What We May Be: Museums and the Implications of Special Programs
essay “Evolution of a Focus on the Elderly.” Humble discusses why MoMA chooses to prioritize this audience and some of the issues this has brought up, and she describes the museum’s broader initiative for older adults, Prime Time. Lindsay Catherine Harris, teen programs manager, Brooklyn Museum, considers how art museums, as places that explore human expression, are not only in an ideal position to provide safe spaces for people who may feel marginalized in mainstream society but may even have a responsibility to do so. “Creating Space by and for LGBTQ+ Youth of Color” discusses how the Brooklyn Museum has prioritized this initiative, focusing on how the LGBTQ Teen Night Planning Committee exemplifies this work. In “Art, Experience, and Community: Learning and Engagement at the Saint Louis Art Museum before and after Ferguson,” Amanda Thompson Rundahl, director of learning and engagement, Saint Louis Art Museum, shares the historical racial makeup of the greater St. Louis area as a context to understand work the museum does, specifically in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson in 2014. The tragic event spurred conversations at the museum about whether or not staff should develop special programming in response. Twyla Kitts, teacher programs educator, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), Richmond, writes about how the museum can address issues of social justice through teaching about art in “What Museums May Be: Crucibles for Reflection, Empathy, and Optimism,” and how this approach can help the museum be meaningful to different people in new ways. Kitts focuses on how museum education can help visitors consider what it means to be a citizen of the world. As director of education for the Clark Art Institute (fig. 1), I share my experience developing a program for a very specialized
Maybe the answer to the question, What are the implications of special programs at art museums?, is that museum educators, by designing such programs, are also becoming agents of change. audience, adjudicated youth sentenced to participate in the program Responding to Art Involves Self Expression (RAISE). In “The RAISE Program at the Clark: Engaging with Humanity at an Art Museum,” I discuss how developing a program for this new and atypical audience stretches the boundaries of museum education practice and how this helped the Clark redefine its approach to programming. It has been an honor to host the first of the Clark’s What We May Be colloquia and to serve as one of the editors of this important publication. This series of essays provides insights into the evolving field of museum education and the kind of thinking that is involved in educators’ day-to-day work. Together, the essays reflect a fierce dedication to the practice, a sense of the importance of and potential in the field, and how changes in museum education are indicative of changes happening in museums at large. I applaud my colleagues in the field for the integrity, creativity, personal commitment, and resilience that they bring to our work, elevating its importance for all. Maybe the answer to the question, What are the implications of special programs at art museums?, is that museum educators, by designing such programs, are also becoming agents of change. 1 Nina Simon, The Art of Relevance (Santa Cruz, CA: Museum 2.0, 2016).
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