Museums + the Here and Now
Changing with the times
Welcome to The Weekly Muse. What began as a grad school project is now a weekly Substack dedicated to following the museum world.
Starting on a personal note, I’ve been trying to live more in the Present thanks to a new therapist and too many unknown, uncontrollable variables about my future. I’m relinquishing control by embracing the Here and Now, the moment I am in as I am in it. Like me, museums also seem to be wrestling with the same internal conflicts. How are they able to properly acknowledge the things going on in society right now while providing adequate educational resources? Should they take a stand and make a statement? And what stand should be taken? Along with additional, larger internal conflicts to consider including but not limited to the repatriation and decolonization of their collections, museums are undergoing a similar existential crisis. This edition highlights a few interesting ways memory institutions around the world are spreading awareness about some of the less talked-about, but equally-as-impactful challenges occurring today. So after a solid amount of procrastination and zero good excuses (are they ever good?), without further ado,...
To muse over
Existing issues —> learnings “from the past” A new project led by Dunbar Town House Museum and Gallery in Dunbar, Scotland, caught my attention. "The Museums of the FutureNow" is innovative in that it examines current issues by mock-studying the past from a hypothetical future with its latest exhibit concentrated around an imagined collection of plastic supposedly discovered in 3022, a date well past a proclaimed ban date on the non-biodegradable material. Descriptions accompanying the collection’s items are also imagined but meant to compel readers to concurrently contemplate the ecological impact of plastic and potential other uses for items that no longer serve their initial purpose. It runs until June 23 and I wish I had a flight attendant friend who could put me on the next plane to the UK. It takes immense creativity to pivot today’s challenges into tomorrow’s key learnings and not to be overlooked given the notion that ‘everything old is new again’; as someone who wrote a retrospective analyzing and comparing the Smithsonian Institution + Metropolitan Museum of Art’s responses to the 1918 Spanish Flu and more recent COVID-19 epidemics to create a toolkit of disaster-proof best practices for museum engagement, I can confirm that it feels far easier to learn from the past than to reverse-engineer ecological/cultural/political issues to offer solutions in the present.
Gender discrimination as exhibition. Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art aka Mona is making quick work at this very moment converting an existing exhibition into a women’s bathroom. Though it has been on permanent view since 2020, Kirsha Kaechele’s “Ladies Lounge” has always banned men from attendance; the show mimics the private social clubs frequented by men through history, which made a point to exclude women, and reverses the script. It is luxuriously decorated, featuring notable artwork and artifacts for anyone who identifies as female to peruse, with male butlers on site to offer champagne. It sounds spectacular. But, of course, a reply guy had to ruin the fun by suing the museum for gender discrimination. In response, Kaechele is currently installing a toilet into the space, literally turning the show into les toilettes (whether the toilet is used or not). “The men are experiencing Ladies Lounge, their experience of rejection is the artwork,” she explained to The Guardian. But this isn’t just about the artist. By allowing Kaechele to build on her existing exhibition, Mona made a motion in support of its message rather than choosing to retreat from negative press by pulling the show altogether. I only wish more institutions would take the path of supporting the artists they feature. Each artist, with their own set of personal trials, tribulations, and creations, was carefully considered before ever being featured; a museum shows preference in its selection for a reason, so it feels appropriate that they should stand by them when/if there is an opportunity. This was a ridiculous lawsuit, the artist and museum knew it, and they leaned in. Love to see it.
A museum to humanize the homeless. After ten years acting as a traveling exhibition, London’s Finsbury Park is now the permanent home of the Museum of Homelessness. The objects in its collection were directly provided by those living or who have lived on the streets with formerly unhoused persons also on staff to tell each one’s unique story. In addition, the Museum also provides resources and references to those in need, only falling short of giving actual shelter due to the lack of venue permission. This institution is a treasure not only by bringing awareness to the issue of homelessness but because it helps humanize those impacted (it shouldn’t need to be said that they are humans, too). Its establishment, through the rich variety of stories being told therefrom, fills a void and gives a voice to the voiceless. Upon further investigation, I learned about a Museum of Sexist Objects as well as the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Imagery; their existence should be more widely known.
Will museums ban books next? Speaking of current events, an interesting Q&A with Jonathan Friedman, PEN America’s Sy Sims Managing Director of U.S. Free Expression Programs and owner of one of the longest titles I’ve ever read, focused on the growing attack on books and whether they have the potential to spread to memory institutions. The answer is “yes,” and “they already have” with the House in West Virginia recently passing a bill regarding obscenity in libraries + museums. As the censorship war spreads, Friedman recommends two key ways to get on the defense:
Stay informed about local issues in your area
Support non-profit organizations + advocacy groups (like PEN America) working to protect freedom of expression
Check it out: Related to the preceding news, many artists have made and continue to submit reports of censorship in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7. As the war rages on, a new online tool called the Art Censorship Index was created as documentation. The tool was created by the National Coalition Against Censorship, a non-profit made up of 50+ organizations dedicated to defending the freedom of expression across art and culture. It feels more than a little 1984/dystopian to watch as misinformation, disinformation, and censorship spread; creating a living record like this one allows us to watch it in real time. ARTnews expanded:
An introduction to the index explains that it intentionally limited its data collection to incidents in which institutions “expressly canceled, withdrew, or abandoned a program or work after plans to present it had been communicated, and where the reason for the withdrawal was related to the perceived political content of the work, the personal politics of the artist, or the national or cultural associations tied up in the content of the work.”
It will not include cases in which artists significantly altered their own work after it had been curated, or cases where “the existing curatorial frameworks precluded an artwork from being selected in the first place.” Additionally, the map does not record employee firings, incidents of galleries severing representation of artists, or the expulsion of student groups from campuses.
Coming up: The Museum Association of New York is holding a North Country Meet-up in Sackets Harbor on June 8. The next MuseumNext conference will livestream from London on June 11-13 and they’ll host an XR Summit on June 26-27. AAM’s Future of Museums Summit is October 29-30 if you like to mark your calendars waaaaaaay in advance.
Until next time
After a recent visit to a new-to-me bookstore, I can’t get a certain book out of my head. While I’m a sucker for a good cover, the contents of The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions focus on decolonization [in cultural institutions] and how Western museums have represented ancient and indigenous cultures. Spoiler: it’s been racist. As an intern at a natural history museum with anthropological artifacts, I am fascinated by the processes involved in decolonization. Looking forward to reading! -Sara