Friday, September 27, 2024

Learning Format: Active Learning

Mindfulness in museums is a timely topic–from meditation programming to cultivating connections among audiences, to writing and artmaking activities, there are many opportunities for museums to provide meaningful programs that support wellness and balance for their audiences and staff. Join educators with over fifteen years’ experience for a participatory session that will include activities such as slow looking, artmaking, deep discussion, and handouts.

Learning Format: Conversation

In 2026, the United States will commemorate 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. What does that mean for museums in the West? Are Indigenous, Black, Asian, Pacific Islander, Latino/a/x and other stories of communities often left out of history books being told? Might this be an opportunity to share them? Attendees are invited to share their perspectives, recommendations, and engage in conversation around museums and the commemoration.

Learning Format: Active Learning

The overall focus of this session is to demonstrate how collections staff and development staff can develop a true fundraising partnership. This session will help fundraisers better understand how to work closely with collections staff members to craft successful funding proposals. It will also help collections staff members communicate the community impact and visitor benefit of highly technical (and expensive) collections projects.

Learning Format: Conversation

Executive Searches can fail for any number of reasons, often due to causes out of control of the search committee. Experienced search professional Marilyn Hoffman leads a panel of failed search survivors to discuss how to turn lemons in lemonade and put lessons learned into action for an even more effective search.

Learning Format: Passive Learning

The Lahaina Restoration Foundation (LRF) stewards multiple historic sites and collections throughout Lahaina Town in West Maui, Hawai‘i. Learn about LRF’s response to the devastating August 2023 wildfire, ongoing recovery efforts for buildings and collections, and what resilience means for staff and community into the future. Attendees will have opportunities to ask questions and share their own experiences.

Learning Format: Passive Learning

Since 2007, the Tucson Museum of Art has partners with the Alzheimer’s Association Desert Southwest Chapter to provide a program for people with dementia and their caregiver. In this session, learn about how the program is designed, how staff and volunteers are trained, and what successes and failure the program has had. Hear from both the museum as well as the Alzheimer Association to understand the benefit of a program like this.

Learning Format: Active Learning

This session will explore innovations, impacts, and strategies for fostering collaborative and community-based curation. Presenters, comprised of community collaborators and museum professionals, will share a case study from the Tucson Museum of Art that offers a framework, tools, and questions for consideration when co-creating interpretative content. To illustrate community-curation practices, attendees will workshop a selection of artworks and themes from art of the American West to explore a 21st century vision of cultures and ideas.

Learning Format: Passive Learning

Learning Format: Active Learning

Talkback exhibits prompt visitors to respond on Post-it Notes, notebooks, or digital platforms, bringing their perspectives and voices into exhibitions. Such exhibits have become commonplace in museums, but few are treating the responses as data sources and mining them for insights into visitor engagement, meaning-making, and dialogue. In this session, presenters will discuss case studies and provide frameworks for analyzing different types of talkback data. Attendees will share their talkback data and develop analysis plans.

Learning Format: Conversation

Join a conversation with three unique organizations who are on a path of decolonization – from policies, programs, collections management, historical designations, to name changes – The Museum of Us, Burke Museum and The Confluence (formerly Fort Calgary) will discuss their paths to truth and reconciliation.