and took about a hundred reference photographs. From these, we gained client approval and will soon cast real human bodies, faces and hands so the figures can be fabricated with the amazing detail that is the hallmark of StudioEIS's work. Part of that detail will be a full-body likeness of yours truly! I will soon return to the studio to be cast in plaster and resin as one of the fur traders.

Please check back for an update.

Visitor Generated Content | October 2009

2009-10-01T14:44:00.000-04:00

Main message: It's fun to drill holes.

A Fateful Mishap

2009-09-24T11:47:00.000-04:00

Our Green Trail Opens | Boston Children's Museum | September 2009

2009-09-15T20:53:00.000-04:00

The LEED-certified building that houses the Boston Children’s Museum is perhaps it’s largest exhibit. Sporting a leafy green roof, a capacity-sensitive HVAC system, and innovative plumbing and electrical fixtures, it serves as a great model for how energy and materials play a role in our lives while offering tips for how we can make a difference in the choices we make today and the futures we live in to.

Along the green trail, you can play Green Roof Pinball, navigate the a-Maze-ing Green Spaces maze, match materials’ first and second lives, and offer your own Bright Ideas for how to use energy efficient technology. The game stations are inspired by classic game challenges and they require little to no written instructions. They’re seriously fun!

Most importantly, before you leave the Boston Children’s Museum, you can sign up to continue walking the green trail at home by joining the Our Green Trail on-line community. Once enrolled, your family receives a series of on-line challenges designed to help you realize your own goals toward living a greener lifestyle at home and at school.

On Timelines

2009-09-09T11:41:00.000-04:00

This blog entry is a summary of an interview conducted by Pat Matson Knapp (PMK) of the Society for Environmental Graphic Design. Excerpts were published in the organization's magazine, segdDESIGN, issue 24, 2009.

MK/objectIDEA: Pat, here are some quick answers to your queries. Note that I’m first and foremost an exhibition planner, so these responses might be considered “What can the museum field teach us about timelines?”

PMK: What is the coolest/most effective timeline you've ever seen?

MK/objectIDEA: Honestly, they are few and far between. What comes to mind immediately is "The Crisis Hours" at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, TX, located in the Texas School Book Depository: the site of Oswald's sniper perch. The timeline section of the museum examines the immediate aftermath of the assassination and the four-day period that culminated in John F. Kennedy's funeral and the murder of Oswald. I recall its effectiveness because of its compelling content, diversity of presentation (photos, objects, texts and an AV program), and above all: BREVITY. The chunks of time are tiny respective to other timelines I've seen. As a visitor, I could see the length of the timeline in one view and be comforted that my investment in the exhibit was only for a few minutes and didn't hinge solely on my reading lengthy texts. I lifted the following description from the museum's website. Notice the small bite-sized chunks of time:

Only 45 minutes after the shots rang out in Dealey Plaza, Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit was murdered in the Oak Cliff section of the city. Thirty-five minutes later, suspect Lee Harvey Oswald, a clerk at the Texas School Book Depository, was in police custody. Oswald was later charged with both murders. Less than 48 hours after the assassination, Oswald was murdered in the basement of Dallas Police Department headquarters by local nightclub operator Jack Ruby. Featured artifacts in this area include the handcuffs worn by Oswald during his attempted transfer from the city jail to the county jail. Along one wall, a detailed timeline explains the sequence of events as they unfolded in Dallas and in Washington, D.C. In a nearby theater, visitors may watch a 10-minute video featuring footage from the Kennedy funeral and scenes highlighting the global response to the assassination.

I recently had the great joy of working with the Nantucket Historical Association on the development of their new museum center. It's a trio of museums, actually—a whaling museum, historic candle manufactory, and changing temporary exhibition gallery. The museum center is unified with an “entrée” exhibition that features a timeline of island events that shaped the course of Nantucket history. I worked with the designers to ensure that the overhead band of dates and events was supported with rich displays of objects. The beginning of the timeline (shown here) features the earliest known human history of the

island and features a map of Nantucket with paleo-Indian objects placed upon it in the locations where they were uncovered by achaeologists. Visitors engage the display as a sequence of events; a chronological display of artifacts; and an orientation to the museum. I wouldn’t term it an all-inclusive timeline. It was very targeted at the island's defining moments.

