Despite the varying conventions and other surface-level differences between genres of museum writing, I believe there are core commonalities at the heart of all of them, which we can use as a beacon in aligning the nuances of our work to our institutions’ overall missions. To discover what these commonalities are, I interviewed museum professionals across the country about the values that guide their writing, and presented my research in a poster at this year’s AAM Annual Meeting. These are the core values I found that can make museum writing more effective.

Unity

Because there are so many genres of writing in the field, one of the most important principles for museum writers to embrace is unity. This means producing written information in a way that is cohesive not only for a particular institution but for museological principles in general. For instance, an institution using a style guide produces content that follows the same rules of writing across multiple departments. Writing in this way creates a central institutional voice that the broader public can latch onto. “I have to ‘be’ the institution, no matter how my day is going,” explains Lizabel Stell, the Senior Social Media and Digital Content Manager at the Blanton Museum of Art.

The trust readers put in museums as cultural institutions means that communication that comes from museums must be credible. This can be especially tricky in genres like marketing, where writers must balance this responsibility with conventions that place less emphasis on straightforward factuality. You wouldn’t expect to read a scholarly article in an Instagram caption, for example. No matter the genre, you must be cognizant of audience expectations in a particular context.

Practical examples:

• Using a style guide to unify the texts created by an institution.
• Targeting specific audiences to ensure that your writing is being presented to its intended readers.
• Understanding the purpose of your writing assignment to fit within the conventions of the specific genre in which you’re writing.

Accessibility

An emphasis on accessibility is another core tenet of museum work. Just as museums should design their physical spaces to serve the widest range of guests possible, they should also produce writing that is understandable to a wide range of audiences. This is especially important in the digital age, as access to written information has expanded to many more audiences than before. No group of people should be barred from knowledge because of wording that is confusing or too complex for them.

One factor to consider is age. As the Director of Smithsonian Associates, Fredie Adelman, told me, “Audiences range in age from pre-K to post-retirement.” This means we must keep multiple age ranges in mind and, when possible, tailor our writing to the age of the intended audience. We must also consider the range of abilities, such as the ability to see, hear, or process information, and make use of digital tools like alt text and captions that can improve accessibility. For all audiences, an effective strategy is succinctness, so we are conveying information as efficiently as possible.

Practical examples:

• Using alt text and other written descriptions for visual elements.
• Creating captions for visual or audio experiences.
• Selecting and creating age-appropriate texts to make it easier for your intended audience to come away with new knowledge.
• Making your writing succinct to transfer information in the most efficient way possible.

Human-Centeredness

One important element of museum writing that sometimes goes overlooked is telling the human stories that make our institutions possible. Being human-focused is an important aspect of museum work. For example, this could look like giving proper context to collection pieces. Even when visitors are looking at an artifact from hundreds of years ago, they should still be reminded of the humanity behind the object and how it can connect to their contemporary lives.

Making human connections to diverse groups of people is one of the most powerful functions of cultural institutions. This is the ideal that makes museum writers like John Epp, the Curator of the USS Slater, pursue the “number one goal of bringing a human element” in everything they write. When we tell stories through the lens of the people involved, we make it easier for audiences to connect with and understand them. Ultimately, this helps foster connections between the work of museums and the communities whose stories we steward.

Practical examples:

• Writing donor letters to demonstrate the impact that financial backers have in achieving the mission of your institution.
• Using interviews and other personal anecdotes of people or groups you are writing about to help tell their story in their own words.
• Doing research to ensure that the historical and contemporary stories you tell are authentic to audiences’ real-world experiences.

Conclusion

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak with various museum professionals from across the country to learn about the connections between their writing work and the core missions of museology. No matter which of the many genres under the banner “museum writing” we practice, it is important that the work we produce falls in line with these deeper ideals. They are some of the most important aspects of the field itself. Thinking through these deeper connections will make the writing we do more effective and help achieve the goal of communicating information in ways that are far-reaching and value-driven.

Editor’s note: A version of this post previously appeared on the Association of Midwest Museums blog.

Funding the Project

The COVID pandemic challenged us to devise ways to obtain funding for projects that supported rather than competed with our local colleagues. With that in mind, I spearheaded various federal grant applications for the project with partners at the University of Arizona (UA) and with input from community partners with whom I’ve built relationships through past projects. None of this special pandemic funding came through, but the process of applying helped to fine-tune a grant we did receive, from the Institute for Museum and Library Services’ Museums for America program, for $190,953. During the second year of our project, I also wrote a proposal to the UA Library’s Digital Borderlands project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, for sixty thousand dollars, and one of our partners, the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center obtained a ten-thousand-dollar grant from Arizona Humanities to support our research. Among other purposes, these grants provided funds for the community partners, our university tech developers, a part-time multimedia specialist, technological needs such as server storage, signage printing and fabrication, and publicity. Because we worked with CDH, this funding covered most of the project; if we had worked with commercial vendors, though, it easily could have cost a million dollars because of the complexity of the AR experiences which we bundled together.

A Cohort of Learners

Over three years (2021-2024), a cohort of learners came together to explore how to use augmented reality (AR) to create a community-dispersed exhibit collectively called Discovering Community in the Borderlands. Representatives from Dunbar Pavilion (DP, an African American community center), Mission Garden (MG, an ethnobotanical garden), Borderlands Theater (BT, a Hispanic theater company that uses community oral history stories to create theatrical works), Pascua Yaqui Tribe Department of Language and Culture (PYT), and the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center (TCCC) worked together with the UA’s Arizona State Museum (whose focus is on Indigenous history and culture), Poetry Center (PC), and Center for Digital Humanities (a research and innovation incubator for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing digital technology projects, CDH). We also worked with the UA Library’s Special Collections staff.

At first, like deer in the headlights, we wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. Our biweekly meetings were peppered with the essential questions “What is AR?” “What can we do with it?” “How does it work?!” As we eventually learned, augmented reality is different from, though often confused for, virtual reality, which takes over a space and creates a new environment, requiring special glasses (and bigger budgets). Rather than creating a totally different place, augmented reality literally augments what is in the space you see. Instead of special glasses, you look through your phone to see the new augmented reality elements overlaid on the scene in front of you.

Once we thought we sort of understood what AR offered us, we brainstormed themes to guide the creation of our linked exhibit stories. We approached each exhibit as a way for users to discover the diverse communities whose histories and cultural traditions have formed this area of the Southwest borderlands we call home. Looking at our community as a place of abundance, we focused on stories about:

• Resilience/adaptation/belonging
• Reconciliation/reparations/race and identity
• Plants and use in the environment/foodways/healing
• Journey/migrations/immigration
• Cultural expression/celebrations/community gathering
• Entrepreneurship/heritage businesses

These themes reflect the diversity of the many partners sites’ missions, activities, and related community history. They helped direct content brainstorming that each partner did with colleagues and volunteers at its own organization. Each site’s exhibit story does not reflect all the themes, but often includes examples of more than one of them.

Throughout the project, everyone was learning. The UA students charged with designing the app and website that would deliver our stories had to find an appropriate platform and learn to do 3D scanning of museum objects, 3D video filming, holographic recording, and editing of all the above, plus how to render graphics, add voiceovers to images, and stitch together related AR elements into mini exhibit experiences. The curators, theater producers, educators, and community leaders were challenged to bring their storytelling and exhibit knowledge to a very different type of presentation than a static exhibit or public program. They delved into oral histories, archives, and collections to discover elements to include in their stories. They sought out community members, tradition-bearers, and actors to take part in presenting the stories by agreeing to be recorded holographically or via 360 or 2D video. Each community partner worked with ASM and CDH to identify objects, images, oral histories, and poetry and to think like a museum curator in designing how these flowed together to deliver a message. Staff from the UA Poetry Center helped us incorporate poetry into the experiences. They also took the lead in creating related writing prompt postcards for those who use the AR exhibits. These writing activities were presented at all AR experience launch programs and are available on the DCB website.

It took most of the first year to figure out the technology, draft exhibit stories, and identify content, and in many cases invite people to serve as the voices and faces in the experiences. We spent the next two years refining which digital platform to use to present the AR; locating exact sites for the AR; researching images, objects, poetry, and participants; digitizing content; recording holograms; designing the website; designing signage; and building and installing it. We also did a lot of adjusting as we tested the AR experiences with community members.

We demanded a lot of the student developers and multimedia specialist. We wanted a seamless experience where users can scan one QR code for multiple AR activities. Ultimately, after trying various platforms, they homed in on Blippar. Blippar allowed us to present diverse AR approaches within one space—holograms, digital photo walls, 360 and 2D videos, 3D objects—and to add “buttons” to press, text for identification, and captions. Users access all of this simply by scanning one QR code located on a sign.

Even once the stories and tangible objects were woven together into a digital story, we still felt AR was baffling. We were still asking, “But how does it work?” “Why can’t I see it on my phone?” “Where did the hologram go?” When it finally worked for each of us, it felt like magic. Then we discovered we needed to caption the experiences, not only for accessibility, but also for practicability: sometimes it is noisy outside and hard to hear elements. That created a new challenge for our app developers and multimedia specialist.

