About the show
A tiny show guiding you through the rocky landscape of museums. Museum Archipelago believes that no museum is an island and that museums are not neutral.
Taking a broad definition of museums, host Ian Elsner brings you to different museum spaces around the world, dives deep into institutional problems, and introduces you to the people working to fix them. Each episode is never longer than 15 minutes, so let’s get started.
Episodes
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35. Cartoons from the Museum Floor with Attendants View
February 5th, 2018 | 10 mins 1 sec
Attendants View is a blog of hand-drawn, single page cartoons that capture a slice of a museum attendant’s day.
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34. Erotic Heritage Museum with Dr. Victoria Hartmann
January 22nd, 2018 | 7 mins 36 secs
erotic heritage museum, victoria hartmann
The Las Vegas Erotic Heritage Museum is the largest erotic museum in the world. Sex scholar Dr. Victoria Hartmann has been the museum’s director since 2014, and her mission is to create a space for people to safely explore and engage the topic of human sexuality.
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33. Icelandic Museums with Hannah Hethmon
January 8th, 2018 | 12 mins 28 secs
hannah hethmon
Iceland has many more museums per person than the UK and the US. The country is also in the middle of a massive tourism boom: there are several times more tourists than residents.
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32. What a Museum on the Moon Might Look Like With Michelle Hanlon
December 25th, 2017 | 13 mins 27 secs
apollo 11 historic site, michelle hanlon
Today, we talk with Michelle Hanlon, a space lawyer who volunteers with For All Moonkind, about what it will take to protect these sites them for future generations -- and speculate about what a lunar museum might look like.
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31. Habemus with Romina Frontini & Christian Díaz
December 11th, 2017 | 11 mins 20 secs
christian díaz, romina frontini
Habemus is a Spanish-language radio program about museum topics broadcasting out of Bahía Blanca, Argentina.
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30. Visitors of Color with Dr. Porchia Moore
November 6th, 2017 | 11 mins 20 secs
porchia moore
Dr. Porchia Moore, Inclusion Catalyst at the Columbia Museum of Art, started Visitors of Color with nikhil trivedi in 2015.
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29. A Digital Approach to Museum Maps
October 23rd, 2017 | 4 mins 19 secs
Everything happens at a time and a place. In a museum, that coordinate system can help keep a story straight, even if it is not at the forefront of a gallery. And when designing maps for museums, we should keep in mind how humanistic digital tools are — and how helpful they can be to museum visitors
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28. Leaving the Museum Field with Marieke Van Damme
October 9th, 2017 | 11 mins 51 secs
marieke van damme
Executive Director of the Cambridge Historical Society Marieke Van Damme always knew that working in the museum field is hard.
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27. Yo, Museum Professionals
September 11th, 2017 | 4 mins 28 secs
An interactive screen can teach global climate change in ways an object can’t.
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26. Arab American National Museum with Devon Akmon
August 28th, 2017 | 12 mins 22 secs
arab american national museum, devon akmon
Before the Arab American National Museum opened in Dearborn, MI in 2005, there wasn’t a singular museum telling the Arab American story.
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25. The Museum of Socialist Art in Sofia, Bulgaria is Figuring Out What to Do With All the Lenins
July 17th, 2017 | 8 mins 6 secs
bulgaria, elitsa terzieva, museum of socialist art, nikolai ushtavaliiski, statues
After the fall of communism in Bulgaria in 1989, statues of Bulgarian communist leaders, idealized revolutionary workers, and Lenins were taken down all over the county. Some of these statues are now in the Museum of Socialist Art in Sofia. Bulgaria doesn’t have a history museum that explores its communist past.
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24. College Hill and the International Slave Trade Walking Tour with Elon Cook
July 3rd, 2017 | 10 mins 39 secs
Elon Cook created College Hill and the International Slave Trade walking tour in Providence after researching the crucial and massive role that Rhode Island played in the history of slavery.