Rebecca Lush

GOMA: European Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Yesterday I visited the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) to see their new blockbuster exhibition, European Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. With artworks spanning from 1420 to the early twentieth-century, there is quite literally something for everyone. Seeing the works displayed chronologically allowed for a new appreciation of how western art developed over time. It also highlighted the impact of different techniques and the various influences. Similar to my past posts, I am going to start with an overview of the exhibition then focus on some favourite artworks. For this exhibition, I spent the entire time playing ‘I spy’ searching the paintings for dogs.

Home of the Arts (HOTA)

Due to some recent health complications and surgery, I haven’t been able to visit museums or galleries for quite some time. Now that I’m slowly on the mend, we took the opportunity to drive down to the Gold Coast for a mid-century getaway and to visit the new Home of the Arts (HOTA) Gallery. The new Gallery opened on May 8, 2021. As you can see in the image below, the exterior of the building looks like a giant mosaic. This was inspired by the artwork, The rainforest, by William Robinson.

MuseumNext Digital Summit: Day Five

My final MuseumNext blog post will focus on the theme of challenges. Whether that be challenges museums need to face, or staff overcoming challenging scenarios in order to produce content. One particular presentation stood out to me so I’m going to start there and discuss a couple of others later on.

But first, I want to say how much I’ve enjoyed participating in this year’s MuseumNext Digital Summit. One thing that has been mentioned again and again is how digital can expand your audience. Whether that be through removing geographic barriers or making your event more accessible. It has been great to not only attend, but watch videos when I have the time in my day to really focus and give my full attention. This has allowed the content to resonate with me in a way that hasn’t been possible at an in-person conference. I hope that when we go back to having safe, in-person events, digital will remain an option so there is more access to professional development in the sector and inspirational content.

Old People Need Fun Digital Experiences Too!
Presenters: Alice Gibbons and Murphy Peoples

This was an amazing presentation by Gibbons and Peoples from Museums Victoria focusing on how to take digital to an older demographic and how this can have a great impact on physical and mental health. Prior to COVID-19, Museums Victoria would travel to aged care facilities to present a reminiscing program. Part of this involved touching objects, viewing images and videos and listening to music. For those who suffer from dementia, these kinds of programs have been encouraged as a way to gently explore the past and not force the present.

So what has happened with this program in the time of COVID-19? Aged care facilities were some of the hardest hit by the pandemic resulting in their occupants experiencing escalating feelings of isolation. While there was a hesitancy surrounding trialling a digital program for this audience, Museums Victoria saw a need. A need for keeping them connected and experiencing joy in their day. This is where the idea for ‘Relive the Good Old Days’ started – an online digital hub that is user friendly and contains reminiscing digital kits on various themes – including sport, disco, board games, etc. Under each theme there are images, Spotify playlists and information on objects held in the Museums Victoria collection.

As Gibbons and Peoples said, museums are so well-equipped to run these reminiscing sessions as we care for objects from the past. The objects can be used as springboards, presenting an opportunity to dive into memories, emotions and, ultimately, stories. I loved how they ended their presentation by reminding viewers that older adults need to have fun too and while museums tend to focus on families, kids and young adults, there is this whole market out there where museum work can make an incredible impact.

2. To Achieve Scale and Impact Think Like a Product Developer
Presenters: Lisa Bernstein and Posie Wood

How can museums ensure they are delivering educational content that is both trusted and useful? One solution might be to think like a product developer. Bernstein and Wood spoke about the power museums have in providing students with content that can contextualise their learning and equip them with information to make new content appear not so overwhelming. However, museums can be seen as exclusive and exclusionary places. So, the aim should be to produce educational material to both generate trust and relieve the burden on teachers. They compared current education kits to Ikea furniture – some assembly required. As opposed to something instantly useful and ready to deliver, these assembly-required kits can add more to the plate of a teacher.

How to think like a product developer is to always know who your audience is (and not just what grade you’re pitching too but deeper than that), what problems you can solve and what will delight users. If you can gain an understanding of those three areas, then you can start producing more valuable content.

3. From Virtually Unknown to Virtually Everywhere
Presenters: Ed Lawless and Emilie Carruthers

The final presentation I want to touch on was by Lawless and Carruthers from the British Museum. The majority of their talk looked at their digital education programs and how the British Museum adapted to delivering programs during lockdown. However, why I’m mentioning this talk is because right at the end there was a very brief discussion on what the future entails. They want to continue with digital education programs for those who are unable to attend the Museum. For those who can, in-person programs will re-commence.