Sharing the AR Exhibits

The problem with AR is that you can’t see it! There is nothing there except a sign with a QR code on it. We knew our signage needed to be enticing, but we discovered we also had to tell people to scan the QR code to begin! Even then, it works better with a nudge and helper: people are more apt to use the experiences if someone is there directing them to scan the code and wait for it to load. How were we going to get people to find our AR exhibit sites and try the experiences? As part of our advertising campaign, we created a teaser to introduce people to the entire Discovering Community in the Borderlands linked exhibits.

In this teaser, you are greeted by Marc Pinate, Director of Borderlands Theater, as a hologram who tells you about the AR exhibits and shows you examples of 3D objects and 2D photographs, and a map of where the sites are while encouraging you to go to the DCB website to get directions and learn more. We used this mini AR experience on postcards that were distributed by each partner and placed at libraries, as well as on Tucson’s trolly car plaques, and on advertisements in local newspapers.

Project Results and Benefits

We did several launch events where we were on-hand to help users. At these we also encouraged people to do the writing prompt activities and to fill out evaluation forms. User comments included:

• “I loved the movement between the historical object, that then turns into an engaging animation to bring the aesthetics into lived space, that then intertwine with the dancers! Wow—what a wonderful demonstration of objects connecting to lived experience on tradition.” [referring to ASM’s AR experience]
• “It gives access to so many more people and places.”
• “It’s a quick, fun way to learn about our communities/community.”
• “I’m a Tucson archivist and have always wanted more ways to share Tucson history with non-historians. This is an engaging way to teach and share this story.”
• “There is so much hidden history in Tucson. This is the perfect strategy to introduce people to important history.”

The geographically dispersed Discovering Community in the Borderlands exhibit is not a passive experience. It invites dialogue, curiosity, and collaboration. Families, students, and tourists engage with the project, sparking conversations about identity, belonging, cultural resilience, and links among the diverse community histories and traditions that make up Tucson.

This project is an example of how museums can share resources, find funding, and help guide projects that give curatorial authority to community partners. It models shared learning of new techniques for telling stories, and is a unique way to further acceptance of community curation and use of new technologies for museum interpretation. DCB resulted in a website, writing activities, public programs, and a dispersed exhibit of ten different AR experience mini exhibits that share the history, culture, built and natural environment, struggles, joys, and lives of some of the diverse communities that make up the greater Tucson area. The DCB project also strengthened relations between all the project partners and has inspired new projects among them.

The AR Experiences

You can take a physical tour of Tucson as you visit the various AR sites, or go beyond physical boundaries and access them from the website. The project’s website has an interactive map connecting the different sites, as well as background information on each partner, photographs, writing activities, and the QR codes for the AR. Discover community in the Borderlands through these AR exhibit experiences:

Arizona State Museum

By ASM’s front entrance, encounter Amy Juan, a Tohono O’odham community organizer, in hologram form, and listen as she welcomes you to the O’odham himdag (land) where ASM is located and invites you to enjoy the Wak: Tab Basket Dancers. See a pot with Indigenous dancers painted on it swirl around as the dancers glide off and morph into a 360 video of actual Tohono O’odham basket dancers. Hear the gourd rattles keeping the beat and O’odham songs being sung while the group’s director explains the meaning of this traditional dance. In a 2D video, meet O’odham basketweaver Terrol Johnson and see favorite pieces of his in the museum’s vault, and then explore some of these baskets in 3D and a digital photo wall of Johnson’s baskets while he talks about his art practice. Hear O’odham poet Ofelia Zepeda read her poem about basketry in O’odham and English and see it scroll across the space.

Borderlands Theater

BT placed its AR exhibit at a park and launched it as part of its theatrical production of Westside Stories. Following a series of QR codes along a pathway, engage with either an actor as hologram sharing stories of the Hispanic and Chinese community whose barrio this was or with historic photographs of the area with voiceovers about related community experiences. You can also watch two animated videos telling the story of the “Gardens of Gethsemane,“ a large sculpture installed at the park. All the experiences in this AR exhibit are offered bilingually in Spanish and English.

Chinese History Downtown

This site is located on a walkway above what was a bustling multicultural community until urban renewal developers in the 1960s tore it down to build the Tucson Convention Center. The AR makes this hidden history visible once again. Watch a 2D video and hear Tina Liao recount the history of this bustling community and learn how cultural objects and documents reflecting that life have been preserved. See historic photographs, letters, and identification cards of members of the Chinese community of that time, and manipulate 3D cultural objects recovered during archaeology of the site. Discover how families maintained connections between their lives in Tucson and China.

Dunbar Pavilion

DP’s AR exhibit is accessible by scanning a QR code posted on the fence surrounding the 1917 Dunbar School (now a community center). Meet a Dunbar board member in hologram form and listen to him read the 1987 Mayoral Proclamation about the desegregation of the Dunbar School. Gaze at a gallery of historic photographs depicting joyous gatherings of Tucson’s twentieth-century African American community, documenting both celebration and resilience. Join the Tucson Slide Societies’ dance class and try a few steps in sync with the dancers.

Mission Garden

At the garden entrance, a hologram of gardener and community liaison Meagan Lopez introduces you to the history of farming in the Tucson area, which spans thousands of years. You can see historic photographs and hear a poem in five languages about the garden while taking a 360 tour of the grounds. Meet Ruben Cu:k Ba’ak and listen to his poem about O’odham foods, colonization, and the power of his culture for health.

Pascua Yaqui Tribe

Visitors to the Tribal Administration Building will find the AR sign near the entrance. Holographic Yaqui tribal members from Mexico and various Yaqui communities in Arizona share poetry, a rap song, and stories about love of their culture and their hopes for a resilient Yaqui community. Historic photographs and a map showing these communities can also be seen.

Tucson Chinese Cultural Center

Engage with the various activities of the TCCC’s Tucson Chinese School through 360 videos. Enjoy a traditional guzheng concert, read a poem about the instrument, and virtually touch the stringed instrument. Sit in on a Chinese language class. Be awed by the skill of young yo-yo students performing tricks while hearing about the history of the Chinese yo-yo.

Tucson Chinese Markets

In the tiny town of Tucson in the 1880s, a few Chinese settlers were selling provisions. By the turn of the twentieth century, the number had grown to forty stores, offering groceries including fresh produce from Chinese-owned farms on the banks of Tucson’s Santa Cruz river. They catered to the Mexican, Black, and Indigenous residents of the neighborhoods where the Chinese settled. The total number of Chinese stores peaked in the 1950s at over 100 and then began to decline in the 1960s. Although few are left, the evidence of them is apparent throughout the city. Visit three Chinese Market sites to see historic photographs and watch video reminiscences about these markets. The three highlighted were home to the historic Lim You Market, established in the 1920s/1930s and now housing Screwbean Brewery; New Empire Market, established originally as Joe Tang’s Market in the 1930s and still in business and Chinese-owned today; and the former Alan’s Market.

The profound impact of making infants visible in our museum led us to reflect back on AAM’s Excellence and Equity report (first published in 1992 and then 2008), particularly its second key idea: “Museums must become more inclusive places that welcome diverse audiences, but first they should reflect our society’s pluralism in every aspect of their operations and programs.” As the next step in our efforts to make this true for young audiences, we decided, based on conversations with early childhood educators and caregivers, to develop CSM’s first infant education program, Art Crawl. Here, we’ll share our experience with this program and our successes with infant inclusion. While this post focuses on our own experiences in art museums, we welcome conversation about infant programming and initiatives in other types of museums.

Art Crawl: Engaging Our Youngest Audience

CSM started offering Art Crawl in March 2022 as a program for families with infants between birth and fourteen months to engage with art, build relationships, and learn together. Surrounded by Clyfford Still’s expansive body of work, infants and caregivers who participate are invited to engage with a variety of multisensory materials that support discussion about the artworks around them. Art Crawl directly addresses the historical exclusion of children by creating an inclusive environment where our youngest visitors can feel a sense of belonging.

Drawing pedagogical inspiration from the Reggio Emilia approach, Art Crawl values the people involved, recognizing that infants, caregivers, and museum educators are all lifelong learners who contribute rich assets to the program and each other. We see the children as current citizens of the world with individual preferences and interests, who can engage in and determine their own learning experiences as well as contribute to the continuous development of our programming. We see the caregivers as the children’s first and best educators in every environment, encouraging them to build relationships between ideas, thoughts, things, and settings as they pursue their natural curiosity. We respect caregivers’ differences in values, beliefs, and social practices as they show up in program interactions. Finally, we value the collaboration and intentionality of our museum educators, viewing them as researchers, always observing and listening to children to understand their curiosities, and responding to their needs. Our museum educators do not seek to control nor to wield power; instead, they collaborate with the children as they discover the world and engage in inquiry. These program and institutional values allow Art Crawl to be a place of learning for all people.