PMK: What do the "bad/ineffective" timelines do wrong?

MK/objectIDEA: I have a few opinions about that:

A. The subject matter might not be solely linear (Information Breakdown). Surprisingly, designers sometimes try to force non-linear events into timeline formats. Case in point: In preparation for working with a large natural history museum, I recently surveyed exhibitions about the processes of evolution. I found that while scientists often express their interpretation of evolution visually, as an elaborately branching tree, many museums attempt to “tell the story” linearly as a sequence of events in a linear gallery. In cases like this (and I’d love to survey more) the dynamic nature of the subject is compromised by being forced into a timeline.

B. Many timelines have been created under the assumption that time is a valuable interpretive lens for a general audience. (Interpretive Breakdown). For example, you REALLY must love your iPhone to love the iPhone timeline no matter how beautiful its design might be. Museums often assume this level of interest and offer their guests deeply detailed timelines. Additionally, 2-dimensional timelines select their audiences rather stringently, I suspect. The ones containing objects are more compelling to me.

C. In an effort to be “rich” timelines become cluttered. (Design Breakdown). Case in point: filmmaker, Ken Burns created a timeline—The Civil War—presented through 11 hours of PBS airtime using images, music, maps, biographies, and historical documents. The film series is a rich document, and drew a wide and captivated audience. An example contrary to this is The Civil War in Four Minutes offered by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, IL. It’s also an audiovisual timeline. However, The Lincoln Library, in focusing on how the War played out on battlefield geography, used a single medium—a projected map—and the single interpretive lens—the landscape—to capture the library’s ambulating audience of tourist families and schoolchildren. Again, the provocative and informative title: The Civil War in Four Minutes signals the depth of the program and the time investment needed.

D. The designs of timelines do not often align with the intentions of their users. (Motivation Breakdown). In a museum setting, visitors come to be in a social place, to see the real evidences of history’s events, to be moved emotionally and intellectually, and to interact with objects and ideas. In a museum, visitors are in a “food-court” of experiences; continuously sensing the next offering and making choices for what to ingest. In this environment (akin to serial clicking on the Internet) timelines often unrealistically require their users to stop and pause for long periods of time and “grip the handrail” of a single experience.

Exhibit audiences demand interactivity and choice. This example: http://thewhalehunt.org/whalehunt.html is an on-line timeline that would be at home in any museum. It takes the idea of a timeline and gives the user the ability to throttle the speed and manipulate the presentation artfully and intellectually.

PMK: Why is it so difficult to do timelines well? What are the unique challenges of presenting events over time?

MK/objectIDEA: By “well” I’m assuming you mean beyond graphic design. I’ve seen many attempts at timelines (in museums) that look beautiful but do not function informatively. And the more I think about it, this might be OK in some circumstances. The timeline that serves to ground the exhibition, Mathematica (designed by Charles and Ray Eames), is so multilayered that for many, it becomes beautiful wallpaper.

To sum it up—why some timelines are ineffective— I think designers sometimes collapse the ideas of events over time, unfolding sequence of events, and storyline. When all of these get rolled into something called a timeline, the communication integrity breaks down and graphic design attempts to compensate. Designers of all disciplines should work HARD with curators, historians and exhibition developers to distinguish the communication aim of the display. Perhaps a timeline isn’t the right medium.

PMK: What are some of the basic do's and don'ts of timeline design?

MK/objectIDEA: Do’s: brevity, poignancy, interactivity, flexibility, and sensuality. Don’ts: Complexity, prolixity, monotony.

