I am a passionate believer in the power of community. Small, large, microcosm- it doesn't matter. So I get pretty excited when I hear about projects such as the Denver Community Museum ("Present Day Artifacts Made by the People for the People"). Thanks to Brent Carmack of the Fort Collins Museum for bringing this to my attention. From their site: "The Denver Community Museum is a temporary museum located in Denver, Colorado. Carried out in the form of a pop-up gallery, the museum will exist for less than one year - an institution with an expiration date. Contents for the Museum's monthly, rotating exhibitions are based entirely on community submissions. The Denver Community Museum is a not-for-profit project, which is free and open to the public." Basically, they put out a call for entries... to the neighborhood. Such as "Mummify something you would like to preserve - any shape/size, using any materials you desire. Share any relevant mummy stories, facts, accoutrements or charms for display." They accompany it with a photo suggestion, and then put on a show at the end of the month of submissions. Here are some of the things I love about this idea: - their identity is specifically in line with the community: it's about them, literally - they have created a ritual around the exhibits changing on a monthly basis - they have also created a sense of anticipation + surprise - each new exhibit will reveal something about the people around you - it's temporary - it's free Here's what I'm not so excited about: - it's temporary - it's free Founder Jaime Kopke was quoted as saying: “The idea is to create a community archive that is both accessible and relevant to Denver residents...
This quote comes courtesy of the Linda Moore, curator at the Fort Collins History Museum. It was overheard at the "Poor of Me, Good of Dog" May Wilkins exhibit, where they put out typewriters for visitor use. After I stopped feeling old (and laughing) it reminded me of a dilemma I sometimes saw at the Exploratorium. A new parent would come in and tell their children "don't touch" but figure out about 1/4 of the way through that it was all about touch. I once worked on a project where I agonized about what type of barrier to use. It was a natural history exhibit that had numerous taxidermied animals and delicate artifacts. Like most designers, I didn't want to put up a visual barrier. The director said that we only needed to put up a simple cable. His argument was that the psychology of crossing the line would be so great that visitors wouldn't need more than that. In the final build however, they made the sides of the exhibit so steep, no one could reach the artifacts, cable or not. At Gyroscope, we addressed this problem at Exploration Place in Wichita by putting dried wheat grass as a no-touch barrier slightly above the rail. It has been very effective, yet makes the visitor feel that they can have some contact with the objects since they're not "under glass". It's wonderful to leave objects out- it helps visitors feel closer to them. But what happens when you're in a history museum context and you reverse the expectation as visitors move from gallery to gallery. Some cases where you want visitors to touch, and most others where you don't? I know that I get into a "mode" when I'm at certain museums- where I almost feel reluctant to move from passive to active. At the recent Bay Area Now 5 show at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, I noticed a number of the artists were using "takeaways" as part of their pieces. They gave large prints and questionnaires (ala Felix Gonzales-Torres). This is not always clear to visitors, and the guards have to sometimes tell folks it's Ok. This got me to wondering about how to make it clear and inviting as people shift from gallery to gallery with an ever-changing set of expectations? One thought I have is to be a little more deliberate. For example, create a "interactivity ramp" between elements when a visitor is in an environment where they don't expect to interact. That model might look like this: 
Hi, Janet Petitpas here. I work for Gyroscope in London. I recently attended the "From Audiotours to iPhones" conference at the Tate Modern. It was a particularly interesting conference for me as I have a background at low-tech museums and am not experienced in using, maintaining, or facilitating interactive technology in the museum environment. Many of the stars of the field were at the seminar (Peter Samis, Nancy Proctor and Jane Burton, to name a few). I was pleased at how down to earth and un-seduced by the technology everyone turned out to be. Here were a couple of take-aways for me, and things that all presenters repeated: 
Last spring, I participated in the MakerFaire in San Mateo, by putting together an exhibit called "The Power of the Prototype". It was a great experience for me, both personally and professionally. I came in contact with a broad swath of people that I might not have otherwise met in a museum setting. I learned a tremendous amount from this experiment. It got me thinking about how powerful that intersection of Creativity, Community and Critical Thinking can be, and how we might continue to foster it in the museum world. This is a topic I will definitely come back to from time to time. I attended my first MakerFaire in 2007 with other Gyroscopians. We wanted to evaluate some of the public programs there for a new institution we were working on called The Leonardo, in Salt Lake City. A large part of the concept we developed with The Leonardo was to fill the museum primarily with workshops, rather than exhibits. We wanted to encourage daVinci-esque thinking, by providing places where visitors could make things- be they artistic, scientific, or purely inventive. 
We also wanted to provide an area where they could share and show off their work. So we developed what we called "Community Looms". These were essentially wall dividers that displayed the visitor-made products. This, we hoped, would have the effect of elevating their work, both to themselves and others. We sought to create a cyclical effect (not unlike the MakerFaire) where visitors would be inspired by seeing people from their community creating and sharing their work, and thus, being a point of inspiration. The Leonardo is still in development, but we'd love to hear from others about their experiences with a workshop-based approach. Do you have a story to tell? Have you seen a workshop model that worked well (or didn't) for you? Up next on this topic: what makes the MakerFaire so successful?
In an era where people can select the news they want to hear, they are making their own decisions about their experiences in museums and galleries. As we know, they can blog, comment, and even give each other context about what they experience. After all, it is their experience. The question for museums is how to help individuals make meaning out of these choices? How do you reach them? How do you validate their experience... and add to it? One answer is find out what people are saying. Give them ample opportunity to post what they think about your exhibits. For example, you could offer them the opportunity to respond with a multi-pronged approach, divided along favored types of input: 
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