When we first started Art Crawl, we offered it twice each month, but with the support of the PNC Grow Up Great grant, we later expanded the program to three times per month, with themes changing monthly. The program begins in The Making Space, our hands-on creation studio adjacent to our galleries. We gather in this space for introductions, community-building, and exploration of open-ended materials related to monthly themes. Then, our educators lead participants into the galleries to explore the artwork and engage with intentional provocations based on the theme. Examples of program themes include:

• ABC’s of Curating, written in collaboration with Bailey Placzek, our Curator of Collections, Catalogue Raisonné Research and Project Manager, focuses on close-looking practices and infant aesthetic preferences.
• Guardians of the Galleries: Conservation Practices, developed in collaboration with James Squires, our Chief Conservator, invites infants to explore cause and effect and the concept of color theory.
• Into the Archives, written alongside our Archives team, focuses on the exploration of our archives and the components of storytelling.

“You Can’t Start Early Enough”

CSM is fortunate to be a part of a growing movement in museums and cultural organizations committed to serving our youngest audiences. Last year, Routledge published Kathy Danko-McGhee’s Viewing Art With Babies: First Encounters, the first book to provide practical strategies for fostering experiences of looking at art with infants. Earlier this year, a recent article in the New York Times, “Children and Museums: You Can’t Start Early Enough,” proclaimed that programming for young children in traditional museums is “on the rise, now more than ever.” A museum consultant interviewed for the article attributed the current growth to two factors: museums’ future financial stability and alignment with their educational missions.

One of the museums that has joined this movement is the Vero Beach Museum of Art (VBMA), whose infant and toddler programming now includes a monthly Museum Babies & Toddlers program and a weekly Museum Stories program. In a recent conversation with the museum’s Director of Education, Sara Klein, we learned that the impetus for these programs came from a 2018 commitment to make the museum more family-friendly. At that time, the museum lacked any formal programming with an explicit invitation for families with young children, which Klein believes is the best “way in” for the audience. Fortunately, VBMA had staff at the time with more than fifteen years of experience in early childhood education, giving it the in-house expertise to develop and support this new programming. In the years since, the programs’ success has extended to financial impact. As Klein shared, “For last year’s annual fund letter, we invited a mom who went through the sequence of our programming offerings, starting with infant programming, to write a letter to our potential funders. Her letter and photos netted us nearly double our annual fund goal.”

CSM’s infant programs have followed a similar trajectory, drawing on in-house expertise to attract families who may not otherwise visit. As one caregiver participant shared, “Because now I know that Clyfford Still is a good place, I’m going to focus on [returning there].” Art Crawl consistently sells out each month. CSM Director Joyce Tsai notes, “Our infant program has garnered the attention of the field and has attracted funders who want to invest in this research-based, high-impact program at our museum. Its financial impact has been a net positive because of the new audiences and funding it can attract.”

Continuous Shared Learning

Creating and implementing a program for infants and their caregivers shapes an institution’s perspectives on including young children as members of an art museum’s community. It empowers staff to understand that because art can sustain dynamic, interactive engagement, it can support infant experiences and development, which become an essential and additive aspect of the museum community. As Art Crawl began in 2022, the staff at CSM embraced this shift. For example, CSM’s Manager of Visitor Experience, Andy Cushen, shared, “We are certainly more deliberate with how we approach children, and we are likely to ask them more questions and take their observations of art more seriously than we may have before. Children affirm for us just how unnecessary a prior background in art or the history of Abstract Expressionism is to see the work of Clyfford Still.”

Staff perspectives continue to shift and adapt as we deepen our understanding of this program and our relationships with the community members who have become a consistent part of the museum experience. We see this as ongoing work rather than something to arrive at, making our shared learning an essential part of continuing this work.

This drive for continuous learning led us to partner with Trainer Evaluation to better understand the perspective of adult participants in the program. Five caregivers participated in the first year of this longitudinal study. Trainer Evaluation interviewed each caregiver multiple times about their experiences at Art Crawl and the impacts on their interactions and relationships with their infants. We heard a wide range of emotions and experiences in their responses. For example, some caregivers expressed a sense of anxiety because this was one of their first experiences with their infant in public. In response to this insight, we created a “Know Before You Go” video for caregivers to illustrate what happens before and during the program, which we share on our website and in the program reminder email.

More than anything, we heard that Art Crawl brings a sense of joy to its participants and cultivates a sense of belonging at CSM. One Art Crawl participant shared, “Overall, it made me think that Clyfford Still is one of those places that is for everyone … I’ve been to places before where it’s like, oh, I’m too loud; my kid is too annoying; this is too delicate. Even if I worry a little bit about keeping the art safe, the fact that the program exists makes me more likely to feel comfortable bringing my family there.”

CSM continues demonstrating its commitment to deepening children’s early experiences with art. We see the value in learning alongside others in our field and consistently inviting new perspectives to challenge and deepen our own understanding of our programming and approaches to education.

The Future of Art Crawl

Now, in Art Crawl’s third year, we’ve started expanding the program beyond the walls of the Clyfford Still Museum. Following a demonstration of the program during the 2023 AAM Annual Meeting in Denver, Emily Thomas, Head of Learning + Programs at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), approached us about licensing the model with funding from the Art Bridges Foundation. Grant funds will cover the cost of training and ensure that Art Crawl is free and open to the public over the next two years. Thomas shared that, “pre-pandemic, MMFA offered a monthly infant program called Baby and Me, and [the community] have expressed the need to bring programming back for caregivers and developing young learners.” The process of licensing the program for MMFA (which was new to CSM staff) led to the development of the Art Crawl Handbook, a professional development series, and a marketing toolkit, but most importantly, a new community of museums facilitating and learning from this program and the families who participate in it. We are grateful to have new partners in shared learning. If you are interested in licensing the program from the Clyfford Still Museum to bring the joy of Art Crawl to your museum, learn more at clyffordstillmuseum.org/artcrawl or email learning@clyffordstillmuseum.org.

In addition to expanding to other states, CSM has begun expanding Art Crawl into other community sites around Denver, after hearing from various community partners about increased requests for infant programming. In fall 2023, we received a three-year grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for this purpose. Denver Public Libraries and Catholic Charities Mariposa became committed partners with CSM on this grant, offering the community’s cultural context and collaboration on program development. We are designing a mobile version of the Art Crawl program tailored to implementation at community venues. Our partners have been essential to this expansion, offering their depth of insight from the communities they serve as we consider how to bring an infant program to a variety of different locations throughout the city.

In closing, given our understanding of the historical context, community needs, and the inclusion imperative in our field and individual museum missions, we ask how museums can effectively foster growth in infant offerings in meaningful and sustainable ways.

As public-serving institutions, museums welcome visitors with a wide variety of primary languages through their doors. Some are tourists visiting the country, some recently immigrated and are still learning the dominant language, and others might have been born in the country but raised in a different cultural and linguistic environment. Especially in the United States, where one in five people speaks a language other than English at home, it is imperative to consider English language learners (ELL) in public programming to foster an atmosphere of inclusion and belonging.

But how do you consider them, given that no museum team has enough resources to hire bilingual educators covering all possible languages? What should you do in a common situation where you have a group of mostly fluent English speakers but one or two people still learning the language? As someone who speaks four languages myself, has a degree in linguistics, and immigrated to the United States as an adult, I have wrestled with this question over the years and worked out a set of tips and strategies for an inclusive and engaging gallery experience for English-learning visitors.

In this article, I will share five key tips from my experience, using K-12 students as an example because it’s the demographic that I work with the most. However, I believe these strategies will be useful for any age and any type of public programming. Corresponding with the principles of ​​universal design, these tips aim to create an inclusive and welcoming environment, accommodating all visitors. Not just those who speak other languages, but also those who might have different learning styles or levels of familiarity with the subject of a museum.

1. Provide clear instructions.

Try to be straightforward and direct when it comes to providing instructions, whether ways to respond to your prompts or rules to follow in the galleries. Don’t be afraid to use your hands in the process—most gestures are universal and carry similar meanings across different cultures and languages, but some are not, so be mindful.

Try not to rely on idioms or colloquialisms, as students who haven’t had prolonged school experience in the United States yet might not know the meaning of using “walking feet” or keeping voices at “levels zero or one.” Explain the instructions literally while modeling them for the group to visually illustrate your requests.

2. Offer different opportunities for response (and be patient!).

Give your visitors a choice in how they want to respond to your prompts. For example, you could offer them to write their thoughts in any language, draw a sketch, silently reflect on their own, or find a neighbor and have a small group discussion out loud.

Encourage the group to take their time in responding and incorporate that wait time in your tour plan. English language learners may need extra time to process the question, frame the answer, and then translate their thoughts into English before responding.