Coltsville Plan Delivered to State, National Park Service, and General Public | Hartord, CT | December 2008

2008-12-23T18:44:00.000-05:00

On December 18, objectIDEA participated in the presentation of a completed Visitor Experience Plan for Coltsville National Historic Park. The plan, commissioned by the state of Connecticut, analyses the interpretive potential of the site, and offers a vision for the use of the remnant buildings that comprise the historic landscape of the Colt Firearms Manufactory known as Coltsville. The focus of the interpretive plan is on the processes pioneered by the Colt Company that honed the future of precision manufacturing in America, and the business ingenuity of Samuel and Elizabeth Colt in the realms of product promotion and international business.

The plan was presented from the lectern of the Church of the Good Shepherd, an 1869 High Victorian Gothic church, whose construction was commissioned by Mrs. Colt to serve the workers who resided in Coltsville.

CT Congressman John Larson opened and closed the presentation with inspirational remarks and enthusiastic endorsement. The presentation was broadcast on the state's public television channel.

Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum | Long Island, New York | November, 2008

2008-11-07T15:55:00.000-05:00

Thar she blows – Another whaling museum!

I'm thrilled to be "cutting in" to another whaling museum project. This past October I began consulting with the Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum located in Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island, New York. Working with EarthRise Design, objectIDEA will complete the facility and exhibition master plan in early 2009.

Having served as the exhibition developer during the planning of the Nantuck et Historical Society Whali ng Museum some years ago (the Museum opened in 2005), I find it both nostalgic and comfortable to be once again contemplating how to interpret the objects and stories of American whaling.

The collections look familiar: scrimshaw, captains' portraits, figureheads, harpoons, and even a fully

equipped whaleboat (seen here). We're especially excited to research the differences between New England/Mid Atlantic, and island/mainland whaling operations in an effort to make Cold Spring Harbor's story unique in the region.

Iconic Buildings Offer Historic Views | Boston & Hartford | October 2008

2008-11-07T14:11:00.000-05:00

Two projects – one in Boston, the other in Hartford – have recently provided me with very privileged and historic views.

The Old State House and Boston Massacre Site, Boston

In June, 2008, objectIDEA participated in a study with the Boston Historical Society to evaluate the visitors' experience at Boston's Old State House. The study paved the way for an interpretive planning exercise wherein recommendations were made to restructure the circulation of the visitors' experience in the building, and focus the institution's single, emblematic communication aim: This building, once a monument to English rule, is now a monument to American resistance.

As the interpretive plan took shape, so did the Old State House itself, as it was undergoing an extensive architectural restoration as well. Prior to the re-gilding of the dome, I was invited to climb the scaffolding and inspect the cupola and dome and, in doing so, was rewarded with a view of details (including Boston's first weathervane) and vistas that few people have seen in quite some time.

Coltsville National Historic Landmark, Hartford

In October, 2008, I was invited as part of a consultancy taskforce hired to evaluate Coltsville National Historic Landmark in Hartford, CT. The thrust of the effort was to evaluate the site's potential as a host for a visitor center and interpret the history of business ingenuity and precision manufacturing in a young America.

The Colt firearms complex, affectionately known as Coltsville, is marked by one of the most iconic buildings in all of Hartford: the grand East Armory with its gold, star-spangled, blue onion dome. A view from the dome reveals the spread of Coltsville and its relationship to the city and the Connecticut River. We hope to extend an invitation to the general public to appreciate and contemplate this view in the near future.

It’s only Rock ‘n’ Roll but I [still] like it | Cleveland, OH | July 2008

2008-07-09T12:41:00.000-04:00

I visited the Rock 'n' Roll Museum and Hall of Fame in Cleveland shortly after its opening in 1995 and again, this month, on July 8, 2008. While not much has changed, I was reminded how much I enjoyed encountering this subject matter and the famous objects that the Museum houses. I saw old favorites like Johnny Cash's guitar, John Lennon's piano, Elvis' studded jumpsuit, Madonna's gold bustier, and Janis Joplin's psychedelic-motif Porche. Objects the likes of these, are the essence of any institution that bears the distinction: Hall of Fame

I was also very impressed by the audio-visual presentations that punctuate the mostly static displays. Featuring milestone moments like the birth of rock 'n' roll, the British Invasion and the popularity of the music videos of the 1980s, these interpretive pieces bring the collections to life and have, like the music itself, stood the test of time.

