Museum Archipelago

Image: Lenin's mausoleum, Moscow. CC by Veni The American Association of Museums (AAM) has this to say about human remains in its code of ethics: “The unique and special nature of human remains and funerary and sacred objects is recognized as the basis of all decisions concerning such collections collections-related activities promote the public good rather than individual financial gain.” When AA...

Image: A rendering of Minik in the New York World When Robert Peary brought six Inuits from Greenland back from his Arctic expedition, they landed in the care of the American Museum of Natural History. Among these people were an eight year old boy named Minik and his father Qisuk. After Qisuk became ill and died, the museum staged a fake burial and put his remains in the museum as artifacts. ...

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

Dustin Growick is in charge of audience development and the team lead for science at Museum Hack . Growick and Museum Hack treat a museum as a platform to build something more personal and fun. One of the tools that they use to make it more personal and fun is the museum selfie. The theory is that taking selfies is easy way to put yourself literally and figuratively in the context of the museum. I...

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

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

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

Image: Monika Bernotas and her family interact with statues of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin that were previously located in the cities of Lithuania at Grutas park. Go to the central square of any Soviet influenced country like Lithuania, and you will find empty pedestals. The pedestals used hold monuments to Soviet leaders. Where there once were statues of Lenin and Stalin, you now find ove...

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

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

Early 20th century cartoons showed exhausted visitors craning their necks to read labels and stopping over to examine artifacts. What's the story 100 years later? Topics and Links Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach by Beverly Serrell MUSEUM FATIGUE, 1928, JAMA Museum Archipelago is a tiny show guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums. Subscribe to the podcast via Apple Podcasts , G...

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