Keep in mind how cultural differences might influence the responses you get. In some cultures, long silence is seen as a sign of respect and appreciation or as an opportunity to gather some thoughts, whereas in US norms it is often seen as uncomfortable or a sign of lack of engagement and interest. It is the same with asking and responding to questions: Depending on the cultural norms, questions can be encouraged or frowned upon. Consider those differences and build extra time into your programming for processing and responding.

3. Reinforce key vocabulary.

Don’t be afraid to repeat the main points of information throughout the program. Even if a word or concept seems obvious or familiar to you, it could be new for your visitors. If you introduce a key term, such as the name of an art style, a movement, or a type of material, always provide the definition. If it’s a new word for English language learners, they can use your explanation to understand what you mean and connect it with a word in their primary language.

In addition to conveying the content of the program effectively, this can also be a good opportunity for vocabulary learning. For example, I only learned the word “kite” at the age of twenty-seven, because I grew up flying a kite in a different language.

4. Overexplain context.

Sometimes people who grew up in a different language and cultural environment won’t understand references to historical events, personalities, or trends that might be considered common knowledge in the United States. Don’t automatically presume that background information is widely understood—instead, take the time to lay out relevant contexts simply and clearly.

Even if some of your visitors are already familiar with the subject matter, providing that framing can reinforce learning and ensure everyone is on the same page. I’ve found that giving a brief overview of the time period, the key figures involved, or the cultural significance can unlock so much more engagement and insight from English learners than when you skip this step.

5. Limit pop culture references.

It is easy to slip in references to TV shows, celebrities, slang, or other pop culture phenomena without a second thought. But those kinds of casual references can unintentionally create barriers for some English language learners by drawing on contexts they may not be familiar with.

For example, I once worked at an exhibition that featured a statue of a big purple dinosaur. My colleagues kept mentioning the name Barney, and I had no idea what they referred to. Even now that I’ve learned more about famous American children’s characters, I continue to find pop culture references more exclusionary than relatable, since they can limit opportunities to feel engaged and belong.

As with other aspects of context, try to avoid making assumptions about shared cultural knowledge and using culturally specific examples or analogies. Instead of making the references in passing, try asking the group if they have seen something similar before. This can open an enriching dialogue without accidentally alienating visitors who come from a different cultural and linguistic environment.

In either case, you would be right, but you wouldn’t be thinking big enough, say Kylie Peppler, Maggie Dahn, and Mizuko Ito, authors of the Wallace-Foundation-sponsored report The Connected Arts Learning Framework: An Expanded View of the Purposes and Possibilities for Arts Learning. While they agree with both of these arguments (which they dub “art for art’s sake” and “art for academics’ sake”), they believe neither one gives enough credit to the full impact an arts education can have. Such exposure can not only enhance students’ artistic and academic development, they say, but impact other areas of their lives, like personal relationships, emotional well-being, and career development. For that matter, the impact doesn’t stop at the individual student, but can spill over into communities and society more broadly, as networks and relationships build, civic engagement increases, and areas for social progress come to the fore. In that light, artistic and academic growth are only small parts of a bigger holistic system of learning that the arts feed into.

This bigger system has a name in educational research circles: the connected learning framework. However, as the report’s authors explain, the term is not yet widely known in out-of-school or arts education, despite its alignment with many of the goals and outcomes its practitioners pursue. To bring the framework into wider use in our sectors, they have adapted it into a new subgenre they call “connected arts learning,” in the hopes of giving educators useful new language for describing and extending their impact. Here’s a brief summary of the framework and how museums can use it (and already are).

What is Connected Learning?

“Connected learning describes how educators and researchers can create meaningful learning opportunities by building relationships, basing learning on youth interests, and providing opportunities linked to real-world issues and communities,” the authors write. It takes a big-picture view of the role of learning in our lives, looking beyond acquiring information and skills for their own sake to the way these activities build our interests and develop our identities as we grow. In this way, connected learning emphasizes the “why” of education and asks whether the structures and practices in place are optimal to nourish those outcomes.

Connected arts learning, in turn, “describes meaningful art education that connects young people’s interests in the arts to present and future opportunities by building relationships and networks, both within the arts organization and extended to the broader community.” While it is a universal framework encompassing the needs of all young people, its emphasis on the role of culture, community, and identity is especially helpful for determining how to support those from marginalized backgrounds. For that reason, the authors center education scholar Tara J. Yosso’s concept of “community cultural wealth,” which “focuses on the ways young people from historically minoritized groups can derive power from within their communities, rather than being pushed to assimilate into dominant cultural norms.”

In other words, if connected learning negates the idea of learning in an educational vacuum, connected arts learning negates the idea of learning the arts in a cultural vacuum. Instead of leaving their communities behind to learn skills and knowledge developed in other cultures, students learn to look deeper into their communities and unlock the beauty, opportunities, and resources that exist around them.

How does this translate into concrete programs? The authors identify five general approaches they came across in their research, which are not mutually exclusive but often overlap within one program:

1. Culturally Sustaining Arts: Basing arts learning on the cultures and identities of the learners and community.
2. Future Forward Arts: Preparing or involving youth in the workforce or civic life by helping them build relationships with working artists and activists.
3. Networked Arts: Embedding arts learning in social networks that include youth, family, and educators.
4. Doing Well By Doing Art: Supporting mental health and overall well-being by explicitly responding to students’ social and emotional needs.
5. Youth Voice Arts: Giving students a platform to develop their perspectives, leadership abilities, and voices in public by combining activism and art.

Already, there are countless examples of museum programs that take these approaches, whether or not the educators in charge are aware of the connected learning framework. For example, the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library has helped Iowa youth develop employable skills and practice activism through a monthslong project to build a replica of the Berlin Wall (Future Forward Arts, Youth Voice Arts). The Museum of Children’s Art has enrolled Oakland teenagers in a yearlong Community Futures School, where they lead discussions of oppression and its solutions, analyze futurist texts, and work with professional mentors to create artworks that combine technology and Afrofuturism (Culturally Sustaining Arts, Future Forward Arts, Youth Voice Arts). The Hammer Museum has hosted fourth-through-sixth-grade classes from underfunded Los Angeles schools for weeklong Classroom-in-Residence programs, opening a supportive space for students to reflect on heavy topics like grief, and supported their teachers with months of professional development to incorporate art into lessons (Networked Arts, Doing Well By Doing Art).

How Can Museum Programs Incorporate Connected Learning?

While you’re likely already working with elements of connected learning in your programs, studying the framework and the body of research behind it can help you enhance your impact. In particular, you might uncover aspects of your program design that are undermining your goals by minimizing the role of student interests, relationships, and opportunities. Peppler, Dahn, and Ito provide a rubric for assessing how well your program aligns with connected learning in these areas, as well as a series of questions you can ask to bolster each one. Here is a summary:

Stoke Interests

Even when educators aim for broad impact on students’ lives, they “still sometimes try to get kids interested in arts learning without first discovering what interests those kids already have,” the authors write. Instead of trying to “get young people interested in art,” connected arts learning uses art to explore what they’re already interested in. This means finding ways to collect input from students and develop the curriculum to follow their passions, rather than developing it in isolation based on outside sources. To accomplish this, one organization the authors interviewed relies on a youth council, an external evaluator, and informal conversations with students. An example insight: Whereas staff thought youth would be interested in experimenting with cutting-edge technology like virtual reality, they learned they were really more eager to experiment with the humbler medium of podcasting.

To center learners’ interests in your program, the authors recommend asking these questions:

• How do you incorporate youth interest and voice into programming?
• How do young people drive decision-making?
• How do you include learners’ identities and cultural backgrounds?
• How are the arts leveraged to engage learners?
• How are new interests supported in collaboration with professional artists?

Build Relationships

The traditional arts education paradigm tends to minimize relationship-building, consisting mainly of short-term engagements where educators lead students in individual projects during a confined class time and encourage them to practice on their own. Connected arts learning, in contrast, endeavors to build long-term relationships with youth and their families that extend beyond the classroom and allow for collaboration. This includes welcoming families and communities into both shaping and participating in the learning experience—not only in special events or projects, but day to day.

The authors suggest asking:

• How do you cultivate affinity-based networks of support?
• How do you support learners in working collaboratively with others?
• In what ways are relationships among young people, artists, and families accounted for in your programming?
• How are channels of communication kept open to support and sustain arts learning?
• In what ways are inter-generational relationships incorporated and leveraged to connect youth to arts opportunities?

Provide Opportunities

Traditional arts programs don’t think far beyond the classroom walls, measuring success by learner’s achievements within the program itself, and rarely introducing them to opportunities that extend beyond it. Connected arts learning flips this on its head, intentionally cultivating opportunities for learners outside of the classroom, whether connecting them with mentors, providing them with career training, or giving them chances to perform, exhibit, or engage in civic life.

