Shaving The Woolly Mammoth

From last night’s episode of Bob’s Burgers: “Carpe Museum.”

I suspect Bob’s Burgers has some former museum workers on their writing staff. They know our world too well.

Visitor Motivation:

The Sands from Exotic Lands exhibit is my favorite. Last year, when I got home, there was sand in my crack. It was hands-on learnin’ for my butt!

Hey, I heard you can see boobies from all around the world in this museum – if you know where to look. We’re going on a boobie-bender!

Underpaid/Overworked Museum Staff:

Hey, I think those are picketers.
Picketers? Even the people who get paid to go in there don’t want to go in there – that’s how terrible it is!

Give us more money, damnit, or we’ll shave the woolly mammoth!
Give us longer breaks for snacks, or we’ll burn the artifacts!
Make our paycheck more colossal, or we’ll poop on all the fossils!

Rules, Rules, Rules:

I’ll show you the ropes, and then we’re going to go under the ropes and TOUCH ALL THE STUFF.

Ugh, when I hear ‘Stay with the group,’ I leave the group.

Remember, kids, smiling is the new touching.

If you ignore history, you’ll be doomed to repeat it. And if you touch history, you’ll be suspended for six days.

And when you get to the pioneer exhibit, learn but don’t churn!

Did anyone else see the episode?

Did anyone else see the episode, cringe when plesiosaurs* were referred to as “the coolest dinosaur,” and then yell at the television that plesiosaurs were marine reptiles, not dinosaurs? No? Just me, then? Alrighty…

*Does anyone else’s spell check keep changing “plesiosaur” to “applesauce?”

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Monday Links

Grace-Black-De-Young

Taking a 12-year old to the museum – a photo essay.

Jamestown cannibalism confirmation, and the evidence will be displayed at the Smithsonian.

Photographer Haley Morris-Cafiero documents the people who mock her in public by taking their picture.

The story behind the ubiquitous “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster.

For the museum bloggers out there – is your sidebar a hot mess?

Remember to find concrete and tangible ways to actually USE your audience evaluation data.

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From the Mouths of Babes

…that babe, of course, being Colin Firth.

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Am I right, or am I right?

From his appearance on Inside the Actors’ Studio:

Anyone who has tried to speak another language will find, if you’re limited in that language, will find that you end up saying what you can rather than what you really want to say. And you start to circumnavigate the real thing. So who then are you in relation to the real world?

It’s important to remember that you won’t just have visitors who feel insecure in the language(s) of your museum, but you’ll have visitors who feel insecure in the language of museums. You’re talking – are you sure your visitors understand what you’re saying?

What tools do you provide to help your visitors feel confident in “speaking museum?” Do you give suggestions on how to look? How to question? How to explore? How to problem solve? How to think critically? How to disagree? Do you create common vocabularies for everyone to share?

We work so hard to encourage discourse, discussion, and debate to happen in our spaces, for visitors to have engaging dialogues with us and each other. I wonder how much might get lost in translation?

What if, during a trip to your museum, visitors didn’t just see things but learned how to see them – practicing and perfecting their fluency in museums so they can say what they really want to say, and we can hear them?

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Monday Links

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Here’s what was awesome in the world this week:

The Toronto Public Library launched TKR-451, a Fahrenheit-451 alternative reality game. Take your seashells out of your ears and join the Resistance!

I don’t know what’s better – that a seal has shown that a non-vocal mimicing animal can keep a beat, or that he does it using The Backstreet Boys! (be still my 12-year old heart)

A personal photo series exploring the role of facial hair in perceptions of personal gender identity.

Artist Marina Abramovic is unexpectedly reunited with an old love during her performance piece “The Artist is Present.” So beautiful.

Regan Forrest’s compelling thoughts on “the half-life of history.”

John Cleese demonstrates that the human brain is still better at creating fake English than a computer is at translating it.

Seattle is building an food forest.

Inuktitut has been added alongside English and French as an official language of Nunavut, Canada’s youngest territory. I am now fluent in all of Nunavut’s official languages, as long as you define fluency as being able to say “peanut butter” and “goodbye.”

Make the most out of workshop or event – tips on how to be prepared and shine at your next conference or get together.

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Why Don’t You? Exhibit Trailers

comingsoon

How do you tell your community about your exhibits? Are you opening a new exhibit? Do you have an existing exhibit you want more people to visit? What if you create an exhibit trailer and…

  • Preview your new exhibit to the world?
  • Re-envision and remind visitors of the great exhibit you already have?
  • Make something busy and exciting? Quiet and sparse, beautiful and poignant?
  • Fill it with objects and specimens and movie clips and archival images and internet cat videos?
  • Give away hints and glimpses, leaving your viewers/visitors curious for more?
  • Capture the essence of the exhibit in two minutes?
  • Use actors? Community members? Animation? Someone famous?
  • Link it to popular community blogs? Airing it on regional cable channels?
  • Partner with a local university/high school/dramatic society/museum members group to create it?
  • Use it as the foundation for a social media promotion?

Find some inspiration below:

Continue reading

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Favorite Phrase – Jellies: Living Art

I can’t praise creating beautiful, emotive, unexpected, and fun text without referencing one of my favorite exhibits of all time: the Monterrey Bay Aquarium’s Jellies: Living Art.

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The exhibit’s now closed, but was it ever something amazing. Showcasing jelly species against paintings, sculptures, and scientific illustrations, the exhibit displayed jellies as pieces of art and wrote about art and animals as beautiful things.

(Excuse the photo quality. Let’s blame the low light and old camera, shall we?)

…the fluid expanse of an unruffled sea…

…inky black ribbons that anchor them together…

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…the stature of these delectable treats.

…watch how they glisten and glow…

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Are you kidding me with how beautiful that writing is?! It makes me think when the most beautiful art labels I’ve ever read are in an aquarium.

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The Real Thing

TheRealThing

Visitors watching a chick hatch from its egg

Just a quick reminder: the real thing is amazing.

*image taken at the Freiburg Naturmuseum’s Vom Ei zum Küken (From the Egg to the Chickexhibit.

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