2020 – Page 10 – American Alliance of Museums

Will COVID-19 Change Museum Architecture?

By Bruce Davis and Ron Elad

Here’s a happy thought: COVID-19 will—at some point—recede, and like pandemics of the past it will be history, another story to tell. But after the disease is gone, will any of the effects linger, possibly even forever? People have …
Essential Evaluators: The Silver Lining

By Rose Jones, Laureen Trainer, and Andréa Giron Mathern

Essential Evaluators seeks to gather evaluators in a common space to dialogue, reflect, and support each other in a world upended by COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protest movement. This is a time of uncertain and unknown expectations …
Open Source Solidarity: Starting a Mutual Aid Fund at Your Museum

By Elizabeth Merritt

Earlier this month, I wrote about the role self-organized mutual aid groups are playing in our nation’s response to the financial damage inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Today on the blog, staff from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, …
Pandemic-Friendly Ideas for Welcoming Immigrants and Refugees to Your Community

By Joseph O'Neill

Welcoming Week is an annual event from Welcoming America that seeks to unite recent immigrants and refugees with longer residents in communities. Along with other organizations of all stripes, museums have been involved for years, hosting …
Outside > Inside: Outdoor Exhibitions in the Era of COVID and Black Lives Matter

By Michael Epstein

A doctor friend recently shared a social media post listing a five-point coronavirus plan: Masks Close bars Socially distance Test & isolate Outside > inside Like her, it was matter-of-fact, succinct, and assured. But the “Outside …
Make the Case for Museums Today – Contact Congress and #InviteCongress

By American Alliance of Museums

Support Field-Wide Advocacy for Museum Relief: The current crisis is taking a distressing financial toll on cultural organizations, and AAM is no different. In these challenging times, we ask that if you can, consider supporting our …
Postcard Power! How Museums Can Support the Community through a Social Connecting Campaign

By Erica Harmon

Earlier this year, as quarantine fell upon the US, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and its satellite contemporary art space the Momentary—both located in Bentonville, Arkansas—wanted to determine how best to help our region’s …
How the Cincinnati Museum Center Reinvented Itself after Racial Justice Protests in 2001

By John E. Fleming, Ph.D.

Watching people of all ages, races, religions, and nationalities stand up for equality in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, my thoughts have drifted back to my time at the Cincinnati Museum Center. In 2001, just after I joined the CMC as …
Mutual Aid in a Time of Crisis

By Elizabeth Merritt

The upheavals of 2020 are drawing more attention to a venerable form of community self-help: mutual aid societies. These self-organized support groups arose in the eighteenth century as a way for communities to provide their members with …
Essential Evaluators: In the Fog of War

By Rose Jones, Laureen Trainer, and Andréa Giron Mathern

Essential Evaluators seeks to gather evaluators in a common space to dialogue, reflect, and support each other in a world upended by COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protest movement. This is a time of uncertain and unknown expectations …