Ideally, these opportunities are not just arts-related, but allow participants to explore any interests they may have. They are also not just career opportunities, with the goal of getting students on a stable financial path, but have the broader goal of helping them develop a meaningful life. (As one staff member interviewed tells the authors, “A lot of college and career readiness is based on the presumption that low-income students have to get set on a path much earlier…. I’d also like to strive for something where they can have the time to explore, just like a student of any income level.”) Finally, when these opportunities include professional work, like internships, apprenticeships, or leadership positions, students are ideally paid.

Questions to ask:

• What types of arts opportunities are communicated and offered to young people?
• How do the goals of the arts program connect young people to opportunities beyond the program itself?
• What are the values of the class or program and how are those values embedded in the arts experience?
• In what ways are young people matched with inspiring opportunities that align with their arts interests?
• How do you support networking that can connect youth to opportunities in and outside of the arts?

In inviting contributions from diverse writers outside of the visual arts field, the project aims to make art more accessible to broader audiences by democratizing curatorial authority and de-centering whiteness—in terms of its association with colonization and imperialism—as the voice that situates and interprets art. It aligns with similar efforts toward inclusive interpretation at museums in recent years, such as the Baltimore Museum of Art’s 2022 show Guarding the Art, featuring works chosen and interpreted by seventeen museum security staff members. Though the catalog’s conception preceded the events of 2020, the global movement for equity and justice became an inspiration for the project as it developed.

Here is how the catalog took shape, and what we learned in the process about sharing authority and letting go of assumptions when you let new voices in.

Seizing the Moment

Collaborative projects between the Stanley and the University of Iowa’s world-renowned creative writing programs date back many years. For instance, when poet Jorie Graham was a faculty member at IWW in the eighties and nineties, she frequently worked with the museum and produced poems inspired by works from the collection. Engagements like Graham’s, though, were often offshoots rather than sustained programs.

2018 would prove to be a turning point on this front. In that year, the Stanley welcomed a new director, Lauren Lessing, who led the ceremonial groundbreaking of the museum’s new building in 2019, eleven years after the Iowa River flood of 2008 forced the original building’s doors closed. Lessing’s vision for this state-of-the-art, twenty-first-century museum emphasized a more welcoming institution that re-envisioned museum practices. There was no better time than now—the museum’s fresh start and its attendant swell of goodwill—to innovate in our interpretation.

Sharing Curatorial Authority

At the outset of her tenure, Lessing encouraged curatorial staff to take on projects that would see us sharing curatorial authority in novel ways. We began by highlighting certain institutional goals that necessitated this approach: to model our ethos that art is for everyone and a launchpad for any viewer’s own creativity, to offer interpretive modes that simultaneously demonstrated art as research and research as art, to develop teaching resources for university and K-12 students, and to conceive of projects that were unprecedentedly inclusive.

A tall order for a single project, perhaps. But not so tall if we harnessed our distinction as a member of the University of Iowa’s unparalleled arts ecosystem, especially its creative writing community. Lessing and Lan Samantha Chang, Director of IWW, began having conversations about collaborative possibilities until, in the fall of 2019, the idea for a collection catalog that positioned creative writers as the only voices interpreting the artwork started to take shape. We decided we would invite alums of IWW, IWP, and Translation to write literary responses to works from the Stanley’s collections, and the program directors immediately agreed to collaborate with us on the unprecedented project.

We were especially eager to work with these programs because we recognized the great benefit in realizing our goal of inclusivity. Each one boasts a long tradition of alums whose practice and scholarship center the voices of BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and economically underserved communities. In tapping into their alumni networks, we found ourselves with an embarrassment of riches and had our pick of writers who embodied exactly the range of diverse perspectives we hoped to feature. Thirty-one writers agreed to participate: a racially and culturally diverse group of eleven poets and ten fiction writers who are alums of IWW; five alums of IWP who would contribute literary responses in Turkish, German, Yoruba, Argentine Spanish, and Japanese; and five translators for the respective English translations.

Defying Categorization

For each commissioned writer, we offered ten to twelve artworks we thought they might be interested in responding to. The choices were based on our analyses of their literary output, through which we extrapolated their thematic preoccupations, their curiosities, and what we thought would be relevant to their lives. We confess that this was presumptuous on our part. We figured better this, though, than making the writers comb through seventeen thousand objects themselves.

We hoped contributors would bring their lived experiences to bear in their choices and responses—in fact, when the opportunity presented itself, we encouraged them to do exactly that. But we soon learned that what we understood to be their lived experiences was limited and often embarrassingly categorized. Just because, for example, the fiction writer Jamil Jan Kochai, who identifies as Afghan, centers Aghan experiences in his work does not mean he would (or should) choose an artwork from that region. He didn’t; instead, he opted for Lyonel Feininger’s In a Village Near Paris (Street in Paris, Pink Sky)—a work outside the scope of selections we presented to him. Just because Nigerian poet Tade Ipadeola would contribute a poem in Yoruba did not mean he would (or should) select an object from Nigeria. He didn’t; instead, he went with Claude Mellan’s The Sudarium of Saint Veronica, an image of Jesus Christ with a crown of thorns. Yiyun Li, who identifies as Chinese American and is celebrated for her powerful fictional portraits of Chinese and Chinese American people, would also defy expectation, going with an untitled Berenice Abbott photograph from the interwar period featuring a white woman, slouched and pensive, with a teacup at her fore.

The surprises would keep coming. We would soon realize that our presumptions about their choices were, ironically, in lockstep with exactly what we had committed to pushing against at the museum through our exhibitions and programming: art history’s penchant for geographic categorizations.

Unlocking New Perspectives

Welcoming diverse literary voices to say whatever they wanted to say about an artwork of their choice confirmed that we must release our objects from the confines of established art historical inquiries to better serve our audiences and make art more roundly accessible. After all, as In a Time of Witness demonstrates, there are things the audience has been itching to say to us.

And say the contributors did. With nuance. With care. And with clarity that expands on the respective works’ art historical narratives. Lyonel Feininger’s In a Village Near Paris (Street in Paris, Pink Sky) can be sublimely subverted in a short story like Jamil Jan Kochai’s “The Night Market in Wagh,” which recasts the setting as a village in Logar Province in eastern Afghanistan, the bustling people set against the backdrop of a longstanding war. Robert Havell Jr.’s Great Blue Heron after a drawing of J.J. Audubon—the heron a trusted American symbol—can be reimagined through a story about immigration from Taiwan to the US, as Lan Samantha Chang does in “Helen, Heron.” Claude Mellan’s The Sudarium of Saint Veronica can inspire a Yoruba praise song, Tade Ipadeola’s “Ọnà Àrà” (“Wondrous Works”), testifying to art’s inherent resistance to geographic restrictions—Mellan, a seventeenth-century French engraver, is evidenced to have created work that resonates with contemporary Nigeria.

When Juan Felipe Herrera responds to Jackson Pollock’s Mural in the poem “Future Forms Future Worlds,” he invokes Mexican muralists who had a significant influence on Pollock. A similar intersectionality is summoned in De’Shawn Charles Winslow’s “Telephone,” a short story that responds to Sam Gilliam’s Red April, a painting inspired by Martin Luther King’s assassination on April 4, 1968. In Winslow’s story, the Black American struggle for justice intersects with the pursuit of justice among queer people. Yiyun Li as well employs a transposing lens for her interpretation of Berenice Abbot’s photograph, rendering it no longer a portrait of a pensive white woman but a meditation on motherhood on a global scale.

An Organically Formed Product

When we sat down to put these literary works together in a book with a concise narrative thrust, it quickly became clear that much of that work had already been done by the writers. Free to express themselves, they had borne witness to contemporary concepts of homeland, the sacred, and freedom. In A Time of Witness, then, would be accordingly titled, and would be experienced in three thematic zones of “homeland,” “sacred,” and “freedom.”

In the catalog preface, Lessing writes, “Art is a catalyst. Like a substance that enables transformative, chemical reactions, the best art inspires creativity, innovation, and discovery.” We put this theory to the test and revealed it to be true. As museums continue to explore new, inclusive ways to engage with their collections, we hope that In a Time of Witness offers them a fresh and sustained vision for interpretation.

Funding for In a Time of Witness was generously provided by the Richard C. Von Hess Foundation and the Henry Luce Foundation.

When a visitor enters a museum, they arrive with more than just their belongings. They bring their entire cognitive framework to interpret and store knowledge, including their complex understanding of how significant events throughout human history shape the world today. As institutions that display objects related to these histories, and strive to present multiple viewpoints on them, museums must contend with these psychological dynamics. If a visitor encounters a perspective that does not align with the interpretive process they use to navigate their social worlds, they can experience emotional fluctuation, leaving them to feel conflicted. However, this does not mean museums need to avoid presenting challenging content. With the right approach, this reaction can be the start of a beautiful exchange between the visitor and the museum, encouraging vulnerability, sparking new connections, and building a renewed state of understanding. But what is the right approach, and how can you find it for your institution? Here’s what a recent museum partnership taught me, and how you can apply it to your own work.

