Episode Archive
108 episodes of Museum Archipelago since the first episode, which aired on April 3rd, 2015.
-
72. âSpeechless: Different by Designâ Reframes Accessibility and Communication in a Museum Context
November 18th, 2019 | 14 mins 42 secs
Museums tend to be verbal spaces: thereâs usually a lot of words. Galleries open with walls of text, visitors are presented with rules of do and don'ts, and audio guides lead headphone-ed users from one piece to the next, paragraph by paragraph.
But Speechless: Different by Design, a new exhibit at the Dallas Art Museum and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, guides visitors as far away as possible from words with six custom art installations.
In this episode, curator Sarah Schleuning and graphic designer Laurie Haycock Makela discuss how their personal experiences lead them to Speechless, and describe the process and considerations of putting it all together.
-
71. Assessing Curatorial Work for Social Justice With Elena Gonzales
October 28th, 2019 | 15 mins 6 secs
Museums are seen as trustworthy, but what if that trust is misplaced? Chicago-based independent curator Elena Gonzales provides a solid jumping off point for thinking critically about museums in her new book, Exhibitions for Social Justice.
The book is a whirlwind tour of different museums, examining how they approach social justice. Itâs also a guide map for anyone interested in a way forward.
In this episode, Gonzales takes us on a tour of some of the main themes of the book, examining the strategies of museum institutions from the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia to the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago.
-
70. The Gabrovo Museum of Humor Bolsters Its Legacy of Political Satire Post-Communism
September 30th, 2019 | 11 mins 30 secs
bulgaria, museum of humor
To the extent that there was a Communist capital of humor in the last half of the 20th century, it was Gabrovo, Bulgaria. Situated in a valley of the Balkan mountains, the city prides itself on its unique brand of self-effacing humor. In 1972, the Museum House of Humor and Satire opened here, and the city celebrated political humor with people in Soviet block countries and even some invited Western guests.
Today, three decades after the collapse of Communism, the Museum House of Humor and Satire remains one of the region's most important cultural landmarks. The museum has had to reinvent itself to interpret not only a democratic Bulgaria, but a the global, meme-driven, and internet-forged culture most visitors live in.
I went to Gabrovo to visit museum director Margarita Dorovska, who describes how the museum's strengths in its early yearsâlike knowing how to present political humor without arousing the interest of the authoritiesâinform how the museum thinks of its role in the world today.
-
69. Soviet Spacecraft in the American Heartland: The Story of the Kansas Cosmosphere
August 26th, 2019 | 11 mins 53 secs
From Apollo Mission Control in Houston, Texas, to the field in southeastern Russia where Yuri Gargarin finished his first orbit, there are many sites on earth that played a role in space exploration. But Hutchinson, Kansas isnât one of them.
And yet, Hutchinsonâa town of 40,000 peopleâis home to the Cosmosphere, a massive space museum. The Cosmosphere boasts an enormous collection of spacecraft, including the largest collection of Soviet space hardware anywhere outside Russia. How did all of these space artifacts end up in the middle of Kansas?
To find out, I visited Hutchinson to talk to Cosmosphere curator Shannon Whetzel. In this episode, Whetzel describes the story of the Cosmosphere as âbeing in the right place at the right time,â why the museumâs collection includes âdestroyedâ artifacts, and how she interprets Soviet hardware for a new generation.
-
68. The Akomawt Educational Initiative Forges a Snowshoe Path to Indigenize Museums
August 5th, 2019 | 14 mins 42 secs
akomawt educational initiative, endawnis spears, mashantucket pequot museum
Akomawt is a Passamaquoddy word for the snowshoe path. At the beginning of winter, the snowshoe path is hard to find. But the more people pass along and carve out this path through the snow during the season, the easier it becomes for everyone to walk it together.
In this episode, endawnis Spears (Diné/ Ojibwe/ Chickasaw/ Choctaw), director of programming and outreach for the Akomawt Educational Initiative, talks about the different between living culture and sterile museum artifacts, how Native narratives are violently presented through a white lens in museums, and the potential for museums to disrupt that for many visitors.
-
67. Cité de l'Espace Celebrates Apollo Day from the Middle of the Space Race
July 15th, 2019 | 8 mins 8 secs
apollo 11, cité de l'espace
CitĂ© de l'Espace in Toulouse, France is a museum in the middle. It is in the middle of Franceâs Aerospace Valley and the European Space Industry. But it is also geographically in the middle of the two competing superpowers in the Space Race that ended with Apollo 11.
-
66. From âExtinct Monstersâ to âDeep Timeâ: A History of the Smithsonian Fossil Hall
June 17th, 2019 | 14 mins 35 secs
nmnh, smithsonian
The most-visited room in the most-visited science museum in the world reopened last week after a massive, five year renovation. Deep Time, as the new gallery is colloquially known, is the latest iteration of the Fossil Hall at the Smithsonianâs National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.