Break On Through – The Lasting Legacy of The Doors was the temporary exhibition offered in the penthouse gallery of the Museum. Objects like Jim Morrison's little, blue, cubscout uniform and hand-written lyric manuscripts from each of the band's four albums, served well to humanize the iconic and mysterious cult figure.

Birds of a Feather | July 2008

2008-07-05T02:09:00.000-04:00

My brother, Jeremy Kirchman, is the Curator of Birds at the New York Sate Museum in Albany. He and I share a gene (undoubtedly inherited from our father) that gives us a passionate interest in natural history. Jeremy and I have built our vocations on this interest and have shaped it and applied it, specifically, to our respective careers in the museum field.

He's a scientist who studies the evolution and distribution of birds in the state of New York and across the islands of Oceania. He has focussed his research on a family of birds called Rails.

Rails look to me like a cross between a large sandpiper and a small chicken. Many museums have them in their collections and feature them in their exhibitions, as they are among the poster children (poster chickens?) for island biogeography, endemism and extinction. Although rails are, for the most part flightless, for years they literally flew by me in museums as my attention was seized by their more splendid cousins: hummingbirds, great auks and birds of paradise. When my brother introduced me to his study subjects, these drab birds became beautifully complex and meaningful to me. And I started noticing them.

I visit natural history museums all around the world and I now scan the collections and displays – birdwatching for rails. When I spot one, I snap a picture.

Cold Storage | Cleveland Museum of Natural History | June 2008

Boston Museum of Science | 2007

Fairbanks Museum | St. Johnsbury, Vermont | 2007

The Cigar Box Guitar | Tampa, FL | July 2008

2008-07-01T09:30:00.000-04:00

I'm currently consulting with the Tampa Bay History Center as they move to a new building and design their permanent exhibition program. A new facility will open in December, 2008 and one area of the Museum, entitled Cigar City, will chronicle the establishment, growth/decline and enduring heritage of Tampa's cigar making industry.

Cigar City will exhibit this piece of folk art: a hand-made guitar fashioned from a cigar box, recycled mandolin pieces, and some piano wire. As the exhibition developed, this item became one of my favorite objects due to its emotive potential.

Representing the intersection of industry and immigrant life in Tampa during the city's cigar-making heyday, visitors will be invited to contemplate the "voice" of this simple instrument:

Who may have assembled the guitar from the basic materials that were found in any of the 300 cigar factories that once formed the growing "skyline" of Tampa?
Who's tobacco-stained fingers, weary from a day's work of rolling over 1oo cigars, may have still found the energy and dexterity to navigate the narrow neck of the tiny guitar?
Who may have been drawn by the music, perhaps to one of the accommodating porches of the simple, white cassitas that the factory owners built for their growing workforce?
Did the guitar help to celebrate a Spanish wedding? Did it usher in a new generation of Italian-Americans at a baptism? Did it participate in a street-side demonstration of a burgeoning force of Cuban insurrectos?
And finally, who recognized that this seemingly unimportant piece of "tramp art" was a witness to Tampa's history and had the foresight to know that, as a powerful storyteller, it deserved to be kept among the prized items in the Tampa Bay History Center's collection?

Dalí and Film | The Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL | May 2008

2008-07-01T00:38:00.000-04:00

I found myself in St. Petersburg recently, so I went to the Salvador Dalí Museum and took in the exhibition, Dalí and Film.

From the website: Dalí and Film (February – June, 2008) is "the first exhibition examining the profound relationship between the paintings and films of Salvador Dalí (1904-1989). The exhibition reveals how Dalí combined his skills in painting with the new and exciting possibilities of the moving image to define a new art."

Please note: details about the exhibition, and acknowledgements to those who created it can be found on the websites for the Dalí Museum and the Tate Modern, London, where the exhibition premiered. It has future engagements in Los Angeles and New York.

