Artiflection

Historical Persuasion at Super Bowl 2012

2012-02-08T05:45:00.000-08:00

Like many Americans, I enjoy watching the Super Bowl not just for the excitement of the big game, but also to see what our highest-paid advertisers cook up to sway this now-rare mass audience. This year, I was struck by the prevalence of commercials that used the grand sweep of history to evoke a sense of continuity and pride. The pride part was particularly fascinating because the commercials' focus was not on American prosperity but on the nation's ability to weather the Great Depression. Deep within the Great Recession, I suppose that advertisers are hoping that reminding Americans that they've gotten through even worse times in the past will boost their confidence and make them want to buy (cars and beer mostly).

Budweiser's two epics topped the list for evoking continuity and for bringing to mind the end of prohibition (a moment of greatness, apparently, within the midst of the Great Depression)
and

But Chrysler's "Halftime in America" ad seemed to draw the most from the notion of America's historical ability to overcome bad times without explicitly evoking the past (except Detroit's recent past). I wouldn't be surprised if they also intended to draw parallel's with Reagan's "Morning in America" ad, yet another subtle continuity.

These commercials emphasize persuasive strength of drawing historical parallels, whether or not they are factually accurate. Resonance is a powerful tool.

Something Old in Chicago

2012-02-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

Last month, I accompanied my husband to Chicago, where he attended a conference, and I caught up on some much-needed sight-seeing. After a visit to the impressive but confusingly-organized Art Institute of Chicago (highlights included the Marc Chagall America Windows and the Thorne Miniature Rooms), I walked with my friends along the Miracle Mile, taking in some intriguing and peculiar sights.

In the peculiar category, the Tribune Tower ranks at the top of my list. Completed in 1925, this Neo-Gothic sky-scraper is studded with pieces of famous places brought back to Chicago by Tribune correspondents at the request of the newspaper's owner, Robert "Colonel" McCormick. Perhaps the incorporation of these antiquities (ranging from the Taj Mahal to Notre Dame de Paris) satisfied Colonel McCormick's hunger for international significance, but it is, by far, the most concrete manifestation of a world-ranging ideology I've seen outside the British Museum.

Just as concrete, but in a more traditional fashion, is Chicago's historic water tower. One of the only buildings to survive the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the water tower looks just like a giant, perfect sand castle. (According to the Tower's brochure, the tower's castle-like walls inspired the name and design of the earliest White Castle hamburger restaurants in the 1920s). The building now houses the City Gallery
which specializes in Chicago-themed photography exhibits. In early January, the exhibit featured photos from the city's archives offering stark "then and now" comparisons for landmarks around the city, ranging from famous places to the now-relatively-obscure sights of important events from the past, such as the infamous Haymarket Affair. Although the event is commemorated with a monument in Forest Home Cemetary, and the site of the confrontation between police and protestors is marked with a steel sculpture, the area is not widely traversed by tourists and might otherwise be missed. The City Gallery is free and inviting, and in my opinion, beats window shopping at all but the most impressive departments stores on the Magnificent Mile.

Consuming Culture at Colonial Williamsburg

2012-01-16T09:36:00.000-08:00

Over the week between Christmas and New Years this year, I traveled to Colonial Williamsburg with my family. While there, I attended a concert of chamber music at the governor's palace meant to emulate the kinds of music that the state's upper-crust would have enjoyed in the years immediately preceding the American Revolution. My lack of intense enjoyment of this musical style prompted some interesting conversations with friends who had benefited from Oberlin Conservatory's phenomenal musical education.

My friend, Kate, provided an insightful view, introducing me to the scholarship of Bruce Haynes, a "period performer" who wrote a historical treatise called The End of Early Music in which he explained that there is a lot more to the musical performance than the music itself. Historical performance requires a delicate dance, bringing together the peculiarities of instrument, venue, audience and aspiration to "authenticity."

Haynes' view reminds me of David Lowenthal, a historian who wrote a book called The Past is a Foreign Country. Excerpts of his book are usually required reading in public history classes, but his main argument is that you can't easily understand the culture of the past, or take tiny parts of that past culture into the present (like music, or art, or furniture or architecture) with only assumptions drawn from your present context. To better understand any culture from the past, you have try to reconstruct its context by understanding what came before and after it, and what kind of people were into it when it was going on-- what their goals and motivations were, etc. But any attempt at historical performance or re-enactment makes things even more complicated because if you perform or re-enact in exactly the way something was done in the past, it might not make any sense to a present audience. You need some kind of transitional interpretation to aid in any current audience's appreciation.

So, going back to the chamber concert I went to at Williamsburg, I wonder whether they accomplished this appropriately. I imagine that a lot of the chamber music we heard at the candlelight concert at the governor's palace would probably have been heard in a more "party" context back in the 18th century. A lot of people probably would have been milling around and talking through the music. At the same time, those people attending a party at the governor's palace probably did so for rather formal reasons, so even some action that appeared casual probably had a great deal of contrivance behind it, making the measured, formal quality of the music even more appropriate, whether or not they were actually involved in the sarabande or gavotte.

Our 21st century audience was mostly made up of middle-class or upper-middle-class tourists who were treating themselves to an extra evening activity, a measured act of liesure representing their aspirations to a higher level of cultural refinement, or to personal identification with being well-educated, or worldly in a history-geek kind of way. So, I doubt that there was any political maneuvering going on during our evening concert-- Instead, I think that every little tourist group was trying to have a very personal experience in the midst of a crowd of strangers. So, i doubt that there could be a way to more "authentically" recreate the experience of 18th century chamber music for the crowd that vacationed at Colonial Williamsburg without detracting from the enjoyment of the visitors.. That being said, I think I still would have enjoyed more instruction about the role of the composers they chose to perform-- would they have been well-known or new to the people attending a contemporary concert?

I guess most of the time, I don't mind a little additional instruction. Along those lines, one of my favorite programs we attended in Williamsburg was a performance of single acts from contemporary plays called "Rogues, Villains, and Fops." Before the actors came on to perform each scene, they gave a pithy introduction to their character and what an 18th century audience would have expected. My favorite was the fop-- a character who used displays of fashion-consciousness bordering on feminity ostensibly to attract women. Is there a modern equivalent? I feel like boy bands fit the bill in the 90s and early 00s, but what now? Would love your thoughts.

At Home with History in Traverse City

2011-11-07T13:14:00.001-08:00

Three years ago, before I moved to central Michigan, a friend told me about an astonishing adaptive reuse project a few hours north of his hometown. He described this project as "creepy" and even "crazy." Given that the project was to convert a shuttered state mental institution into a mixed-use commercial/residential complex, I didn't doubt his assessment.

However, a few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to visit this place with my husband as part of our annual anniversary get-away. The complex is now called "The Village at Grand Traverse Commons" and, although it retains an austere grandeur reflected off of its blonde brick facade, it doesn't feel the least bit haunted.

On the contrary, it feels integrated, accepted or even loved. I suppose this is what every architect of an adaptive reuse project desires-- community support and ultimately patronage. But I believe it takes a special kind of alchemy. The community needs to exist in and of itself before it can rally around an architectural icon. The community needs to want this for itself, not purely to show off to tourists.

When my husband and I arrived at Trattoria Stella, an Italian-style locovore haven in the basement of one of the original buildings in the complex, we did not feel like we were surrounded by tourists. Instead, we felt like we were welcomed into to view a local gem, embraced by a thriving community. In the end, I believe that's the best possible outcome for "heritage tourism" anywhere.