-
65. Sarah Nguyen Helps Fight Digital Decay with Preserve This Podcast
June 3rd, 2019 | 11 mins 8 secs
archiving, sarah nguyen
Everything decays. In the past, human heritage that decayed slowly enough on stone, vellum, bamboo, silk, or paper could be put in a museumâstill decaying, but at least visible. Today, human heritage is decaying on hard drives.
Sarah Nguyen, a MLIS student at the University of Washington, is the project coordinator of Preserve This Podcast, a project and podcast of the same name that proposes solutions to fight against the threats of digital decay for podcasts. Alongside archivists Mary Kidd and Dana Gerber-Margie, and producer Molly Schwartz, Nguyen advocates for Personal Digital Archiving, the idea that for the first time, your data is under your control and you can archive it to inform future history. Personal archiving counters the institutional gatekeepers who determined which data and stories are worth preserving.
In this episode, Nguyen cautions that preserving culture digitally comes with its own set of pitfalls, describes the steps that individuals can do to reduce the role of chance in preserving digital media, and why automatic archiving tools donât properly contextualize.
-
64. Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Atlantis Experience Is Part Museum, Part Themed Attraction
May 13th, 2019 | 13 mins 33 secs
The Space Shuttle Atlantis Experience, which opened at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida in 2013 brings visitors ânose to noseâ with one of the three remaining Space Shuttle orbiters. The team that built it used principles of themed attraction design to introduce visitors to the orbiter and the rest of the exhibits.
Atlantis is introduced linearly and deliberately: visitors see two movies about the shuttle before the actual orbiter is dramatically revealed behind a screen. The orbiterâs grand entrance was designed by PVAG Destinations, whose portfolio includes theme parks and museums. Diane Lochner, a vice president of the company who was part of the architectural design team, says that without that carefully-planned preparation, visitors wouldnât have the same powerful emotional reaction to the Shuttle.
In this episode, Lochner is joined by Tom Owen, another vice president at PVAG Destinations to talk about the visitor experience considerations of the Shuttle Atlantis Experience, whether attractions engineered to create a specific emotional response in visitors are appropriate for museum contexts, and the broader trend of museums taking cues from theme park design.
-
63. Sex and Death Are on Display at The Museum of Old and New Art
April 29th, 2019 | 9 mins 57 secs
mona, museum of old and new art, tasmania
The Museum of Old and New Art opened in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia in 2011. With a name like that, MONA could include any type of art. But looking at the collection, itâs clear that its creator, millionaire gambler David Walsh, has a fascination with sex and death -- and bets that the rest of us do too.
Walsh himself calls MONA a âsubversive adult Disneyland.â The buildingâs architecture is designed to make you feel lost, and the art is displayed without any labels whatsoever. Itâs just you and the art.
In this episode, Hobart-based musician Bianca Blackhall talks about how sheâs watched MONA reshape the creative community and art landscape of the island, what makes the museum different from other art museums, and how Hobart is now in âSauron's Eye of tourism.â
-
62. David Gough Reclaims Stewardship of Tiagarra for Aboriginal Tasmanians
April 15th, 2019 | 14 mins 32 secs
david gough, tasmania, tiagarra
The displays at the Tiagarra Cultural Centre and Museum in Devonport, Tasmania, Australia were built in 1976 by non-indigenous citizens and scientists without consulting Aboriginal Tasmanians. David Gough, chairperson of the Six Rivers Aboriginal Corporation, remembers visiting the museum when he was younger and seeing his own culture presented as extinct.
Today, Gough is the manager of Tiagarra. When he took over, one of the first things he did was put masking tape over the inappropriate and incorrect descriptions and write in the correct information. As Gough explains, racist language covered up and written over by the very people it describes is the perfect metaphor for what Tiagarra was in the past and what it is going to be in the future.
On this episode, Gough and fellow Six Rivers Aboriginal Corporation board member Sammy Howard give a special tour of the museum, describe using the museum to educate members of their community and the wider public, and discuss the future of Tiagarra.
-
61. Jody Steele Centers the Convict Women of Tasmania's Penal Colonies at the Female Factory
April 1st, 2019 | 14 mins 44 secs
female factory, jody steele, tasmania
Penal transportation from England to Australia from the late 1700s to the mid-1800s was used to expand Britain's spheres of influence and to reduce overcrowding in British prisons. The male convict experience is well-known, but the Cascades Female Factory in Hobart is at the center of a shift in how Australians think of the role that female convicts played in the colonization of Tasmania.
Dr. Jody Steele, the heritage interpretation manager for the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority, which includes the Female Factory, says that having a convict ancestor used to be considered shameful. But in the past 20 years, attitudes have shifted dramatically. Sites like the Female Factory, the Female Convicts Research Centre, and a general interest in geological research have helped the public better understand how the forced labor of women built the economy of the island.
Today, the museum is on the cusp of a major renovation. Dr Steele describes how the proposed design, chosen by an all-female panel, will present the female convict experience in Tasmania.