Peering Over the Next Horizon of Museum Practice
Why is it so hard to make change?! Even when we (museum people) know that parts of our work are in urgent need of reform, progress can be glacially slow.
In fact, that’s natural. Humans are hardwired for caution, and it often seems …
In Good Relation: Reimagining the Grant Process for Community-Based Projects
In recent years, there have been renewed calls for museums to adopt more inclusive and equitable practices, with significant changes to the ways we work and collaborate at all levels of our institutions. As a grants manager, I think about …
Remarks from Benin Bronzes Repatriation Ceremony
On October 11, 2022, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art hosted a repatriation ceremony in which officials of the museum transferred ownership of twenty-nine Benin bronzes and the National Gallery of Art transferred ownership …
‘Relationships Don’t Have an End Goal’: A Q&A with the Burke Museum’s Decolonization & DEAI Team
Some of the newest, and most defining, jobs in the current era of museums are those focusing on decolonization and diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion. In recent years, as more institutions have come to prioritize undoing …
Recasting the Civic Imperative of the Museum
This article originally appeared in the November/December 2021 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of AAM membership. Liberating collections from their imperialist pasts can occur through a new model: the museum-university. As a curator …
Rethinking Our Human Resources Practices to Build a More Equitable Museum
Less than three weeks after COVID forced museums around the globe to close their doors last year, an article by Arundhati Roy in The Financial Times titled “The Pandemic is a Portal” stopped me in my tracks. In the midst of an …