Telling Stories at Les Egouts and Versailles

2011-06-30T21:59:00.000-07:00

Two highlights of my trip to Paris and its environs were the relatively obscure Museum of the Sewers (Les Egouts) and the wildly popular Chateau of Versailles with its gardens. It might seem strange to write about them in the same post, but you'd be surprised by how much they have in common. Both are authentic historical places with rich histories, and both, as interpretive sites, missed opportunities.

Les Egouts, accessible via a museum entrance at Pont D'Alma in Paris, are earnest and forthright in the story they tell about the history of Parisien sanitation. The self-guided walking tour reminded me of Ms. Frizzle's Magic School Bus, beginning with a series of placards describing the water-cycle, all narrated by the ever-affable "Curious Crayfish." Aimed at children, these introductory panels established an informational and environmental tone remenisant of a science museum. As I passed through the sewer tunnels, aided by my English gallery guide, I encountered the most fascinating part of the exhibit: a long gallery filled with panels and artifacts, described in French and English, that charted, in essence, the environmental history of Paris from the middle ages through the present day. What was distinctly missing from the tour was a sense of the other uses of Paris's sewers, especially during the second World War. The exhibit would benefit from an audio guide that pointed out the ways in which the sewers served to hide the resistance fighters, or even more, from optional guided tours focused on different periods in the history of the place.

Versailles, as well, missed opportunities to broaden and deepen the history of the buildings and the grounds. The challenges faced by the institution were obvious-- Versailles is in danger of being loved to death. The place was so popular on a Thursday morning, that we feared at times being crushed against the plastic-covered walls, strategically shielded from the sea of humanity. Audio tours in 10 languages were available as part of the ticket package for the place, but it seemed that the stories told at each stop along the way were limited due to a desire to move people along. At least that's my hope. Otherwise, the missed opportunity would be more glaring-- very little information about the political strategy of the sun-king and the revolution that changed France, and lots and lots of information about the furniture.

The gardens, though, are not to be missed!

A Taste of France

2011-06-29T05:03:00.001-07:00

Sorry to disappoint, but this post will not be about cheese. Although, I can attest to its superior qualities judging by my husband's rapturous indulgence as frequently as possible. We Americans are invariably amazed by the comparative svelt-a-tude of the French given their seemingly large portions (even at Paul Bocuse) and their rather continuous consumption of cream.

But, enough about food. I'm hear to report on some off-the-beaten path observations from my third trip to France.

1) Lyon: the promenade along the Rhone River is divided into unique sections, each with its own navigational sign. In the afternoon or evening, the pedestrian walks and bike paths are alive with activity. Surprisingly, the city does not feel the need to publicize what appears to be a recent, excellently executed renovation, with a website, so no link is currently available. I'll add pictures later. What most distinguishes this inviting development are the changing environs that reflect the heritage and current uses of the parts of the city: from meadows scattered with wild-flowers to playgrounds and skate parks, the promenade progresses from floral to funky and back again, creating a public space that appears truly inviting to locals and welcoming to tourists alike.

2) Noramandy: the Caen Memorial Museum was the first stop on a Normandy WWII history bus tour we took as a day trip from Paris. Our tour-guide wisely advised us not to try to see the entire museum in the hour we were given to explore before lunch. Directed to view only the section about the Normandy allied invasion, I was still overwhelmed by the overabundance of text lining the walls, with photos used as illustration. Of course, the museum was charged with the difficult burden of presenting content in French, English, and German, but it was still disappointing to find the walls laid out like a text-book with artifacts used as illustration. The most fascinating section, at least for me, was the one about the invasion's impact on the inhabitants of Normandy's small towns. Video oral histories provided fascinating, and at times, shocking insights into the experiences of the locals who were caught between the necessity of the allied invasion to liberate France and end the war with Germany, and the realities of their towns destroyed by bombardments with limited protection offered to the old and the young in church basements. Propaganda posters put forward by the Vichy government also provided a unique glimpse into the universal technique of the imperial puppet government using the plight of the citizenry to divert popular scorn away from their own policies.

Stay tuned for Paris's sewers and Versailles...

The Henry Ford and Greenfield Village

2010-06-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

A visit from my mother last week meant the perfect opportunity to visit the Henry Ford and Greenfield Village, "America's Greatest History Attraction."

The Henry Ford and Greenfield Village have long been a favorite topic of discussion among bemused public history graduate students. Like the personality and legacy of their originator, the institution is a conglomerate of populism, boosterism and genuine ingenuity veiled with a touch of obfuscation. From the visitor's moment of entry, it is clear that this place is uncertain about its identity in the cultural heritage spectrum. The Henry Ford and Greenfield Village are about as expensive to visit as a day spent at a 6 Flags theme park. No discounts are available for AAM members or museum employees, but members of the armed forces are duly honored with discounted admission. THF is about history, yes, but it is not afraid to compete in the global market as an "attraction," showing 3-d Hollywood movies in its IMAX theater while employing first-rate docents to explain key artifacts both in the museum exhibits and in the various planted properties in Greenfield Village.

The collection of objects, from the chair in which Lincoln was assassinated to a factory component Model T to a 16th century cottage from rural England is diverse beyond compare. And yet, the explanatory text is text-book-ish in the museum and downright shallow in the Village. Nowhere is Henry Ford's idiosyncratic vision spelled out. Without carefully reading the sparse signage in the village, it would be possible to imagine that there really was a Swiss chalet (reproduction) across the street from George Washington Carver's boyhood home.

Two exhibits rose above the rest-- the Mattox Family House in Greenfield Village and the Rosa Parks Bus in the "With Liberty and Justice for All" exhibit in the Henry Ford Museum. The Greenfield Village web tour does not do justice to the Mattox house, but luckily, a docent who was present when we visited represented the place beautifully. The Mattox Family House was built and inhabited by a family of freed slaves in Georgia. Of all the strangely transplanted homes in Greenfield Village, this one felt the most homey and "real" somehow. The docent was warm and knowledgeable and treated the space with a degree of respect appropriate for someone's home while placing the family's situation in historical context.

The Rosa Parks bus was the culmination of the museum's exhibit that attempted to trace the development of American democratic values. This remarkable artifact, restored to a splendor it most likely had not possessed since the day it rolled off the factory floor, with the aid of a Save America's Treasures grant, brought home the iconic Montgomery bus boycott in a way that no documentary or book ever could. When the docent explained the details of the segregated busing system in Alabama and Rosa Parks' quiet act of civil disobedience, there wasn't a dry eye on the bus.

Watching the kids around me, possibly learning about this history for the first time, I was struck by a question that dogs the public history field. Is it better to learn, from the start, the full context of a historical event with its political machinations and converging players (see Historical Thinking Matters Rosa Parks Inquiry) or is it better to know a key story that rises to legend status with moral/values implications? I think that's how most of us learn about Rosa Parks for the first time-- as if she were a single courageous entity defying an oppressive system and launching a mass movement in her wake--- and yet there were so many underlying current that led to the moment of her decision to break the law. I suppose that's the beauty in being exposed to the same story over and over again as you mature and look at the world differently. That's the beauty of having a museum exhibit that you can return to you with your family in the future...

