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Building an Equitable Future: Museums and Reparations

By Elizabeth Merritt

Today is Juneteenth, commemorating the emancipation of enslaved black people in America. This holiday is a big deal here in my home town of Washington D.C. Not coincidentally, today the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates will trek up Capitol Hill to …
An Intergenerational “School of Drag” Connects LGBTQIA+ Youth and Elders

By Eli Burke

Last year, 20 organizations enrolled in a special museum cohort of Aroha Philanthropies’ Seeding Vitality Arts program. With funding from Aroha, and training provided by Lifetime Arts, these museums are developing high quality, …
Artificial Intelligence in Service of Understanding and Delight

By Dr. Hank Hine

I continue to be amazed and delighted at the ways in which museums are harnessing artificial intelligence to power their work. This week Dr. Hank Hine, Executive and Creative Director of The Dali Museum, tells us how The Dali has used AI …
Two Artists on the Future of Blockchain and Art

By Elizabeth Merritt

Every year I feature an emerging technology in TrendsWatch, and this year I dove into blockchain—the distributed, encrypted digital ledger system that supports both cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether, and “crypto-art” like Primavera …
Taking Native Lands and Lives

By Christine Lashaw

Museums have power—the power to tell stories, shape narratives, and influence the lens we bring to bear on the past. That power can be harnessed for healing, as museums contribute to a reparative reexamination of history and the legacy of …
TrendsWatch 2019: Take Care: Building resilience and sustainable practice

By Elizabeth Merritt

This is one of the five trends from the 2019 TrendsWatch. Click here to read more about the full report. “Self-care is not selfish. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.” —Eleanor Brownn Society owes a debt to everyone who does the hard …
For Your AAM2019 Schedule: Talking about the Future with Your Community

By Elizabeth Merritt

Heads up on a session I’ll be moderating at the annual meeting in New Orleans next week: Engaging Community in Conversations about the Future Wednesday, May 22, 11 am – noon, Room 356-357 The session was instigated by Meredith Doby, of the …
Futurist Friday: Deepfake Dali

By Elizabeth Merritt

What if you could speak with the dead? More to the point, what if they could talk back? I just read about a project at the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, that uses “deepfake” technology to create a digital version of …
I Can Haz Cryptokitties and You Can Too

By Elizabeth Merritt

I will be running a Cryptokitty meet-up at the AAM annual meeting in New Orleans on Tuesday, May 21 from 2:00 – 2:30 in the Alliance Resource Center in MuseumExpo. Join me for a brief tutorial on collecting, breeding and trading digital …
Futurist Friday: Fractional Art

By Elizabeth Merritt

Here’s William Gibson, writing in 1986, offering an off-hand glimpse of art collecting in the year 2042: “He led her across the room and through a doorway. A graying, heavyset Frenchman in a rumpled corduroy suit was speaking into the …