With this fourth post in the Students + Staff series, I conclude my field report of the spring 2016 Pitt museum studies course, “Introduction to Museum Studies in the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh,” and posit ways our work leads into museum practice of the future. The first installment of this series introduced the course and the experiment of pairing students from Pitt’s History of Art and Architecture (HAA) Museum Studies minor and staff from the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh (CMP) to co-create evolving course content. The second and third installments documented our progress in the semester and in two all-staff open fora in which students led conversations with staff relating to their studies in museology. Here, in this final installment, I recount the last few weeks of our class time, in which we looked at trends and possibilities for the future of museums and how that future looks in the CMP.
Following our in-depth discussion of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) in the previous section of the course, we returned to the topic of the 21st century natural history museum. The current natural history model appears to have the least mobility in comparison with other types of museums we studied this semester. Unlike an art museum, a modern single-artist museum, or a science center, the natural history museum centers on the research activities of scientists that are largely unseen in the exhibition program, which features large-scale and slowly rotating major capital-campaign exhibition halls. Yet we were introduced to the goal of a nimble and flexible natural history museum by Becca Shreckengast (Director of Exhibition Experience, CMNH), and so we looked for evidence of this in the newly revamped first floor galleries of the museum. Here it is evident that CMNH is piloting change from the monolithic model, and quickly implementing a number of small exhibits, including Discovery Basecamp, the Art of the Diorama, and the Life Lab. The great change in the first floor galleries in a matter of months shows that vibrancy and flexibility are possible in natural history museums – sometimes perceived to be static remnants of their cabinets of curiosity forbearers. The first floor exhibits also demonstrate an interest in involving the visitor in the museum process, like with the Earth Timelapse, in which students at Carnegie Mellon University are working with the CREATE lab to design an experience showing how the earth is changing. Visitors are asked to provide feedback for the development of the experience in the gallery.
For our final in-class session Jeffrey Inscho (Manager, Innovation Studio, CMP) came to talk with us about the future-forward work of the cross-museums Innovation Studio. Established in 2015, the Studio looks across all four CMP to establish a 21st century digital infrastructure, delightful experiences, creative partnerships, and digital adaptation. Two of the most recent projects that embody these goals are a new iOS intermuseum gallery guide and the Section of Mystery, which is a must-experience located in Bird Hall on the third floor of CMNH. Building on Jeffrey’s discussion of collaboration and innovation in digital formats, our course readings also highlighted some theoretical topics important to the ways we will think about museums in the future. In a class workshop of these readings, we identified key aspects museums of the future will be places that can help visitors navigate emotional and difficult knowledge through the raw materials of inspiration: people, stories, and objects of art, history, and science both within museum space and beyond.
In the third and last forum, student groups presented final projects intended to tie together our course material dealing with past, present, and future of museums, and design projects specifically for the CMP. Museum staff and faculty and students from HAA were invited to consider the applicability of these projects in the museums and how they might fit with their own ideas of where the CMP are headed. Rather than give a play-by-play, I’ll let the discussion speak for itself. Throughout the course of presentations and staff feedback, there were several recurring and related themes. We believe that museums need to be exciting, out of the ordinary, temporary, flexible, fast-paced, while being part of long-term and sustainable goals as related to the mission; to engage multiple senses and participate in constant exchange with multi-way communication; to bring museum objects and museum people outside museum space and into safe spaces in communities; to be specific and personalized; to have free and accessible content and activities, i.e. online, in a local library, etc.; to invite audiences to create through crowdsourcing and prototyping.
In all, I was inspired by the ardent commitment my students showed in envisioning museums as continually relevant and dynamic participants in the society of the future. Perhaps our next task will be to cull our experiences into a manifesto of the museum professionals of tomorrow. In the meantime, I look forward to curating collaborative projects in the museums, teaching more courses, hosting interns, and facilitating student and faculty research as we continue to develop our HAA and CMP partnership.
This post is co-published in partnership with the Innovation Studio at the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.