Curious George at the Jewish Museum

2010-06-13T13:53:00.000-07:00

If your travels take you to New York City during the next two months, I would like to highly recommend the special exhibition at the Jewish Museum, Curious George Saves the Day: the Art of Margret and H. A. Rey. The exhibit makes delightful use of the museum's special exhibition space on the 4th floor, detailing a chronology of the Reys' career as children's book creators and their harrowing escape from Paris by bicycle. While providing enough original material to pique the interest of adults, the exhibit space was also appropriate for children with a well-designed interactive time line animation and a whimsical reading room.

While going through this exhibit, I couldn't help but think about the Irene Nemirovsky exhibit at the Jewish Heritage Museum down town. In times of political upheaval and human evil bubbling just beneath the surface, so much is left to chance and the whims of the individual people given authority to decide the fates of others. While the Reys' children's illustrations granted them a free pass to safety, Nemirovsky's fame and literary success could not save her from being branded as a foreigner and fed into a system of destruction.

Digital Harlem

2010-04-09T07:41:00.000-07:00

This site was brought to my attention by the chief curator at the 9/11 Memorial, Jan Ramirez; as an institution we have a vested interest in staying abreast of developments in the digital history world. This website, and its associated blog, were awarded the inaugural Roy Rosenzweig Fellowship for Innovation in Digital History.

The site leans more toward the research resource end of the digital history/public history spectrum; it takes some concentrated exploration to get a sense of its potential. The ultimate payoff is something special-- a new depth of exploration offered by mapping a distinct collection of primary resources available to any researcher in New York City's municipal archives.

Check it out!

Portland Oregon Parks

2010-03-19T06:05:00.001-07:00

First, I appologize for the long delay in posting. The month of May has run its course and summer is almost upon us. But while my readers are still thinking of spring, and while the NCPH conference I attended is not too far in the past, I will publish this post to be followed by two others in hopefully rapid succession. (June 7, 2010)

In a conference weekend replete with intellectual attractions and networking opportunities focused on oft-elusive "digital skills for public historians), I made sure to sign up for a walking tour which piqued my interest: Portland’s Park Blocks: Defining a City by its Open Spaces. The following few sentences are adapted directly from the tour description: The tour began with a brief (but fascinating) presentation on the founding of Portland’s park system from the first public spaces in the 1850’s to the Olmstead Bros. 1903 parks plan. The Park Blocks, north and south, formed the open space “spine” of the city initially as a fire break and then as a pattern for urban development in the central city and later in the 21st century a model for linear parks in the River District Urban Renewal Area known as the Pearl District. The tour will begin in the South Park Blocks and walk through the Mid-Town Blocks to the North park Blocks and end at Tanner Springs Park in the Pearl District. Led by Henry Kunowski, architectural historian.

Portland's parks are excellent examples of the "useful" urban greenspace which offers sojourners not a sense of wonder, but at least a brief repose and separation from an environment governed purely by human ambition. Portland's most modern parks, seek to uncover and reveal the nature beneath the city's domesticity. In doing so, they provide spaces both to admire the artistic vision of some rather clever landscape architects and to contemplate the coming together of a place (the wetland valley itself) and purpose (industry, trade) resulting in the contemporary space of the city.

I will close with a link to one of my favorite poems by Andrew Marvell, The Garden. Andrew had a keen sense of the human desire for otherness so often sought in parks and gardens and yet the ever-present hand of a creator in such places, melding wild-ness with order and design.

NCPH and Great Lakes THATCamp

2010-02-24T10:20:00.000-08:00

After traveling to Portland, OR, to attend NCPH and be a commentator on Jeremy Boggs and Amdanda French's session on digital history curricula, I am looking forward to attending Great Lakes THATCamp right here in East Lansing! I am planning to present a session on meaningful collaboration among public history (and digital humanities) entities and K-12 educators based on research I conducted last year while finishing my masters at NYU. Check out my session proposal here!

I am particularly interested in hearing from developers of digital humanities programs (since that's what THATCamp is all about) as to their professed education goals. Are they interested in promoting historical thinking skills? Critical thinking sills more broadly? Presenting content for shared cultural heritage? We all talk a lot about education (although "engagement" through social media has become almost as ubiquitous in digital history circles recently), but what kind of education are we providing? Do we provide the kinds of educational resources that teachers want? Should teachers want the kinds of educational resources we provide?

As I learned through my interviews with museum educators, archivists and creators of digital history projects, we imagine multiple audiences for our content, but when we are forced to justify our existence to legislators and funders, it's all education all the time.

Beginning with a dine-around I'm organizing in Portland at the NCPH conference on a similar topic, I hope to have a great couple of weeks debating education policy, goals and resources with public historians and digial humanists in March!

Writers and Real Estate

2010-02-11T13:30:00.000-08:00

Oberlin professor, Anne Trubek offers this interesting perspective on the dismal prospect of turning writers' former homes into tourist destinations. Even as a great lover of literature and of museums, I'll admit that the only writer's home museums I've been to that felt worth writing home about are the James Joyce house in Dublin and the L. M. Montgomery home on Prince Edward Island in Canada. Dublin has so thoroughly embraced Joyce as its most iconic voice, that this makes a lot of sense. The same is true (perhaps even to excess!) of PEI.

The famous person's home as museum works best when that person inhabited the place thoroughly and for a significant period of time. Although a home can be turned into a resonant artifact with proper attention to interpretation, it ultimately needs to be worthy of such a transformation to warrant it.

PhilaPlace

2010-01-31T06:08:00.000-08:00

After almost a year of personal anticipation, I'm excited to announce that PhilaPlace is finally here! I had the pleasure of meeting Joan Savarino at the 2009 NCPH conference in Providence and hearing about this project as it neared the final stages of its development. In May, I attended a session at AAM, where my curiosity about this project was further stoked thanks to an intriguing presentation from the project's technical partner, Night Kitchen Interactive. From conception to completion, the PhilaPlace team has made a concerted effort to keep abreast of the latest trends in social history and in web 2.0 technology; their efforts have clearly paid off.

Enough introduction already-- what is PhilaPlace? PhilaPlace is a map-based interactive website all about the history of Philadelphia's neighborhoods. Oral history, archival documents and photographs combine with user-generated stories and videos to highlight significant places on the changing map of greater Philadelphia. Maps provide the fabric on which the content of this website can be accessed. The visitor can choose to view a contemporary streetscape on a present-day map, a 1962 land-use map, or maps from 1934, 1895 or 1875. Stories and images that appear as sites on this interactive map can be filtered by historical topic, contributor or neighborhood.

The website also provides a portal to a rich archive of content--- a feature that has become par for the course in well-designed digital humanities programs. This union of primary sources and snappy interactive features gives PhilaPlace the trappings of an excellent educational resource. PhilaPlace takes the content-based approach to providing educational resources preferred by many educators. (If you're curious about the opinions of some educators on digital primary sources, check out this survey I conducted last year on that very topic. Just let me know and I'll email you the password.) Instead of providing moment-by-moment lesson plans, PhilaPlace provides timelines, oral history resource lists and well-documented historical background, leaving the specifics to the educators.

One thing that PhilaPlace has that other public history websites may not have is a real-world component. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has developed a program of guided tours of the Northern Liberties and Soutwark neighborhoods of Philadelphia, appealing to a demographic desirous of an on-the-ground guided experience. As PhilaPlace grows both online and in the city itself, I will be interested to learn how these two modes of exploration complement one another.

