Posts
Labor
One Museum’s Plan to Keep Its Full Staff During COVID-19
Like most sectors of the economy, the museum field is facing sharp losses in revenue and uncertainty about when they will be reversed. Many institutions have decided to lay off, furlough, …
13 Tips for Working Remotely
With the rapidly evolving COVID-19 situation in the US and elsewhere, museums may begin allowing employees to work from home. For those new to this type of work life, the Independent Museum …
The Top Ten Alliance Blog Posts of 2019
It was a whirlwind year of museums making themselves over for our changing world. Evolving ethics, social and technological transformation, and the looming presence of the bottom line are …
Reinventing Museum Careers
Museum workers tend to have a high sense of ethics, strong workplace values, and genuine pride in their organizations, relative to many other professions. But in recent times, the field has …
Taking Account
It’s natural that people tend to “take account” of their lives as they get older. They become interested in reviewing where they and their ancestors have been, and pay increased attention …
The battle to rebuild centuries of science after an epic inferno
Nearly a year after flames consumed Brazil's National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, researchers are struggling to revive their work and resume their lives. Nearly a year after flames consumed …
Revisiting Volunteers and Museum Labor
I’m working on an essay about museum volunteers and diversity, exploring how this issue intertwines with efforts to diversify our staff, boards, and audiences. What are the barriers …
TrendsWatch 2019: Take Care: Building resilience and sustainable practice
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 …
Museums as a Pink Collar Profession
This week, my colleagues at GEMM (the Gender Equity in Museums Movement) published their second white paper, Museums as a Pink Collar Profession. GEMM’s paper poses some complex questions …
The Power of a Paid Internship: Creating pathways to careers in museums
In 2015, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation issued a report on diversity in art museums that reinforced what is obvious to anyone working in or affiliated with the industry: non-Hispanic white …
A critically acclaimed National Gallery show must come down, so workers are moving the art without pay
January 14 The Rachel Whiteread sculpture show at the National Gallery of Art ended its four-month run this weekend, but because of the partial government shutdown, no one had been able to …
Are Fabricators the Most Important People in the Art World?
As contemporary artists become increasingly less present in their own work, the people who make their pieces remain unsung heroes. THE IMAGE OF the artist feverishly working alone as first …