The start of a fiscal year for me holds the same promise as new day planners and brand-new shoes, and at the same time, the trepidation of blank pages and wide-open stages. I love the idea of planning and doing great things, but there is also the fact that you must plan and do great things.
This start of a fiscal year, though, is quite different than
previous ones, I’d suggest. We’re a bit like the tiny mammals looking out onto
the land after the destruction of the dinosaurs. Life did go on, of course, and
in fact proliferated, as evidenced by me sitting here typing this mediocre
metaphor. I use it though, because so many of us feel the field has been
smashed. There is no denying our field has seen cataclysmic change. And we need
to be honest about how many people are not in the field right now, due to this
change. I’m like a lot of lifelong museum pros, achy and exhausted, excited and
hopeful, nervous and jaded. All the feelings are in there, rattling around my
brain.
While we may never have exactly the same confluence of
events that caused the field-wide problems in 2020, it doesn’t mean we can’t
learn. Finding some growth can help us, if nothing else, feel like it wasn’t
all for naught.
As we pick up the pieces, which ones shall we keep?
1.
Working fast is not bad: Museums take 5
years to plan an exhibition. These long-time lines encourage deep research and
careful publication. There is value in allowing time for ideas. But we learned
that short timelines have different value. They can help museum respond to
current moments. They can also allow museums to be freed of having to do a
catalog or having to create deep content on the web. Balancing both could give
museums the best of both approaches.
2.
Digital is an audience: Many museum
leaders see digital as basically a way to entice people to see the real thing,
in their mind. In a museum culture that so often wants to see itself apart from
plebian concerns, I find this model of digital amusingly transactional. It’s
not unlike the way stores do product placements with influencers to get you to
purchase a product. In 2020, many people
did digital as an end itself. They didn’t think of it as subsidiary to a visit.
And guess what, they gained new audiences. Those audiences may never visit.
That’s okay.
3.
‘That’s not how we do it’ is made up:
Museum norms have been built up over decades. We don’t do many things, just
because we don’t do them. We don’t show community art in our galleries, because
we’re a museum. We don’t let people draw from the collection, because we’re a
museum. We don’t give away art supplies, because we’re a museum. In this year,
in order to stay viable, museums across the country did many of these things we
just don’t do. And the field not only survived but thrived. Which norms can we
eschew?
4.
Many hands: Many museums had to pivot and
spin and get real dizzy this year. Some of us figured out spreading out the
work, and the authority, made these fast changes easier. Leaders who limped to
the finish line with a shred of sanity likely found ways to share authority.
I’m truly thrilled when colleagues solve things and drop me off the email
chains. My job isn’t to manage every action; it’s to ensure everyone’s actions
are in keeping with our strategy.
5.
Work is about Outcomes: I do not care
where and when my team does their work. It doesn’t matter if they’re on their
desk, in Greenland, or on the moon. As long as they show up at events and meetings,
and the work gets done, why should I determine their work process? Each human
is different. Expecting people to all work the same is based on our historical
labor frameworks, born of the industrial revolution. Innovation won’t occur by
setting up systems based on old ways of thinking.
6.
Community is not just a buzzword:
Community is coded language and usually racially and socio-economically
fraught. Museum professionals often used it when they couldn’t say the
qualifiers they are thinking. But, in 2020, it became all the people we’d like
to connect with. It became an imperative instead of smoke screen. Museums
became vaccination spaces, food banks, and tutoring sites. Museums became the
community spaces they’d been claiming to be all these years. It’s this last lesson
which could be the foundation for a better field. Will we actually make this
happen?
@akronartmuseum Do’s in Museums ##museummoment##internationalmuseumday##museumtok##museumtiktok
♬ original sound - Akron Art Museum