What makes a museum relevant? What role should a museum play in its community? Which communities should a museum serve? How and why? How do you define culture? Is it important? Those are some of the questions being discussed by ASM staff these days.
Why do you visit museums? What do you expect to see or experience when you are at a museum? Is a museum visit meaningful to you? In what ways? Often museums inspire appreciation of beauty, or enrich one’s understanding of the past or of science. Sometimes museum exhibits or programs make us think about where we live today, helping us understand different perspectives on that reality, and hopefully cause us to … » Read more »
The amazing thing about museum collections is that their objects represent people, real people. Someone once made or used the objects and they hint at lives lived and stories to tell. This past weekend I was at the Grand Canyon. At the Visitor’s Center in Tusayan, a National Geographic IMAX film shows a scene with an archaeologist finding a split-twig figurine in a deer-like shape. A child’s toy, one surmises, dating back 3,000 years. So a very long time before I … » Read more »
“Its interesting. I’ve never seen a picture of him before,” pondered Chental Spencer my student employee, after catching sight of her great grandfather John Willie, Jr. in ASM’s newest exhibition on Navajo Code Talkers. She also saw a picture of another of her great grandfathers, Richard Thomas. Chental recalled when he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously. Her grandmother didn’t want to go to the ceremony to accept it because who would look after her sheep while she was away? Chental was a just … » Read more »
Hard economic times make me depressed, make everyone depressed as we struggle to figure out what to cut, how to cope. But there is always hope, a word that keeps jumping out at me. Hope that the legislature and our governor will create a budget that supports education and the arts. Hope that the K-12 schools will have enough resources to bring their students on fieldtrips to experience the museum. Hope that we offer exhibits and programs that you … » Read more »
ASM Bioarchaeologist Dr. James Watson
Today’s blog is a report from the field by Dr. James Watson who has been in Chile teaching and researching supported by a Fulbright award.
When I arrived in Arica, Chile to start four months of research on the dental health of some of the world’s oldest skeletons I had no idea how barren a desert could be. Those of us who live in and love the Sonoran Desert appreciate its rich flora and fauna–even if it pricks us once in a while. But here in the Atacama Desert, there isn’t a single plant for miles unless a human has irrigated it.
Steep sandy hills and narrow valleys run to a precipitous … » Read more »
I subscribe to another blog about museum audience research
. Today’s entry was about emotion, and the power of museums to provoke emotion in their visitors. The people commenting are all folks who work in museums. I thought I’d share a few of their comments and ask for yours—Do you remember a visit to a museum that really impacted you? That made you feel something so intensively that you still carry it with you? Was there an object or story, or simply how something was physically presented, that just reached out and … » Read more »
This summer, three of Arizona State Museum’s curators are off on explorations far from home. Associate Curator of Ethnohistory Michael Brescia is taking in the beauty of Southern Spain to learn about historic traditions related to water rights. Associate Curator of Conservation Teresa Moreno is part of an international team in Arcadia, Greece, discovering mythical revelations while excavating at Mt. Lykaion. Assistant Curator of Bioarchaeology James Watson is examining 8,000 thousands years of … » Read more »
Today’s blog is from guest blogger, Martin Kim, who manages the Native Goods store at ASM. Martin is well known for entrancing visitors, museum staff, and students with engaging stories related to the objects for sale in the shop. When you purchase an object, you also go home with its story. More about the museum store.
I have come to respect that we all have important stories to share. Our stories, as gathered for the museum store, come from both the expected sources and, sometimes, unexpected sources. As expected, I am always asking the artists I deal with to share their part of the story. Most often, this is some of the most intimate … » Read more »
We surround ourselves with objects—some practical, some sentimental, others purely aesthetical. What do these objects mean to us? What do they say about who we are and the lives we live?
I teach a University class that trains students to lead the field trip programs in the Paths of Life exhibit. The guides are called “Museum Interpreters” because they make connections between the objects on display, the ideas and histories they represent, and the visitors’ own personal … » Read more »