Chicago History Museum and Zoo Lights

2010-01-14T07:08:00.000-08:00

I had the privilege of spending this frozen New Years Eve in Chicago with friends, and being good museum-goers, we started our weekend with a visit to the Chicago History Museum. Since Catherine Lewis's The Changing Face of Public History has become a mainstay of graduate Public History programs, I felt that I already had an introduction to the museum's current iteration. I entered expecting a museum intensely conscious of its audiences and desirous of creating a broad-minded yet still mostly laudatory portrait of its namesake city.

My expectations, along with all of their inherent pit-falls were duly met. The museum's showcase historical exhibition Chicago: Crossroads of America pairs civics-textbook-like section headings with details that are fraught with controversy. My husband, a thoroughly educated layman, found the exhibition lacking in narrative drive. Exciting episodes like the 1968 riots were glossed over in favor of including a few Native American artifacts at the beginning and smidgeons from every form of labor (including commodities traders!) imaginable.

The highlight of the exhibit is its central feature, a trolley car first produced for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 accompanied by mannekins programmed to quote from contemporary letters representing a meeting of an out-of-town youth visitor, an African American woman activist and an immigrant laborer who helped to build the pavilions for the fair. I would have loved more like that!

This museum is most certainly worth a second visit and I look forward to returning to spend more time in the temporary exhibitions, often allowed to more fully embrace a single curatorial vision.

After visiting the museum, my intrepid party braved the cold and headed over to Lincoln Park Zoo to view the ZooLights illumination conspicuously sponsored by ComEd and Charter One. This family-friendly venture was fun and corny and pretty impressive, but I couldn't help feeling badly for the animals with all the unnatural illumination and blaring Christmas music. I might have to ruminate on this further at a later date.

Museum of the Chinese in America and New York's Lower East Side

2009-12-29T06:46:00.000-08:00

The day after Christmas, heavy rain came to wash away all the snow. In New York City, the streets and the air were fuzzy and gray and the people were wet and giddy. It was a perfect day for a visit to the newly re-opened Museum of Chinese in America (MoCA).

The Museum boasts a newly-constructed core exhibition and an equally new architectural layout to match. The exhibition is ambitious, but falls short of constructing a coherent narrative. Drawing from the collection of objects and oral histories amassed over thirty years by the Chinatown History Project, the museum's predecessor, the exhibition attempts to transcend its New York locale, embracing the theme of Chinese immigration to America across the country. The narrative voice adopted is first-person and yet non-specific. In my option, this is the weakest part of the exhibition although I admire the curators' willingness to go out on a limb and try something new. First person voice is always more compelling when it is specific. The role of the curator should be to choose a selection of representative voices and then not to shy away from voicing an overarching historical theme. In this exhibition, the history appears opaque in the form of a timeline that runs along the wall at waist-height. All the pieces are there for a great exhibition, but they are lacking the glue.

The architecture of the building, in contrast, is truly top-notch. Maya Lin should be commended for her simple-yet-elegant, urban/organic approach. The stories and objects contained within the museum are rooted by the building's adaptive reuse, spiraling around a skylit internal courtyard. Watch Maya Lin describe this project here.

Also of note is MoCA's Story Map, a web feature which is still under construction. The ability to locate history in both place and time has become a mainstay of good public history websites. MoCA's has a lot of potential, especially in its embrace of content production by self-identified Chinese Americans across the country.

In addition to MoCA, Chinatown in New York City is worth visiting for its embodiment of changing landscape and identity. Restaurants and shops cater to residents, tourists, nostalgia and New York all within a streetscape that has changed little in the past 200 years despite the flux of cultural boundaries.

Muppets, Abstraction and TKTS

2009-11-19T08:41:00.000-08:00

The "Georgia O'Keefe: Abstraction" exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City elevates to the forefront the Georgia O'Keefe I fell in love with years ago while immersing myself in my father's comprehensive Georgia O'Keefe coffee-table catalog. At that time, at the age of 8 or 9, I knew little about O'Keefe's legacies as an iconic feminist southwestern hermit or as a painter of female sexuality. I knew only the gravity of the images she created, especially in the 19-teens and 20s. This gravity is, of course, magnified a thousand-fold by experiencing O'Keefe's paintings in proximity. Each linen or canvas, water-color or oil is a world with its own modality. O'Keefe's paintings get at the heart of abstraction, its ability to access the recesses of our metaphorical minds.

Even with an excellent audio guide, this exhibit was alive with conversation, with multi-generational sketchers and with people palpably experiencing art. Remarkably, around noon on a Saturday, it was not over-crowded. Beautifully curated, this exhibit focuses attention on the art itself, but also on the power of re-encounter and context. I think even Georgia would have enjoyed it.

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A quick note on TKTS-- I had not waited in Broadway's signature cue since its makeover in the early 2000s. The new TKTS is well-managed and provides a mostly logical user-experience while advertising itself with a unique cascade of stadium seating in the heart of Times Square. The only kink that still needs straightening is egress from the line once a ticket is purchased. Luckily, crowd marshals are on hand to raise the velvet rope for those unable to duck beneath it.

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My trip home from the fair state of Michigan was capped by a visit to the Michener Museum in Doylestown, PA to see the Smithsonian SITES and Jim Henson Legacy Foundation's traveling muppet exhibit, Jim Henson's Fantastic World. I was so excited to see Jim Henson's sketches and the genuine muppets (Rowlf, Kermit, Fraggles and more!) in cases that I was able to forgive the slightly chaotic organization of the exhibition. Roughly chronological, but also thematic, the exhibit explores Henson's career, focusing on Sessamee Street, Henson's film career, the Muppet Show and Henson's early work with commercials that led to many of his educational breakthroughs. The documents and artifacts in this exhibit are a real treasure and the exhibit text is written at a simple enough level for children of all ages. This exhibit is worth seeing just for the obvious joy felt by everyone encountering Jim Henson's legacy. I would be interested to see how the exhibit works in different spaces as it travels around the country.

The one thing I think the exhibit program could probably use is more extensive merchandising, especially if tee-shirts were available where proceeds would go to benefit educational charities... At least I was able to purchase a muppet for my husband-- Fizzgig from Henson's The Dark Crystal.

Michigan Capitol and Detroit Institute of the Arts

2009-10-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

I can say now with conviction that there's no better time to visit the Michigan Capitol than on a rainy day with 25 parochial-school 4th-graders from ultra-rural Beal City. Accompanied by a good friend from California, I tagged along on a tour given by a retired special-education teacher who excellently maintained control and interest of both the students and the adults. Together, we learned that the current Michigan Capitol, a grand, neoclassical domed structure, completed in 1878, is the third capitol to house the Michigan legislature. The first capitol was located in Detroit. A new temporary capitol was built in Lansing when the state capital was moved to this spot, shielded by marshy woods from the dangers of a Canadian invasion. The permanent capitol, built to be fireproof, was started in 1872 and finished in 1878. This building was built of brick with a cosmetic Ohio sandstone facade. Incidentally, the temporary wooden capitol burned to the ground in 1882.

The Michigan Capitol successfully communicates the values I've perceived in Michigan and Michiganders: pride without pretension, open-ness with savvy. As a public space, the capitol welcomes visitors but then doesn't try over-hard to impress them. At the same time, the extraordinary attention to detail that went into the renovation of the building in the 1980s is apparent everywhere. The water-colored ceilings shine warmly and the textured paint on the walls and false-marble mouldings invite visitors to remain aware of their surroundings as they are gently urged by docents to get to know their legislators and their staffers, to think wisely about how the state's money is spent. In a building like this, I am reminded of the value of not always striving for that perfectly utilitarian image. Inspiration can be a tangible quality of a public space.