First, a little context: It was free museum day in Tampa/St. Pete, and the locals were out in droves. The queue line of museum-goers extended 50+ persons beyond the threshold of the front door. This was at first a little discouraging, but the Museum was more than prepared. I waited no longer than a few minutes before I entered the exhibition. Dalí and Film was integrated across the Museum, and seamlessly interwoven with the permanent exhibitions of paintings and objects. While it was pitched as a temporary installation, it was not confined to a distinct gallery space.

Readers, please accept my apologies for the lack of photo-evidence to support this review. Picture taking is not allowed in the Museum. After I informed a staff-person that I intended to write a positive review of the exhibition, I was granted permission to take a single, albeit bootleg, picture with my mobile phone.

Upon entering the Museum proper, I relished the simple design of the installation immediately:

Billboard-sized blank walls, the recipients of black and white, filmic projections, contrasted many of the intimately small and brilliantly colored paintings;
The "brushes with greatness" (the famous works) were spaced across the exhibition like crumbs through the woods. They lured me and nourished me. I felt a moment of reverence as I approached the so-familiar painting of melting clocks, that until that moment, I had only seen in books about great art;
The modest size of the Museum and the exhibition did not intimidate me or generate fatigue;
The quality of the architectural spaces immersed me in the work: modulated lighting and colors signaled new experiences, and at one point, the floor plane of the gallery rose with a ramp and then fell away in a series of stepped tiers not unlike the lively horizons of the surrealist landscapes that graced their walls.

Thanks to the interpretation (both personal and non), I think Dalí and Film might represent the best interpretive experience I've had in an art museum.

The crowded galleries, which at first registered with me as a distraction, quite quickly became the most interesting aspect of the visit:

I was struck by the level of conversation in the galleries. The usual hush associated with art museums was replaced with a buzz more akin to that of a casual café. Patrons were discussing what they saw, laughing and gasping out loud. I saw a few cases where parents or care-givers covered their children's eyes (the exhibit includes some "racey" imagery), and conversing to a degree that was entertaining and comforting.
Probably in anticipation of the great numbers of visitors attracted by free day, the Museum positioned many staff and docents on the exhibit floor. At any given moment there was an impromptu tour taking shape and anyone could eavesdrop or participate wholeheartedly. I joined a tour in which a gentleman used the beam of a penlight to point out recurring motifs in one of Dalí's masterworks. He revealed an embedded, cryptic image... showed me something I did not notice at first... shared what Dalí scholars thought about it... and then spun it into a story of Dalí's personal life. In doing this, this man gave me a new eye to view the subsequent works, and a new vocabulary to use in my further encounters and discussions of Dalí's paintings and films. I was, in a moment, equipped with an appreciation for Dalí's use of repeating themes and I (and others) used this tool throughout the remainder of my visit. Suddenly, I was seeing more in the art. Still life paintings became interactive... with no technology.
Dalí's work has a reputation for being "out there," and the museum's interpretation acknowledges this openly and freely. "Let's face it," one tour guide said, "this guy was a bit wooo wooo wooo!" (He made the sound of an ambulance while twirling his right index finger at his right temple). His audience breathed a collective and palpable sigh of relief as if to say: "Whew, I thought it was just me..."

So kudos to the Salvador Dalí Museum and the creators of Dalí and Film for the exhibition and for the way it accommodated such a large volume of visitors both physically and intellectually.

And while I'm not a art historian or curator, I also must acknowledge Dalí himself. His work is a striking juxtaposition of highly describable things (like clocks, houseflies and body parts), and fantastically indescribable somethings (like egg-shaped drippy blobs). The collective works of art give their viewers the ability to use a familiar vocabulary and spin it wildly and creatively. I think this is what the designers and interpreters of the exhibition recognized and emulated in the installation, to the delight of the audience.

I went to this exhibition knowing little more than Dalí was a surrealist dude with a ridiculous mustache who painted some melting clocks. I left knowing more about the man, his prolific body of work (including film), and what characterizes a dynamic and engaging art museum experience.