Preparing the Next Generation of Gallery Guides

As the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art prepared for a new exhibition that highlighted sensitive historical events, staff invited me to help a group of student gallery guides prepare for their upcoming tours. Given the nature of the content, it was vital for the guides to approach visitors with genuine curiosity and empathy as they provided an informational overview of the content. The cohort consisted of undergraduate students from multiple academic backgrounds and levels of experience facilitating group tours. They were evidently excited to jump into the training headfirst as we began, sharing their experiences with previous tours. However, as we continued to focus on the upcoming exhibition, the energy began to shift toward apprehension, as we reflected on past encounters with visitors who expressed strong emotional responses to complex themes. The students shared reservations that even the most seasoned professionals stumble upon:

• What if a visitor does not have a satisfactory experience on my tour?
• What if a visitor disputes the information provided?
• What if I am unable to answer their questions with complete accuracy?
• What if there are elements of the exhibition that I am unfamiliar with?

Hearing these concerns, I decided we should focus the training on our values to set the tone for creating an intentional and thoughtful gallery experience for both the visitor and guide.

Tapping into Your Inner Principles

To begin this exercise, I presented the group with a list of values and asked them to identify three to five each that they considered guiding principles for how they interact with others. Here is a small sample of the values I provided:

• Respect
• Justice
• Mindfulness
• Excellence
• Dignity
• Innovation
• Creativity
• Accountability
• Trust
• Flexibility
• Humility
• Spirituality
• Integrity
• Fun
• Value

As students began to report their selections, their answers revealed common threads, such as respect, humility, and excellence. As more responses poured in, further values like creativity and fun began to surge as well. Once we had identified these commonalities, we dove deeper, identifying factors that influenced their selections. Some said they were influenced by their relationships with elders to value respect, while others shared that academic experiences had influenced them to value innovation. One of the students recalled facilitating a tour for an elementary school group and the energy they brought into that experience. Incorporating creative elements and spontaneity encouraged the kids to use their imagination and fully engage in the experience. Hearing this comment, the group began to reflect on how adults also seek this type of excitement, even during the toughest of conversations.

Once they had identified their values, I prompted the group to pause and reflect on the upcoming exhibition and identify intentional ways they would like to incorporate these concepts in their tour. This approach would give students the flexibility to explore how they could bring their unique selves to the tours while creating an environment that cultivated vulnerability and trust.

Sharing Your Light with Others

As we moved toward putting the pieces together, I wanted to review various approaches in which we could practice these values with others when reviewing sensitive content. To do this, we engaged in roleplay exercises in partner groups, which gave students the opportunity to practice mindful listening, self-awareness, and acknowledge the viewpoint of others.

Each pair alternated discussing a general topic (e.g., Why did you decide to attend Auburn University) for two minutes. While the speaker shared their thoughts, the listener practiced listening without interruption, paying attention to verbal/nonverbal communication and recognizing distractions. At the conclusion of the practice, each group reported their experience listening and speaking.

These practices sound simple in theory, but they’re not always easy to do in practice. Self-awareness helps us remember that there may be another way to view a scenario. Furthermore, making an intentional leap to respect and appreciate these differences is one of the most important things we can do to build visitors’ experiences. This approach has the potential to deepen connections and resolve conflict.

Putting It to Use

At the conclusion of our time together, students reported feeling confident moving forward and said they appreciated the opportunity to practice these concepts with their peers. As a result of receiving real-time feedback during the exercises, many reported feeling less isolated in their thoughts and reassured that utilizing values as their sounding board would provide a tangible solution to approaching difficult conversations. We also included their direct supervisory team during portions of the experience to help them gain tools to further support their students and learn how to conduct formal and informal check-ins throughout the year. We provided the supervisors with prompts for these conversations that also centered on values, for example:

• Tell me about the values you have identified and how you have incorporated them into your tour?
• How has this experience been for you?
• Are there any additional values that you would like to consider?
• If so, how would you like to incorporate them into your next tour?
• How can I help you during this process?

Like the students, staff reported that the exercise had been eye-opening. “It prompted me to have several conversations with staff about values and even helped inform my questions for visiting job candidates,” says Dr. Randi Evans, the museum’s Manager of Public Practice and Community Partnerships. She also found it helpful for learning more about the students she works with. “Working with a university student population, we are always meeting students at a similar point in their life trajectory,” she explains. “I’ve thought a lot about how the life transition they are in informs their values and how their values might change over time. I look forward to returning to these exercises in the fall to see how their values may have shifted and changed.”

Conducting a values exercise requires the facilitator to position themselves as a guide, allowing participants to shape their own experiences and practice vital communication techniques. Sharing the material museums do, from historical events, to present-day issues, to predictions for the future, can be a significant responsibility to fulfill. However, reminding the people guiding these interactions that their engagement is tied to their values and giving them permission to let their light shine in the face of difficult conversations can make a powerful difference.

If you follow the news, you’ve likely seen a surge in headlines about censorship and book-banning, with libraries and schools under protest, and teachers and librarians facing a barrage of negative attention and even losing their jobs. Where is this trend coming from, how has it progressed, and could it also threaten museums and cultural spaces? To find out, I reached out to Jonathan Friedman, the Sy Sims Managing Director of U.S. Free Expression Programs at PEN America. The following is an excerpt from our conversation.

Adam Rozan: Can you introduce yourself and share what you do?

Jonathan Friedman: First, let’s talk about PEN America. We are a one-hundred-year-old nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization at the intersection of literature and human rights. We celebrate creative expression and defend the civil liberties that make it possible in the US and worldwide. I oversee our domestic work on free expression across the cultural, literary, artistic and educational arenas. In education, our program focuses on advocating for the freedom to read, learn, and think in K-12 schools and higher education. That includes education programs, research, and advocacy, especially against new state laws to censor classroom teaching and the rise of concerted efforts to ban books.

AR: That’s a big task. Can you share more about the conversation that’s happening now?

JF: The conversation nationally focuses on students’ access to books and the effort to ban books from school districts and libraries. In the past three years, this has really been a conversation about the appropriate role of state government in setting curricula and local parents in determining what children should be able to learn in schools.

A lot has been driven mainly by a campaign to create a moral panic about public education that could be exploited for potential political gain and sow distrust in educators and even knowledge and expertise. Not everyone who has advocated for banning books is necessarily connected to this campaign, but you do see the clear influence of organized groups and politicians, particularly as this has transitioned from primarily being a fight contested at local school boards to a fight contested in statehouses. As this has continued, more and more citizens have started raising their voices against it. There are still specific challenges for many educators who fear that a law passed in their state will jeopardize their positions or careers. Fear is playing a huge role in this, as a means of ideological control, of chilling education at large. So, it is still a situation that is being significantly contested, and in 2024, we have continued to see efforts to pass state laws this spring. I expect to see ongoing efforts to embolden censors in the lead-up and following the presidential election.

AR: So we’re clear: What exactly is a banned book?

JF: There is a long history surrounding the topic of banned books, and the issue has flared up in different historical moments. Though there have been for decades steady highly local efforts to prohibit books in schools, this most recent wave, beginning in 2021, marked the beginning of a set of new tactics, and a concerted campaign, in many parts of the country, to control what books in schools all kids and families could read. In our work, we at PEN America define a book ban as “any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental officials, that leads to a previously accessible book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished. Diminished access is a form of censorship and has educational implications that extend beyond a title’s removal.”

I think what’s critical to understand as well is that book-banning does not take one particular form, and with regard to public schools or libraries, it can be enacted by local leaders, such as school board members; but book bans can also be the result of state boards of education, state laws, or even federal government actions, should it come to that. There’s no question we have seen different kinds of book bans in different communities and states for the past three years.

But the national trend is unmistakable, even if it takes different forms.

AR: What’s at stake here?

JF: The movement to ban books often targets topics like LGBTQ identities, race, and sexual assault, leading to self-censorship among educators. In the abstract, there’s nothing wrong with parents wanting to be invested in their kids’ education. In fact, we should all be encouraging that as part of healthy civic society. The challenge comes with what we are seeing now, which is laws and rhetoric that masquerades as serving all parents, but is actually geared to serving the interests of a particular minority of parents. We are seeing in state after state, organized groups of citizens—some but not all, are parents—who clearly aim to control what all students can learn about. This is not about fostering genuine education. It’s about ideological control and suppression. This movement could continue to gain momentum but right now it also faces mounting opposition.

AR: I was surprised to learn that many of the books that are under threat deal with topics like the Holocaust and slavery and even include books that I understood to be classics. 

Can you share some examples of books being banned and what about them is deemed questionable?

