empathy – American Alliance of Museums

B.U.I.L.D.-ing Empathy: A Framework for Reinvigorating Your Workplace

By Ashley Witherspoon

One of the throughlines of my career in social services has been witnessing the power of empathy. I first discovered this power as an undergraduate criminal justice major, when I completed a field placement at a local juvenile detention …
Catching Feelings for a Triceratops: How Live Theater in Museums Evokes Empathy in Visitors

By Ilana Gustafson

An excited murmur can be heard throughout the audience as they await the show to begin. When we come together to watch a live performance we expect to be moved, to be transported out of the mundane of daily life and have our imaginations …
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), …
An “Empathy Bridge” Helps the Woodland Park Zoo Drive Social Change

By Laurie Stuart, Daniel Rother, Laurel Abbotts, & Mary Jackson

Any cultural institution can benefit from understanding and fostering meaningful, emotional experiences for our audiences, especially those whose missions emphasize individual, community, or societal change. For zoos and aquariums, this …
Programming Through the Lens of Empathy

By Lorena Bradford

At the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, two new public programs and one new high school tour are built on the premises that empathy is worth cultivating and listening to the perspectives of others is valuable.[1] These programs …
Time for New Norms: Museums must address their systemic inequities if they want to be truly inclusive—and relevant—institutions.

By Chris Taylor

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2019 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of AAM membership. In American history, the Civil Rights Movement is held up as a beacon of progress and equality, a momentous time in our …
Futurist Friday: Emotional Storytelling

By Elizabeth Merritt

My favorite futurist video this week: Karen Palmer talking about her latest artificial intelligence project. Palmer is an artist/technologist who combines film, storytelling, and neuroscience to create ’emotionally responsive …
Futurist Friday: Redemptive VR

By Elizabeth Merritt

Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination has released the first story in its Crowd Futures project. In this experiment in collaborative storytelling, authors and illustrators will invite members of an …
Quick wins for building empathy with visitors: 4 hacks inspired by School Retool

By Dana Mitroff Silvers

This post originally appeared on Design Thinking for Museums and is republished here with permission. Last spring and this winter, I’ve had the opportunity to work as a coach for a project called School Retool, an initiative …
The Portal: A Real-Time Conversation with People Forced to Flee Violence

By Elizabeth Merritt

In TrendsWatch 2017 I highlight Shared Studio’s Portals in the chapter on Empathy. These bi-directional video walls host virtual “face-to-face” conversations between people around the world, and have been used by a variety of institutions, …