Architecture, Art, Artists and artworks, children, Children's art, Cities, Engagement, Engaging the public, Museums, Public Programs, Public Spaces, Uncategorized

city museum: a massive playground

Now I don’t know if this is a museum or a playground but regardless it is amazing.

The space used to be a 10-story International Show company, it is called the City Museum and is located in St Louis. It is the brainchild of artist Bob Cassilly, who opened the museum/urban playground in 1997 after many years of renovation and construction.

While, Cassilly passed away in 2011, the museum is constantly under construction and new features are being added or improved by the a group of artists called the Cassilly Crew.

So what do you find at the city museum? a sky-high jungle gym? two towering 10-story slides and numerous multi floor slides? A rooftop ferris wheel? a circus arts facility? it is all there. Everything in the museum is sourced locally. That is super cool and sustainable!

It is like the hip arty version of Disneyland. it is worth visiting if you are in St Louis!!!!

further readings:

City Museum: A 10-Story Former Shoe Factory Transformed into the Ultimate Urban Playground

http://www.citymuseum.org/

Museum Objects, Museums

opening up the museum.

A great talk to listen to on a saturday night.

dance, Digital, Engagement, Engaging the public, Museums

dance off

This video always makes me smile. Museums are just too cool for school.

Art, Engagement, Engaging the public

Olga Viso @ the Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia

Here is another lecture talk from the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.
It is from executive Director at the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, Olga Viso. She discusses new art, community engagement and the art museum today as a catalyst for artists and audiences.

further readings:

http://www.walkerart.org/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/19/arts/artsspecial/for-the-walker-art-center-a-shop-that-peddles-evanescence.html?_r=0

https://www.minnpost.com/arts-culture/2015/03/talking-art-and-social-media-walker-art-center

Engaging the public, Museums

Engaging Community: Call Out for Creative Crew

Contemporary practice within galleries, libraries, archives, and museums, has been to actively challenge the view that these places as a hegemonic institutions by looking beyond their walls and including different community groups into using these facilities and spaces. The need for these places to remain cultural and social relevant means they must establish and maintain dialogic relationships based on collaborative engagement. This social, digital space allows us to rethink and reinterpret the power relations between cultural institutions and the community they represent and serve.

The encouragement of community involvement in the creation of culture, curatorial practice, conservation and documentation, research and teaching remains at the heart of our projects and events. Communities are diverse, culture is dynamic, representation of difference is fundamental to our understandings of art and culture.

So please contact us at : themuseumcollective[at]gmail.com if you have an idea, art, craft, music, and/or story you want to showcase, share, record and post.

Engagement, Engaging the public, Public Programs

Youth work

Young audiences in museums.

How do you get them into your institution and how do you keep them there? That is the bane of many museums’ existence.

Today, museums can successful say they have seen an increase of young audience participation and visitation to their institutions (big and small).

Museums are creating, developing and implementing various programs that engage younger audiences. From theMuseum of Contemporary Art Australia’s Genext to the Tate’s Collective (images below), institutions are delivering innovative programs to target young people.

This achievement for institutions should not be undermined but Institutions have to acknowledge that by encouraging young audiences to participate in the museum means evaluating their organisational structure.

Whilst, young people hold the key to diverse future audiences, they need to be brought in on their own terms. Sabine Doolin, Audience Research and Insight Manager at the Tate believes museums need to shift their organisation structures to be more focused on collaboration, participation and immersion.

Young people change the space of the museum. They challenge the traditional quiet gallery spaces, by creating environments with music or soundscapes. As Doolin states “They want to sprawl on floors, be playful, laugh loudly and take selfies. They need to be allowed-indeed encouraged- to use their phones and social media while in an arts space… Telling them to put away phones and keep their voices down is akin to telling them to go somewhere else.”

And while, I agree with Doolin that museum spaces need to re-structure the way their organisations interact with younger audiences, I still believe one needs to acknowledge the already existing rituals and structures in place within an museum. While, one can challenge these rituals there needs to be acknowledgement on behalf of the audience as well as change by the museum.

This might seem like no easy feat for museum professionals to solve and one solution, which many institutions have implemented, is to form reference groups of young people and implement their suggestions (eg. Tate’sCollective, MCA Genext and even smaller institutions such as Denver Art Museum and Campbelltown Arts Centre)

To conclude, engaging with young audiences demand on museum’s organisations make changes but careful consideration needs to be taken so as not to alienate the already existing traditional audience.

Can anyone think of any other solutions or ways to engage young audiences?

images:

Tate’s Collective:

MCA, Australia Genext

further reading:

http://visual.artshub.com.au/news-article/features/museums/are-you-ready-for-young-audiences-246472

http://collectives.tate.org.uk/content/about-us

http://www.youngaudiences.org/YAAL

http://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/comment/01072014-engaging-young-audience-circuit

Click to access final_report_to_the_field_1.16.2012_final.pdf

http://www.mca.com.au/learn/young-creatives/

http://www.campbelltown.nsw.gov.au/CampbelltownArtsCentre

Artists and artworks, Engagement, Engaging the public, Public Programs

The Obliteration Room and more

When the Obliteration Room was created by Yayoi Kusama for the Queensland Art Gallery, it was for the purposes of engagement with children. Although the target audience is children, the work has the ability to relate to teenagers and adults alike and I think that says something about the nature of engagement and how museums can use this to its advantage.

Last year, I worked with a philanthropic arts organisation (Kaldor Public Art Projects) on an exhibition that highlighted the participatory work of a Slovakian artist called Roman Ondak. When working on this project I could not see the parallel to Yayoi Kusama’s now iconic Obliteration Room work. They both highlighted engagement with core of the creation of the artwork itself. On a base level they got people to understand the value of art in creating communities and unity through highlighting people’s similarities (be it how people arrange their ‘dots’ in the Obliteration Room or how tall they are in Measuring the Universe).

I believe that there should more of these kinds of artworks within museums and galleries (even within public spaces like squares etc). Look at how popular Leornard Elmrich’s Merchant’s House was last year as part of Sydney festival. People want to engage. They want to connect to art. They want to connect to the spaces within museums.

I am not saying people do not engage in museums already. And I don’t necessarily believe that constant participatory artworks is the answer for all museum issues in relation to audience interaction, but I believe it will help in fostering these relationships.

I don’t know, maybe it is just me getting a thrill out of seeing all these awesome children’s spaces and wanting to partake like in Yayoi Kusama’s Obliteration Room.

images and videos:

The Obliteration Room: