Exhibitions

Empathy Interventions: Mia Experiments with Cultivating Empathy in Museum Visitors

By Alice Anderson & Karleen Gardner

Can the visual arts foster empathy and understanding? From our experiences as art museum educators, we believe they can, but there is little empirical research to support this theory. So, in 2017, the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), …
Do-it-Yourself Exhibits: How the National Museum of Natural History Created a New Model for Reaching People in Their Communities

By Kerri Dean

The Challenge Years before the world was thrown into the coronavirus pandemic, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) sought to increase awareness about the concept of One Health—the interconnectedness of human, animal, …
Re-Engaging the Past to Re-Envision the Future

By Redell R. Hearn

The Mississippi Museum of Art and Tougaloo College joined creative forces to spotlight civil rights issues, past and present. This article originally appeared in the January/February, 2021 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of …
With Rapid Response Collecting, Who Are We Responding To?

By Carol Ghiorsi Hart

After the start of protests over the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent looting of businesses, hundreds of plywood boards went up in Greensboro, North Carolina’s downtown. But these boards, which could have been an angry reminder …
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 …
How to Use Storytelling to Build and Engage Audiences

By Josette Souza

As far as museums go, the National Geographic Museum is unlike any other. With access to over 130 years’ worth of photos, footage, data, and archival materials—plus a built-in audience already hooked on the National Geographic …
How Chinese Museums Closed and Reopened During COVID-19

By Yiru Zhang

What Chinese museums did during their month-long closure Almost all Chinese museums closed immediately on January 24, only one day after the city of Wuhan locked down, to reduce the risk of infection in crowded places. Beginning in early …
Is That Hung White?

By Joanne Jones-Rizzi and Stacey Mann

A conversation on the state of museum exhibitions and race. This article originally appeared in the Summer 2020 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of AAM membership. In 2016, a group of 24 museum professionals came together in Chicago for …
Towards Frictionless Augmented Reality

By Matt Davis

Author’s Note: Several months ago, putting on an Augmented Reality (AR) headset was an uncomfortable nuisance for museum visitors. Now, it’s a potential health risk. The COVID-19 pandemic has only amplified the need for museums to rapidly …