This same inspirational quality suffuses the Detroit Institute of the Arts, located in an accessible section of Detroit right off of I94. Detroit's grand boulevards do not glitter, especially in the driving autumn rain and the DIA, accessible now primarily via its limestone annex does not overwhelm the visitor with grandeur upon entry. The inspiration emerges through the process of discovery within the museum. Everywhere are internal courtyards filled with light that seem to invite the visitor to stumble upon them. The first we found was the Kresge court designed with 4 facades each meant to evoke a different period in the history of European art.

The most astonishing space we stumbled upon in the museum was the Rivera court. Perhaps, our experience serves as a testament to the unplanned, serendipitous museum visit. We literally ran into the Diego Rivera Detroit Industry murals as we wandered from early European art to modernism. Suddenly, we were surrounded by a magnifcent and disturbing allegory of industry: the delicate balance with the natural world and the ambiguous consequences for social systems. Each figure was rendered with a larger-than-life humanity. I've purchased the definitive book on the murals and look forward to returning to the museum for a more informed visit next time; perhaps I'll listen to the (free!) audio tour and mix my awe with guided interpretation.

In general, the DIA does an excellent job of offering educational interpretation within its galleries, moving beyond the conoisseur-model and toward a more informative approach. As my husband noted with approval, the DIA feels like a cultural history museum, not just like an art museum.

Mackinac Island

2009-10-11T04:48:00.000-07:00

It's the dawning of my second full day on Mackinac Island in Lake Huron where Michigan's mitten meets the upper peninsula, connected by the thin, but elegant filament of the Mackinac Bridge. Mackinac Island is Michigan's most popular tourist destination; it's been in the trade since the mid-19th century and has managed to maintain its niche through a unique mix of historical interpretation, natural beauty and family-oriented resort attractions.

Mackinac Island is small, only 9 miles in circumference, and expresses a unified self-awareness spanning over a century. In the 1890s, shortly after the construction of the Grand Hotel, the islanders glimpsed the likely trajectory of their home and source of livelihood when the wealthy summer folks from the burgeoning cities of Detroit and Chicago brought their newest playthings to the island: automobiles. Through a heated municipal debate which I am sure involved more controversy than made it into the island's genesis stories, the city on Mackinac voted to ban "horseless carriages" of all kinds. Shortly afterward, the state park that made up the majority of the island followed suit.

Today, Mackinac is fully electrified and its roads are paved, but it retains an 1890s look and feel. It is peaceful with streets where bicycles are the fastest means of transportation. Far from feeling like a quaint anachronism, Mackinac holds an interesting environmental potential: with enough bicycle parking, it is not at all ridiculous to believe that this balance could be achieved in other places.

Aside from the experience of the island itself, Fort Mackinac offers historical interpretation of both the fort itself, dating from the late 18th century and rising on a hill above the town, and of the arc of history for the entire island. To me, it seems clear that more curatorial and museological effort has been invested in the interpretive exhibits in the buildings and grounds of the fort than in the "museum" of Mackinac's history. The fort offers a self-guided experience painting a picture of a choice military post during most of the 19th century. This was a place where officers could bring their wives and families and enjoy social gatherings where "ducks and geese, oysters and fresh fruits and vegetables were served," prepared by cheerful Irish and African-American kitchen servants. This was a "healthy" post where the military doctor treated common diseases like consumption and was free to employ some of the new scientific techniques trickling across the pond from Europe. The medical exhibit is innovative, using projection technology to compare accounts from the post's doctor (played by a costumed actor) and a modern medical professional for comparison.

The "historical" overview in the fort's museum space left something to be desired. Sponsored by Ford (and lacking a publication date-- how I wish museum exhibits were forced to state their years of development and completion-- but my guess would be the 60s or 70s), this exhibit felt like a textbook rendered on the walls with occasional artifacts (and some reproductions) supplied for illustration. In typical grand-America-narrative style, it glossed over conflicts with Native Americans and obscured the circumstances of the various struggles with the British. At the same time, it was the kind of exhibit that is immensely fun to read between the lines. Sometimes, the very hokey, silly stuff can provide a more interesting challenge to the knowledgeable viewer than the painstakingly balanced, earnestly interactive attempts of contemporary historical interpreters.

All in all, Mackinac does not disappoint.

MSU Museum, Botanical Garden and Travellers' Club

2009-09-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

My apologies for not posting sooner-- the past month has indeed been taken up with moving to my new home in Haslett, Michigan. Luckily, through the providence of visiting relatives, I have a had a chance to explore a few of the steadfast institutions in the area, although I have yet to experience the more turbulent and controversial Michigan Historical Center, currently undergoing reorganization.

The MSU Museum is your classic university natural and cultural history institution although uniquely a Smithsonian affiliate. Although the 1980s evolution timeline in the basement along with a rather strange anthropological amalgum is lack-luster and in need of an up-date, there were a few notable exhibits. I loved the Michigan Foodways exhibition and thought it made decent use of a small space without sacrificing artifact-density. Historical cooking implements are too fun to pass up! My favorite exhibit was probably the historical general store complete with docent in period-dress. My enjoyment of the full-surround experience contrasted with my desire to differentiate between original elements and reproductions. I found myself needing to step back and consider the purpose of the store environment. Would a child walking into a place like this for the first time care whether the cash register was a authentic to the original store or merely a period piece? More interesting to point-out would the the clear comparison between a place like this and the Target or Walmart of today. What have we gained or lost from our contemporary shopping experience?

The agricultural university boasts a unique approach to the botanical garden-- not ashamed to be more catalog than ornament. The layout and signage in the MSU botanical garden encourages visitors to emulate bees, buzzing from plant to plant as they spark our interest. Sometimes such a basic, lexicographical layout can be refreshing.

Finally, I need to mention a downtown Okemos staple-- the Travellers' Club International Restaurant and Tuba Museum. This eclectic institution merges the interests of its proprietors of the past 26 years, Jennifer Byrom and William White. William is the tuba player (tubist?) and delivers his collection of instruments that adorn the walls with a healthy side of ethnomusicology. A morning or evening at the Travellers' Club inevitably sparks the kind of questions asked in every excellent museum-encounter. Thus, I think the name of the institution is well-deserved.

The High Line

2009-08-04T06:51:00.000-07:00

I made my inaugural trip up to the High Line on the west side of New York City last Saturday night. I'd like to return around sunset some time in early fall. This elevated-railroad-turned-urban-greenspace is a place like none other. Its creators thoughtfully populated the natural contours of the railroad bed with native flora and constructed spaces for casual relaxation beside the promenade using the remnant rails and slatted wood.

In addition to its artistic attention to detail, the High Line seems to embody the uniquely New York desire to occupy a place in a new way, to adjust perception in favor of something timely and almost obnoxiously chic. I have a feeling that over time, the high line may lose some of its trendy appeal, but it will likely continue to be a perfect "date spot," a catalyst for the spark of romance kindled in a public promenade where conversation bubbles up from the intersection between old and new, natural and artifical, maintenance and ruin...

I also realize that my comments only reflect the open Gansevort-to-Chelsea section. The rest of the High Line will feature a wildflower field as well as a view out to unaltered rail tracks, so I think that it might feel less like a landscaped construction and more like a landscape...

Woman of Letters at the Museum of Jewish Heritage

2009-06-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

If you haven't gone yet, you should definitely check out Woman of Letters at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. If you go, though, I strongly recommend that you read Suite Francaise. The exhibit is more of a companion piece than a stand-alone experience. Plus, I think Nemirovsky's writings are in conversation with the curatorial voice of the exhibition in an interesting way...