JF: The most common reasons for bans are because the book contains so-called sexual content, but this frequently blurs with LGBTQ+ content, and then another subset of books have clearly been targeted for dealing with racism, especially pertaining to American history. The censors’ tools are broad, wide-sweeping, and imprecise. And because they are propelled now increasingly by fear, we see more and more books, all kinds of American classics or contemporary novels, targeted or banned for one reason or another. So, in the fall we saw targeting of books by John Updike, Ayn Rand, and Ernest Hemingway, but also by Judy Blume, John Grisham, and James Patterson. And then also a book by comedian Steve Martin caught my eye a few months ago on one of these ban lists, similar to when we saw a district removing Amanda Gorman’s presidential inauguration poem, The Hill We Climb. It’s a really wide gamut. This layers on top of where this began in 2021 with distinctly targeted efforts against particular titles, that are targeted again and again, and where the books and their authors have been demonized by local groups or by politicians. Frequently banned books include Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer, Juno Dawson’s This Book is Gay, George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue, Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.

Children’s books about important figures such as Wilma Rudolph and Roberto Clemente have been banned in some cases without people paying close attention, pulled just because they were challenged, or perhaps without someone much noticing, as they were titles present on long lists that someone chose to prohibit. There have been efforts to ban a graphic novel adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank because of the illustrations, including one of nude Greek statues—an illustration the authors chose to include to pair with a part of the diary discussing the female body, and because of Anne’s interest in Ancient Greece. So there’s all sorts of reasons being proffered, but again and again you have to question what the motives really driving this all are, and if people are deliberately choosing to abandon common sense. One district in Florida went so far as to ban the dictionary because it defined the word “sex.” How does that help young people learn?

AR: What’s the current state of legal challenges? If I understand correctly, some bills have been proposed limiting what could or couldn’t be taught and made available in our libraries.

JF: Several bills have been introduced in various states to restrict the dissemination of certain materials in educational settings. There is a wide variety, from efforts to place restrictions on what books can be sold to public schools in Texas, to flat out bans on particular content relating to sex, gender, or LGBTQ+ identities, which we’ve seen in Iowa and Florida. Every year we see a new crop of bills that target schools, universities, libraries, and even museums, particularly when it comes to bills that are trying to alter what can get educators in trouble if they give certain materials to minors. The issue is that we actually already have good rules about this, solid laws that protect educators, so that a librarian could stock a book about sexual assault, or students could study Michelangelo’s nude statue of David. But these are efforts to change those laws that would cast a wide chill, if passed.

But that’s just one kind of bill we have seen—many more directly prohibit certain topics or otherwise seek to curb what teachers do, or make them think twice when it comes to certain topics related most especially to race, sex, and gender. This is creating uncertainty and fear among professionals, leading to self-censorship and limiting the diversity of perspectives and experiences that can be shared in schools.

Overall, even the introduction of so many of these bills, even if they don’t pass, has a chilling effect on freedom of expression and artistic and academic freedom, as it signals a willingness to legislate and restrict cultural discourse in ways that could have far-reaching consequences and could impact a range of our educational institutions.

AR: How does the conversation around censorship and book banning affect museums and cultural organizations?

JF: This year we have seen a bill move forward past the House in West Virginia that would specifically target museums and libraries, in terms of removing traditional exemptions that protect their employees from being criminally charged with distributing harmful content to minors. That bill failed to pass fully before the end of the legislative session. It also echoes developments abroad, for example, in Hungary. There, a law controls the presentation of LGBTQ+ content to minors. At the National Art Museum in Budapest this year, an exhibit had photographs of the LGBTQ+ community. The government determined that those photographs essentially broke the law, and they barred all minors from seeing these pictures.

These were not pictures of an explicitly sexual nature; they were just pictures in an art museum of an LGBTQ+ community, I believe from the Philippines. In the wake of that, the director there was dismissed. Even if parents wanted to opt their kids into seeing the exhibit, under the law, they were forbidden to do so. So again, that law isn’t about true parental choice either. Again, it’s more about suppression and control.

AR: Can you share an example of a law proposed here and the language it uses?

JF: A law from last year that was proposed in North Dakota—SB2123—is one example. It would amend a state law about exposing minors to “objectionable materials” in business establishments frequented by minors by deleting the phrase “The above [i.e., business establishments] shall not be construed to include a bona fide school, college, university, museum, public library, or art gallery.” Displaying a nude in a museum is thereby equated with showing a minor an unwrapped pornographic magazine at a newsstand, and is subject to the same legal penalties.

AR: What’s the significance of proposed laws like these for those of us who work in educational settings?

JF: In many states, there are laws prohibiting the dissemination of sexual content to minors, but, as in the example above, these laws typically include exceptions for educational purposes, such as in schools, libraries, and museums. These exceptions have historically allowed educators, librarians, and museum professionals to present materials for educational and cultural purposes without fear of legal repercussions.

However, recent legislative proposals seek to remove these exceptions, leaving professionals in these fields vulnerable to potential legal consequences. This shift is alarming because it could result in self-censorship and restrict the dissemination of necessary educational and cultural materials.

Additionally, the vague language in these proposed laws creates uncertainty about what materials might be deemed “harmful” and targeted for restriction. For example, books about significant historical events like the Holocaust could be banned simply because they contain nudity, even if the nudity is not sexual. This vagueness and potential for harsh penalties make everyone nervous, leading to self-censorship and reluctance to engage with specific topics or materials.

AR: How can readers stay connected to these issues and support the fight against censorship?

JF: Stay informed about local issues, support organizations like us at PEN America, and engage with advocacy groups working to protect freedom of expression. Get active and get informed in your local communities. Public school issues are fundamentally local issues, and if these issues impact local libraries or museums, those are going to be local issues first. Beyond that, there is a moment we are in nationally where it is valuable to have people informed about these issues as they continue to spread from state to state. This is not a fight people can sit on the sidelines of, if we are to be successful at standing against this tidal wave of state censorship.

AR: And internationally?

JF: We are constantly working to raise international issues. Several alarming developments have occurred in other countries, such as in Hungary. But even in Canada, which seems to be being impacted by some of these developments in the US, is seeing new contention around books in schools and libraries.

At the end of the day, this is about people understanding that we live in a global world where what is potentially going to be advanced in the United States can have its roots or its template in other authoritarian countries. So, there is a need to benefit from being aware of what’s happening in the broader world, and how it mirrors or in this case has appeared to foreshadow tactics of censorship.

This article originally appeared in Museum magazine’s May/June 2024 issue, a benefit of AAM membership.

The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

Ralph Waldo Emerson was more prescient than he could ever have realized. It was not until the 1960s that neuroscientist Marian Diamond discovered that exposure to enriched environments increased brain matter, specifically in the brain’s outer layer, the cerebral cortex. Prior to her landmark research, scientists believed that the brain remained static until it started to decline in older age. Diamond was the first to observe the brain’s neuroplasticity, yet her findings were disputed and rejected for many years. Today she is considered one of the founders of modern neuroscience.

Museums are the ultimate enriched environments, or super-enriched spaces, that are good for body, mind, and soul. Museums are dedicated to arousing our curiosity; engaging us in discovery and learning; and evoking our reflection, wonder, and awe. Artists (and Emerson) have known intuitively what scientists are now proving with rigorous research: aesthetic experiences affect us in extraordinary ways. In short, our brains are wired for art.

Within just the past 25 years, significant advances in technology have allowed us to peer more deeply into that magnificent mechanism that is the brain and better understand what happens when we participate in the arts and aesthetic experiences. The relatively new science of neuroaesthetics studies how the arts and aesthetic experiences measurably change the body, brain, and behavior—and how this knowledge can be translated into specific practices that advance health and wellbeing. We call the field neuroarts.

Four Concepts of the Neuroarts

The science underpinning the neuroarts can be described through four core concepts. The first is neuroplasticity. Each of the 100 billion neurons in the human brain connects to about 10,000 other neurons, and the act of connecting is called a synapse. Neurons need to communicate with one another in order to survive, and novel experiences, such as visiting a museum, create new memories and new connections in our brains. The brain filters the continuous stream of sensory stimuli it receives, retaining the most important ones as memories while discarding the rest.

The second core concept is enriched environments. Scientists who have followed and expanded on Diamond’s research have a better understanding of how enriched environments can positively affect our learning, wellbeing, health, and relationships. We are also beginning to understand how to use the pillars of human flourishing—curiosity, awe, surprise, humor, and novelty—to build new neuropathways. Buildings that incorporate intentional and inspirational architecture, interior spaces, and objects can offer deep emotional and lasting connections among those who live, work, and play in them. On the flip side, impoverished environments can have a slow and corrosive effect on health and wellbeing.

The third concept of the neuroarts is the “aesthetic triad.” Developed by University of Pennsylvania professor Anjan Chatterjee and his colleagues, the triad is a theoretical model that explains how our sensorimotor systems, our reward system, and our cognitive knowledge and meaning-making combine to form a unique aesthetic moment. The model is visualized as a Venn diagram with three circles overlapping in the center, which is the aesthetic experience. The experience is unique to each of us, considering our biology and individual circumstances. The triad helps explain why we might prefer Renaissance art over modern art or enjoy playing a musical instrument more than painting.