It highlighted, to me, this re-thinking of accessibility that has been raised due to COVID-19. I mentioned at the start of this post that having more online can open so many more opportunities and extend the reach of the Museum to new audiences. There is still this desire for people to come back to Museums and physically attend programs, education tours, etc. – but is the way forward to just go back to how things were?

This conference has encouraged me to think more deeply about what I can do to strike a balance with my museum in the future. I am looking forward to creating more online opportunities with school groups in particular. Thank you to everyone who was involved in organising the conference and who presented. I love leaving a conference feeling truly inspired about the industry that I work in and the possibilities that are out there. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my reflections and watch this space for more conference writings this year and perhaps, some museum visits!

Cover image is from the MuseumNext Digital Summit website.

MuseumNext Digital Summit: Day Four

I have just finished listening to the final presentation of day four that covered how to take cemetery tours online – more about that later. Firstly, the theme of today was programs with impact. I really want to stress that this isn’t just a theme isolated to the presentations today, but one that both stood out to me and helped me to connect everything together.

MuseumNext Digital Summit: Day Three

For each day of the Digital Summit I’m trying to find an overarching theme that helps me to organise the content I’m watching. For day three, the theme is audience. How can museums ensure that the content they are delivering during the pandemic not only engages but supports their audience? How do we know if we’re connecting to a community and their needs during this time? The majority of talks either spoke directly or indirectly to this theme.

MuseumNext Digital Summit: Day Two

If I was asked to summarise day two of the MuseumNext conference in one sentence it would be the following: COVID-19 has accelerated the need for museums to re-consider traditional ways of collecting and venture into the realm of collecting digital content from a diverse audience. I really enjoyed listening to how museums are adapting their collecting practices in order to respond rapidly to such significant historical events as the Australian bushfires and the pandemic. The pandemic in particular has spurred this need to have a procedure in place for not only collecting content quickly, but ethically. Especially when it comes to traumatic events – how can we protect both staff and visitors from re-living or re-experiencing trauma?

MuseumNext Digital Summit: Day One

Welcome to my first blog post of 2021! A huge thank you to all my readers and subscribers for continuing to follow and for making 2020 the best year yet for new audiences and blog post visitation. This will be the first post in a series reflecting on the MuseumNext Digital Summit. For those of you who have never come across MuseumNext before, it is essentially a business driven to connect those passionate about museums and the future of these institutions. I have always wanted to attend one of their conferences, so took this opportunity to join the digital summit. Hopefully, one day soon, I’ll be able to attend one of their conferences in-person. I will add here that the focus and theme of this particular summit is, no surprises here, everything digital!

Northshore Sculpture by the River

Despite writing in my previous post that I was excited to start blogging again, it has been just over three months and I haven’t had much to write about! That is, until yesterday, when I had the opportunity to go to Northshore Sculpture by the River in Hamilton, Brisbane. The best way to describe it is by saying it’s essentially a sculpture garden, with 26 sculptures lining a segment of the Brisbane River. As always, I’ll start with a quick overview before delving into some personal highlights.

GLAM Blog Club: Play

I am finally feeling ready to delve into some more blogging. When I saw the theme for this month’s GLAM Blog Club is ‘Play’, so many ideas ran through my mind. I settled on writing about something cheerful and reflecting on some experiences I have had in museums. When you Google definitions for the word play, my goodness a lot of different meanings appear. Everything from ‘something that is purely for enjoyment with no other objective’ to ‘to engage in an activity’. For this reason, I’m going to start by defining what the word play means to me in a museum context. Continue reading “GLAM Blog Club: Play”

Museum of Broken Relationships: Digital Exhibition

During this time of widespread closures, the internet has provided both digital support and an alternative platform that has allowed museums to come to you. This is most definitely not something new, as museums have a long history of experimenting with their digital presence. The difference being that now, museums can’t open to the public. Digital can be a great option for continuing to foster visitor engagement . Although most definitely not the same as actually visiting these museums and experiencing what they have to offer, these digital displays are helping me feel connected to museums around the world. I’ve even found new and interesting museums/exhibitions to add to my ‘must visit’ list. Continue reading “Museum of Broken Relationships: Digital Exhibition”