The exhibition derives its power from the artifacts of everyday life-- salvaged letters, a water-logged valise and the bureaucratic documents that so brutally recorded the movement of prisoners from precincts to extermination camps. Looking at convoy rosters and death certificates, it sank in for me how little genocide has in common with chaos.

At the same time, I think that the way in which the exhibition attempts to claim Irene Nemirovsky as a purely Jewish casualty of the holocaust is an unfair oversimplification. The beauty of Nemirovsky's surviving correspondence, and her writing, is precisely the way in which it defies easy categorization. Nemirovsky's individuality and humanity transcends any categorization imposed by the French government, or by historical interpretation.

Memorial Exhibition in the News

2009-06-10T06:51:00.000-07:00

Here is a shameless plug for the project I'm working on at the National September 11 Memorial Museum. Check out David Dunlap's article for the City Room blog at the New York Times.

Early June in Montreal

2009-06-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

Spending the beginning of the east coast summer in chillier but springy Montreal on a 3 generation trip to visit my brother at McGill, I can't resist commenting on 2 exhibits at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and another fabulous institution, the Redpath Museum on McGill campus.

At the MMFA, we waited in a remarkably fast-moving line for our free admission to "Imagine: the Peace Ballad of John & Yoko." This was after stopping to sing "She's Got a Ticket to Ride" with some buskers on the museum's front steps. I was a little bit apprehensive at first, having read that the exhibit was basically curated by Yoko Ono. Like many people almost 2 generations behind, my only real associations with Yoko Ono centered on the break-up of the Beatles. But this exhibition completely changed my perceptions. It envelopes the visitor in the playful, iconoclastic and deeply loving world of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the 1960s. The exhibition does an excellent job both of providing context for the artistic and social politics embraced by John and Yoko and of providing a space for a genuine encounter with the works of art produced by the couple during their lives together. The exhibit culminates with two beautiful, non-digital interactive installations that get at the heart of John and Yoko's particular peace philosophy. The exhibit's only detriment was its extreme popularity, a mixed blessing to say the least. True to form, this exhibit brought a unique and today still cutting-edge artistic style to a truly popular audience.

And since that review was rather long, I'll only say that after seeing this exhibit, it is well-worth cooling the brain with the simple whimsy of the design and "Body in Glass" exhibitions on the other side of the street.

Finally, the Redpath museum is not to be missed on any trip to Montreal. A teaching and research museum in the best tradition of the natural history "cabinet of curiosities," the Redpath is not afraid to showcase it collection in old-fashioned wood and glass exhibit cases. Combining the best of this object-centered approach with updated text panels and a layout that takes full advantage of the 19th century building's light-soaked galleries, the Redpath is sure to delight every visitor from the nostalgic museum-lover to the child with attention-deficit-disorder.

Captured on Film (well at least Digital Video)

2009-06-01T12:05:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to attend this year's AAM conference in Philadelphia earlier in May. In addition to some great sessions and lots of opportunities to partake of the fantastic culinary public space that is Reading Terminal Market, I enjoyed checking out the activities sponsored by the AAM Museum Futurists. On a whim, I agreed to participate in the Voices of the Future project, so here I am on the internet.

To view the rest of the videos in the series, click here .

Climate Change and Beyond Babylon

2009-03-06T13:57:00.001-08:00

Two exhibits I've had the opportunity to review recently are "Climate Change" at the American Museum of Natural History and "Beyond Babylon" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Climate change is an excellent persuasive exhibit focusing on scientific evidence for human-caused climate change and evaluation of ways to ameliorate the effects in the future.

Beyond Babylon is a well-researched and artifact-rich exhibit that misses the mark slightly in terms of engaging the audience with the experiences of archeologists and art historians.

Both are worth checking out-- although I'd recommend seeing a lot more at the Met beyond "Beyond Babylon."

For a more detailed review of "Beyond Babylon," click here.
For a more detailed review of "Climate Change" click here.

Two Lesser-Known Gems in NYC

2008-12-31T06:59:00.000-08:00

In honor of my brother's first winter break home from college, I took him and his girlfriend to the city for some low-cost gallivanting.

We started down on the east side of the Financial District at a free concert, and made our way up to the Asia Society Museum on the upper east side via the Municipal Archives and Superior Court Building.

Although I'd spent some time in the Municipal Archives building at 31 Chambers Street for a research project for the Tenement Museum, I never knew that there was a curated exhibit in the basement featuring treasures from the archives from the 17th through the 20th centuries. After walking down from the 7th floor admiring the building's marble halls, vintage mail shoots and bureaucratic-elegant architecture we literally stumbled upon the exhibit in the basement. Sometimes all you need is a chronological display of fascinating documents and photographs to pass an edifying hour. After marveling over bills of sale and freedom papers for slaves, payments to the administrator of the whipping post, architectural drawing for the original elevated train line and photographs of inmates on Blackwell's Island, it was hard to drag ourselves away.

I'm glad we did because the exhibits at the Asia Society Museum were fantastic. The artifacts and compositions on display in the Muslim Calligraphy exhibit were breathtaking. The exhibit space was quiet, informative, uncluttered. Everything about the exhibit experience was meditative.

In stark contrast, the Art and China's Revolution exhibit carefully constructed the visitor's intellectual experience, providing chronological context and contextual information to an evolving array of artwork created between the 1920s and 1980s in China. I was only temporarily confused by the exhibit because the chronological section was in a different gallery space from the artwork, but everything came together after viewing both sections. The exhibition was fun to view with friends because it sparked conversation about what makes "good art" and whether the meaning of "good art" changes based on cultural context. Highly recommended!

Living History Sojourn

2008-12-11T10:50:00.000-08:00

In contrast to the weekly standard's scathing critique of social historians' love of the mundane, Emily Yoffe's Slate article is quite refreshing.

NMAH Review

2008-12-10T12:03:00.000-08:00

This article provides a fascinating perspective on (a particular) public perception of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

As a public historian trained as a social historian, I know how tough it can be to strike a balance between striving for historical context and creating something dramatic and engaging that the public can relate to.

I'm excited to visit the newly renovated NMAH next time I'm in DC!

Thoughts on the History Web

2008-12-04T08:20:00.000-08:00

While the web has come of age over the past 4 or 5 years, it seems that many historians and curators are still unsure about what to do with it. Back in 1996, a website with visible text, reasonably-sized images and quality content superimposed on a sane and non-flashy background was a work of genius. Today, the quality scholarly content is still out there, but its creators are tearing their hair out worrying about web 2.0, attracting and holding audiences.

As in all things, purpose is key. Just because the web may be unfamiliar, that is not an excuse to throw critical thought out the window. It's not scary; it's just a new way to reach different audiences. If you are embarking on a new website or updating an old one, ask yourself, who do you want to serve? You need to answer this question first before you can calmly determine how best to attract them.

If your audience is scholarly, then don't feel you need to pretend it is not. I've been amazed at the lack of online humanities journals that engage the capabilities of the web. Even the Journal of the Oral History Society does not employ a format in which audio excerpts can be added to text. This would be an excellent feature to pursue online.

Graduate students struggle daily with the creation of "web exhibits." Unsure whether they are attempting to engage a scholarly or general audience, they agonize over text and images, tone and volume. The web offers something museums have long dreamed about and struggled to create: layers.

