Language/Arts: How the Verbal and Visual Intersect in Museums
A picture is worth a thousand words. Or so the aphorism tells us. What, then, is the value of a single word? That is the question I have explored time and again as an educator in an art museum. It might seem counterintuitive that someone …
You, Me, We: Tackling Identity and Discrimination with Young Audiences
In February 2023, Boston Children’s Museum opened a new exhibition called You, Me, We, which encourages families to connect with each other around questions of fairness in the world, reflect on and express their identities, explore …
Neurodivergent Needs: A Q&A with ADDitude Magazine
If museums want to be welcoming and accessible, one of the areas they must consider is neurodiversity. How do the ways we process information and stimuli differ from person to person, and how can we design experiences that work across this …
Climate Action Heroes: How National Children’s Museum Is Empowering the Next Generation of Climate Innovators
African American students walking out of school to march for equal rights in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. Eight-year-old activist Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins climbing out of her wheelchair and up the steps of the US Capitol to support the …
Disrupting Museum Behavior: An Exploration of the Art Institute of Chicago’s “Cripping the Galleries”
On a hot Sunday afternoon, Sydney Erlikh, seated in a wheelchair, leaned against Maypril Krukowski, a woman with glasses seated on a bench. Sounds of church bells, shuffling footsteps, and walking filled the gallery of landscape paintings …
The Best Museum Cafés and Restaurants, According to Museum People
Any seasoned museumgoer knows that feeling a few hours into a visit. You came in energized, eager, and attentive, ready to conquer some exhibitions, but now you’re losing steam. The wall texts are running together; you’re breezing past …
Empathy Interviews: A Tool for Museums to Understand the Feelings and Experiences of Others
Imagine sitting down with local community members and hearing stories about the places they feel they can show up as their most authentic selves, or where and how they have learned something interesting in the past, or what drives them to …
A Human-Centered Approach to Guest Services
Compared to other areas of museum work, guest services (or visitor services, as it’s sometimes known) often gets overlooked for the impact it has on community-building. This may be because, rather than any one big initiative, the work of …
4 Ideas to Create Linguistic Accessibility at Museums
Though the word “accessibility” has often been equated with giving access to those with disabilities, it can also mean something broader. Accessibility means looking at everything we create through the lens of inclusivity and diversity and …
A Free Survey to Measure a Sense of Belonging at Museums
Not everyone wants to visit a museum. This is in part because of operational issues like cost, location, schedule, but these aren’t the whole story. Some don’t even reach the point of worrying about logistics, because the mere idea …
