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Center for the Future of Museums Blog
The Center for the Future of Museums Blog shares musings on the future of museums and society.
Texas Museum Opens Doors During Historic Winter Storm
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This year has exposed the vulnerabilities of so many critical systems in the US, including health care, education, and the social safety net. In the latest edition of TrendsWatch I profiled …
Opportunity! Dedicated funding for museums taking climate action
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As I note in this year’s TrendsWatch, this is truly a “syndemic” year. We face multiple crises that, left unchecked, will interact to make each other worse. For example, the …
Building Equity: Reparative Practice at the Valentine Museum
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Last week the Alliance released TrendsWatch: Navigating a Disrupted Future. The opening chapter of this year’s forecasting report addresses the need for museums to join with all sectors of …
New TrendsWatch! Navigating a Disrupted Future
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In a normal year, TrendsWatch explores the impact emerging forces of change may have on museums in the next decade or longer. Some, such as demographic shifts, affect all museums in the …
Tales from Campus: Radical Collaboration at the Nasher Museum
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In today’s guest post, Wendy Hower, Director of Engagement & Marketing at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, describes how an outdoor art exhibition became a wide-reaching way …
Crowdsourcing a Database of Permanent Museum Closings
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Due to the independent nature of the nonprofit sector in the US, there no comprehensive way to track museum openings or closings (much less arrive at a definitive head count of museums at …
Mapping Uncertainty in 2021
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I have been wishing everyone HAPPY NEW YEAR (in all caps) because I am so relieved to see the backside of 2020. But “better than last year” is a very low bar indeed, and we face many very …
Ten Uplifting Museum Stories of 2020
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This year my scanning feeds were clogged with relentlessly depressing news. My heart was eased, however, by the way that museums rose to the challenges posed by 2020. Here are a dozen …
A Pandemic Time Capsule and Tools for 2021
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This blog has become an incidental time capsule of 2020, a monthly record of how the museum sector responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, when the first of the posts featured below …
Game Plan Call for Applications! Professional Development for Museum Educators
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In 2008, Dr. Jane McGonigal delivered the inaugural lecture for the new Center for the Future of Museums. McGonigal, who is both a professional futurist AND a ludologist, made the case that …
Tales from Campus: Oxy Arts
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One of the risks posed by the pandemic is that the public health imperative for social distance might discourage activism and engagement just when it is needed most. In this guest post, …
The Museum of Future History: An Antidote To Chronological Squatting
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Those of you who follow my writing may be aware of my passion about the need to decolonize the future. I believe museums can play a vital role in helping the public be better stewards of …