Don't despair and lock away your scholarly text. Just connect it through layers to your visitors' first impression of the site. If you want a casual visitor to stop and stay, snag her with a slide-show of click-able images. If you want to know more, go here! Even more? Go here!

Don't be afraid of connecting your site to something in another information dimension. Here's a scholarly paper. Here is the blog to go with it.

The internet is about creating communities. There's no reason to believe that suddenly all communities are the same. Just know who you're looking for and direct them to different experiences of your content.

Because no post would be right without examples, consider the excellent Lost Museum. Here is a site that can be experienced by casual users with a rich online environment to explore. Students can use clues in the exhibit to solve a mystery related to the history of the burning of P.T. Barnum's American Museum. Teacher's can use essays posted in the classroom to teach using the primary sources cataloged in the archive. There's a hook, and then there's layers of true quality content below.

9/11 Artists Registry

2008-11-26T11:20:00.000-08:00

This is a departure from the usual content of this blog, but I want to take an opportunity to share a project I've been involved with for the past 2 years. Today marks the official launch of the Artists Registry at the National September 11 Memorial Museum.

In creating this registry, the Memorial Museum tried to find a creative way to embrace the vast outpouring of heartfelt artwork created in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. The Registry supports images, mp3s, written material and short video files. It is browse-able by artist name, media, themes and location. Artists can submit up to 12 digital files with accompanying metadata, an artist's statement and resume.

Artists can also choose among a standard "all rights reserved" image license and the six Creative Commons licenses for their work.

I welcome your feedback!

Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty

2008-09-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we took a visit from an out-of-town friend as an excuse to visit two iconic sites located in as close to our own backyard as you can get in the city. On a hazy September day, we joined a ferry-load of Mid-Western and East-Asian tourists on a circle through New York Harbor to Ellis Island and Liberty Island. We left from Liberty State Park in Jersey City. Since I hadn't been on this particular route since I was in elementary school and summer camp, I couldn't recall from where we departed those 12-18 years ago, but I would recommend Liberty State Park as the port of choice to anyone.

Ellis Island ferries depart from the old CRRNJ railroad terminal building on the southern shore of the Morris Canal. The CRRNJ terminal marked the end of the most intense part of the immigration process for many of the eastern and southern European immigrants who came through Ellis Island's peak during its tenure from 1892-1954. Immigrants granted entry through Ellis Island took ferries to the CRRNJ terminal where they boarded trains to destinations throughout the United States. The CRRNJ terminal closed in 1967 when major rail-lines re-routed after use of the terminal rapidly declined. Today, after at 2-year renovation begun in 2005, the terminal is preserved in a near-perfect state of semi-decline. The rail terminal's interior spaces serve as the ticketing, boarding, concessions and security center for the Ellis Island Ferry while its outdoor spaces and platforms stand laced with enough greenery to give the platforms a ghostly look and spark the imagination. Ellis Island is an excellent museum, but the CRRNJ would have to be the capstone of my experience. (The photograph was taken by me of the CRRNJ platforms.)

Ellis Island has benefited from exhibit renovations and excellent scholarly work since I last visited it in the 90s. Highlights included the shipping records on lecterns in the mostly empty Great Hall (see photograph), the historic exhibits in the main building's west wing balancing artifacts, photographs, text and oral history excerpts, and the exhibit of photographs of the abandoned buildings of the complex taken between 1954 and the 1984 restoration.

Ellis Island offers an excellent all-around historical experience. We began our visit with an introductory play that was, despite the cliche, both entertaining and informative. We were then free to browse the exhibits, interact with kiosks containing links to census maps and immigrant databases, spend reflective time in un-crowded architectural spaces and listen to oral history excerpts. Exhibits were appropriately stand-alone but linked well together to form a coherent visitor experience. Ellis Island struck the right balance between interpretation and freedom for imagination.

We ended our visit by riding the ferry to Liberty Island and then back to Liberty State Park. These days with tightened security procedures, the Statue of Liberty offers a much truncated visitor experience. More could be learned by viewing the statue from the deck of the ferry and imagining what it would have felt like to see it after at 6-week trip from Poland in steerage. Watching the other visitors experience the "historic triangle," I felt a renewal of my faith in the power of public history.

Governors Island

2008-07-30T14:24:00.000-07:00

A staff summer outing brought me today to Governor's Island, only 800 yards south of Manhattan. Governor's island is the longest serving military base in the the United States, beginning as a fort in 1776 after the British evacuation of New York and continuing to serve different military branches from the Army to the Coast Guard until its decommission in 1996. Later that year, President Clinton designated 22 acres as a National Monument and then in 2002, the United States donated the island to New York City "for public benefit," prohibited the construction of permanent housing or casinos on the island. Currently, the island is managed by the "Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation" with the 22 acre National Monument run the the NPS. See the GIPEC website for more history.
See the NPS Governors Island website for the 2016 Centennial Plan for the park.

GIPEC and the NPS have plans for Governors Island to become a center for history, education, artistic exhibitions, entertainment, fine dining and open space-- in short, everything we've come to expect out of our parks all rolled into one. In many ways, Governors Island is uniquely suited to this kind of multi-purposing as it is not dominated by any single history or wilderness motif. Like all of New York City, Governors Island's only constant is change.

Castle Williams on the island's north side provides a perfect example of the effects of change on a single building. Castle Williams was built in 1812 after the British torched DC. It never saw action as a fort but instead became a prison for confederate soldiers during the Civil War. During World War I and World War II it served as an internal military prison and finally, in the 60s while the Coast Guard resided on the island, the Castle served as a community center and even boasted day care facilities. When you enter the Castle's forboding central enclosure, it is not hard to see why that experiment was short lived. The Coast Guard "brats" had more success using the fort annually as a haunted house on Halloween. Experiencing the Castle prior to any renovation or cleaning, I was reminded once again of the power of the authentic place. It was extremely easy to imagine the dreadful lives of the confederate soldiers, crammed into cells and whipped by the bitter breezes off the Hudson bay, mocked by the cries of the seagulls. Our tour guide enlightened us with two tails of escape-- it was not hard to swim to Manhattan if the opportunity was available, but most soldiers were not so lucky. At the peak of the Civil War, the death toll in both Confederate and Union POW jails was extremely high. See Andersonville National Historic Site and Elmira Prison Camp.

Dominated by Castle Williams and rows of quiet officers' mansions and empty enlisted men's facilities, the entirety of the island had the feel of a haunted college campus. This effect was compounded by the lack of people other than my company group. It will be interesting to see whether large-scale visitation mitigates the heaviness of memory that pervades the place or whether the architectural memory will prove more powerful than GIPEC's attempts to turn the place into a model park for the 21st century.

What's new in DC

2008-05-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

Armed with a spring resolution to post more frequently to Artiflection, I'll begin with a review of my Memorial Day weekend trip to DC, the land so etched-over with symbolism that there's almost nowhere to travel without being forced to consider or ignore someone else's infusion of meaning...

First, because I think it is always a factor in a person's enjoyment of museums and public spaces, the weather was absolutely splendid. We began our DC weekend with an excursion to the National Zoo. Feeling lately that I never go to the places where children go, I was immediately impressed by the flood of families. The museum grounds are essentially linear but the limited signs made the meander confusing. We were never certain that we were heading in the direction of the big cats or the elephants. The place is also under construction with a huge new outdoor elephant space slated for completion in 2011. This didn't stop the crowds to the elephant house. The orangatan highway (O-Line) was new since my last visit and I thought the Think Tank
was great. Simple exhibits with engaging content. All in all a good place to think about how much other people contribute or detract from a visitor's experience to a public place.

Sadly little time to really explore the Newseum as we arrived close to 4pm on Sunday, but enough to fully explore the few exhibits we were able to view. Why? Because the exhibits are cursory and quick-delivering, deftly following the news media's contemporary love affair with the sound-bite. We paid close attention to the Berlin Wall and September 11th Exhibits. September 11th had a fabulous installation of the very top of the antenna from the North Tower, but no prominent label explaining what we were looking at... The public was very moved by the interpretive film. The wall display of 9/12 front-pages fell flat on impact. The Berlin Wall exhibit also had impressive artifacts-- a large and colorful section of the wall and an original watch tower from the East Berlin side-- but not enough primary documents comparing news from the west (open, truthful?) with news from the east.

My conclusion: museums sometimes misinterpret young museum-goers' desires for simplicity and choice, providing brief exhibit text but little opportunity to go deeper. The result in the case of the Newseum was a flashy and technologically up-to-date environment where little real learning about the questions faced by journalists in a world controlled by market-share takes place. We came away knowing that journalists have strict codes of ethics because we were told that they do. I believe that it is important for museum's never to underestimate the power of examples. That is why people come to museums and not just movies or performances. There should be room for deep exploration-- not just broad introduction.

One last memorial note-- the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue was a small gem in a city glittering with flashier jewels. Well integrated into the city scape-- used by children learning to walk and family members having their pictures taken with the larger-than-life sailor standing alone looking out over the map of the world on the plaza. Nothing avant-garde or too abstract, but a peaceful spot surrounded by wave-like cascades in a circular fountain. While other memorials in the city invite subversive musing about the kinds of science fiction monsters they might become in a dystopic b-movie, the Navy Memorial remains remarkably benign.

Top-notch web presence for Australia's Powerhouse

2007-11-12T09:31:00.000-08:00

The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney Australia is a kind of "everything in the whole wide world" museum built off of the collections acquired for Australia's 1879 international exposition. (This model for museum building is reflected in the US in Chicago's Field Museum.)The museum's mission is broad-reaching: "The Powerhouse Museum develops collections and presents exhibitions and programs that explore science, design and history for the people of New South Wales and beyond."

As the online presence for such a broad institution, the museum's website, http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/ , is more of a clearinghouse for public historical, and more contemporary public knowledge than a more typical single-topic-focused public history website. From the powerhouse museum's website, it is possible to access information about Australia's Estonian immigrants, Princess Diana, the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and the history and material culture of menstruation among others.

Beyond its eclectic access points, the Powerhouse Museum's website is making waves in the museum world because of its experiment with social tagging in its online collections database. To view the Powerhouse's user-generated tag-cloud go here: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/browsekeywords.php

Overall, I would rate the Powerhouse Museum's website 5 earths, based on the thoroughly considered website review system published by the Public History Resource Center. I believe it can serve as an example for a comprehensive learning center online. What is may lack in depth in certain areas, it makes up for in breadth and interest piquing.

Field Museum

2007-11-08T18:37:00.000-08:00

As I'm in Chicago for the annual MCN conference, Yesterday I took the opportunity in the afternoon to visit the Field Museum so that I could check out the National September 11 Memorial Museum's esteemed exhibition designers' project, "Ancient Americas." The Field Museum is a lot like the American Museum of Natural History, rich with collections of natural materials and Native American Artifacts. It has its share of dreary cultural halls last updated in the 60s, 70s or 80s and giant stuffed animals, contrasted with blockbuster traveling exhibits like "Darwin" and "Maps." Ancient Americas, still new having opened in March, is part of their core exhibition space, accessible with general admission.

With the amount of material to cover, from the ice age to European encounter with the Aztecs and the Incas, and the amount of artifacts available, from southwestern Pueblo pots to Moche jewelry, I knew this exhibit must have been a challenge to pull off. I was impressed from beginning to end! Each gallery began with an orientation so I never felt lost. Artifacts were presented simultaneously on a human scale and with detailed information about archeological process. Interactives were simple but genuinely fun. None of the machines were out of order. Text was simple, but didn't feel dumbed down to me. Every time I was tired of standing, there was a bench to sit on. I spent about an hour and a half in the exhibit and I saw almost everything in as much detail as I wanted to. I didn't, however, have time to see any other exhibits in the museum.

So, hats off to Thinc for co-creating a fascinating exhibit and reinvigorating artifacts that I'm sure the Field has wanted to display in an interesting way for a long time.

Around the World in the Winter Garden

2006-10-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

Today, I spent my lunch hour in the Winter Garden instead of my usual Battery Park City bench along the Hudson because it's starting to get cold outside. The Winter Garden is an intriguing indoor atrium with about a dozen tall palms spreading their fronds over the marble floors and brightly-colored benches. While I sat on my bench, sipping my chai, I suddenly began to hear ocean waves. The waves began quietly enough, but they quickly crescendoed to a climax, so I thought I might be in a hurricane! Noting my obvious interest, a man with a walkie-talkie came over to me and asked if I'd heard the waves. (well duh...) I told him I certainily had and explained that they were so loud I was expecting rain. At the time I thought this was a project by the building to create a summery atmosphere in the Winter Garden.

The man, an NYU music technology professor, dispelled me of this notion. He explained that he was prepping for a week-long festival called Ear to the Earth that would feature explorations of sound, art and the environment in venues across New York. He asked if I wouldn't mind being a test subject for a little while. Of course I wouldn't mind. So I listened to birds from Madagascar, whales from Glacial Bay in Alaska, the crashing ocean of Big Sur and hooting monkeys from Sumatra. I helped him get the volume just right and he encouraged me to attend the festival. And I left the public space of the Winter Garden with a deeper attachment to my adopted metropolis.

"Land-markings" misses the mark

2006-10-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend the opening of a new exhibit at New York Federal Hall. "Land-markings" brought together research efforts of social scientists from the US Forest service with urban ecologists and architects from the New School to present data on Americans' collective response to 9/11. They examined the creation of "living memorials" from multiple perspectives with ultimate intention of extracting a kernel of truth about the changing relationship between people and their landscapes.

Now, I can't think of anyone more interested in this topic than me. I wrote over 100 pages on it just last year! I really, really wanted to like this exhibit, but it failed to interest even me. Sadly, it faltered on both the design and content fronts. Design-wise, it was organized by subtopic arrayed around Federal Hall's rotunda. Each area featured a little TV with a segment of a narrated power-point presentation. Unformatted, the little videos neither introduced the topic coherently nor came to any clear conclusions. Like any good lecture, museum exhibits should have arguments and they should use the tools they have on hand to clearly present those arguments.

Sadly, despite it's intriguing name and description, "Land-markings" had little more to offer than carefully segued photographs of gardens and forests and narrative obfuscation. Charts and graphs were left unexplained; memorials were presented like an annotated list and I left without feeling like I'd learned anything more than how not to create an exhibit based on academic research.

Yom Kippur (after Thoreau)

2006-10-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

My first post, because I have to post to start my blog, will be more musy than museum-y.

Ever since college, Yom Kippur has been a day to spend in the park. Parks are little microcosms of creation-- wild elements directed and diverted into dwelling-places for creativity. The synagogue and my apartment aren't wild enough for me; parks are the city's genesis-mirrors.

From here on in, I promise I won't always be this abstract.