The final core concept is the default mode network (DMN), now thought to be the home for the neurological basis of the self. Situated in several parts of the brain, the DMN collectively is the place where our minds wander, wonder, and daydream. The DMN is the neural container that holds our preferences, and it influences how we will react to a piece of art, music, spaces, people, and other experiences.

Perhaps the best news from our research in the neuroarts is that the benefits of aesthetic experiences do not depend on skill. From the very young to the very old, experiencing art in any of its many forms yields multiple positive outcomes, and talent is not a requirement. This is true especially for people who are recovering from a stroke or traumatic brain injury, have mental health concerns including PTSD, or are living in extremely high-stress communities or situations. Longitudinal studies in the United Kingdom suggest that engaging in an arts activity just once a month can lengthen the lifespan by 10 years.

NeuroArts Blueprint

In 2021, the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University and the Health, Medicine & Society Program at the Aspen Institute partnered to determine a definitive path forward for the neuroarts field. They created and launched the NeuroArts Blueprint, a five-year global initiative to ensure that the arts and the use of the arts—in all of its many forms—become part of mainstream public health and medicine. The blueprint is based on five core recommendations:

• Strengthen the research foundation of neuroarts.
• Honor and support the many arts practices that promote health and wellbeing.
• Expand and enrich educational and career pathways.
• Advocate for sustainable funding and promote effective policy.
• Build capacity, leadership, and communications strategies.

Museums create profound and memorable aesthetic experiences for their audiences through the collections and stories shared, making them important partners within the NeuroArts Blueprint. The blueprint is developing a global resources center where museums can both share their work and learn from other organizations. The resource center will include a calendar of events along with funding opportunities, toolkits, professional development, and research.

The blueprint has also launched a community neuroarts coalition initiative where museums, libraries, community and cultural organizations, academic partners, philanthropy, and municipal partners come together at a hyper-local level to address community needs through the lens of the arts and aesthetic experiences.

We are beginning to understand how culture and community through art making and aesthetic experiences are increasing our capacity for imagination and creative thinking. As museums reflect on their evolving role in communities, they might consider expanding their missions to include improving the health and wellbeing of all populations.

For AAM resources on health and wellbeing visit bit.ly/health-wellbeing-topic and bit.ly/wellness-compendium.

Do you have health and wellbeing programs at your museum? Let us know by providing brief details at
bit.ly/wellness-submissions.

SIDEBAR

Enhancing Museum Aesthetic Experiences

Museums already add to the wellbeing of communities they serve. Here are some ways they can be more intentional about it.

Offer immersive and interactive experiences. Research showed that working on an art project for 45 minutes—regardless of skill—can reduce stress by 25 percent. Additionally, people who engaged in the arts were found to have lower mental distress, better mental functioning, and improved quality of life. Consider creating dedicated spaces for visitors to doodle and draw or express their thoughts in writing. Museum staff will benefit from opportunities to participate in these immersive and interactive experiences as well.

Bring more color and nature into the museum. Our eyes can detect more than 10 million hues, and experiencing different colors can change our blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration. Similarly, viewing nature has the capacity to reduce stress and anxiety. Think of ways to bring the outside in and create colorful, nature-inspired spaces.

Think curves rather than corners. Scientists theorize that our brains evolved to recognize—and prefer—curves and rounded objects rather than straight lines and sharp corners. Increasingly, architects are integrating more natural curves into building design and renovation. How could this be incorporated into exhibition design?

Offer traveling exhibits to under-resourced communities. Consider a temporary exhibition in an empty storefront or marketplace stall in a community where residents may not have the opportunity to visit the local museums.

Reach out to health care professionals. An increasing number of health care providers are prescribing arts and aesthetic experiences for their patients. Invite health care professionals to your museum to learn more about how museums can address cognitive issues, isolation, and loneliness and build community.

Resources

Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, Your Brain on Art
yourbrainonart.com

NeuroArts Blueprint
neuroartsblueprint.org

International Arts + Mind Lab, The Center for Applied Neuroarts
artsandmindlab.org

Arts on Prescription: A Field Guide for US Communities
arts.ufl.edu/sites/creating-healthy-communities/resources/
arts-on-prescription-a-field-guide-for-us-communities/

This article originally appeared in Museum magazine’s May/June 2024 issue, a benefit of AAM membership.

As glaciers melt, wildfires ignite, and atmospheric rivers create catastrophic flooding events, it’s clear that water management is an important piece of environmental conservation. Our societal wellbeing is intimately linked to our relationship with water—how we access it, how we ensure a safe clean supply, and how we care for this vital resource.

The issue of water has been on the mind of Californians for at least the past three decades. Southern California is one of the most studied places for water quality, and with a growing climate crisis that is deeply rooted in ever-decreasing water reserves worldwide, this local issue increasingly proves to be global.

When the Ontario Museum of History & Art decided to develop a new permanent exhibition on the topic of water in our region—“Built on Water: Ontario and Inland Southern California”—we focused on educating visitors about the intricate constellation of factors that govern access to water and its role in our environment, infrastructure, and community health. However, we were also intentional about designing the exhibition to help visitors think about water as a major factor in a community’s wellbeing.

Exhibition Background and Goals

The idea for “Built on Water” began in 2017, inspired by a grant-funded project to redesign the museum’s exterior landscape with native plants and water-saving features. At the time, curatorial staff realized there was a bigger story to tell about water and its importance in Ontario, a semi-arid city about 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles in San Bernadino County.

After the museum was awarded a Museums for America grant from the Institute of Library and Museum Services in 2018, the five-year exhibition development began. Our curators diligently wove together research about the past, present, and future of water in the Ontario region, working collaboratively with local water agencies, archivists, teachers, tribal members, college students, and historians.

Through this research, the exhibition morphed from a narrative about the history of water infrastructure to a conversation about different forms of water management and the role of an individual citizen within the web of people who care for this valuable resource. The city of Ontario is situated above one of the largest groundwater recharge basins in the Inland Empire. Our team realized that this exhibition should encompass not only science and local history but also public health and community wellbeing.

As a municipal museum, our mission is to provide a space for residents and visitors that inspires creativity and preserves, interprets, and celebrates the history and cultural heritage of Ontario and the surrounding area. We serve a diverse community; Ontario’s population is approximately 185,000, with 70 percent of the population identifying as Hispanic or Latinx, 15.9 percent as white, 6.8 percent as Asian, 5.5 percent as Black or African American, and 0.1 percent as Native American. We knew that some people would visit specifically to view the exhibition, but the majority would be looking for something free to do on a weekend (the museum doesn’t charge admission) or to learn more about their city’s history.

Therefore, the 1,200-square-foot exhibition uses a variety of interpretive tools to share the story of water. Our team learned to be intentional in how we share stories and experiences, not just in terms of narrative perspective or learning style but also in using the exhibition as a site for community gathering and learning.

Inclusive Storytelling

The exhibition addresses the story of water by answering the following questions: Where does water come from? Who does water belong to? Do we have enough water? Who are the water guardians? In the exhibition, visitors are in a free-choice learning environment, allowed to be curious, seek archival and historical information, learn from community and environmental stories, reflect on their relationship with water, and consider how water is a resource tied to community wellbeing.

The team accomplished this in three ways: (1) we took the story and history of water and introduced diverse interpretive tools for different learning styles, (2) we prioritized community relevance and reframed the history we were telling with stories that spoke to a collective memory, and (3) we identified community leaders and professionals who serve as current stewards of water to bring awareness to our shared reality.

With “Built on Water,” our challenge was to distill a complex topic into an exhibition designed to reach a range of audiences, including K–12 school groups, new museum visitors specifically seeking information on the topic of water, and residents of all ages. To do this, we developed a range of interpretive tools that would provide entry points to different types of learners, such as hands-on activities and interactives, archival images and artifacts, infographics, audio, and digital technologies that include a virtual reality experience and a mobile application. We didn’t want visitors to feel intimidated by the exhibition’s content.

We also sought to create memorable experiences and spaces for intergenerational learning. One example of this is a magnetic matching game called Nature Scout, which reframes the story of water from an ecological perspective to connect visitors to our visible ecosystem and demonstrate how water supports biodiversity in our region. Visitors are asked to identify water resources, plants, and animals on a large fictional magnetized landscape and match where they live in our visible landscape. The game invites visitors to consider their role as stewards who protect plants and animals and approach their survival as an element of their wellbeing.

The exhibition’s history presentation includes multiple perspectives. The history of water management is complex, and we are committed to unpacking that layered story for our visitors in an unbiased way. Acknowledging the shortcomings of our prior history exhibitions, this time we worked with Dr. Meranda Roberts, an external consultant, museum educator, and citizen of the Paiute tribe, to develop a land acknowledgment for the exhibition. The land acknowledgement recognizes the importance of interpretation and encourages visitors to further question and explore the narratives that we present. By presenting history as ever evolving depending on who is telling it, we hope visitors recognize that they are also responsible for telling our local regional history.

The exhibition also incorporates testimonials from community members as a way to address community wellbeing. For example, the exhibition interactive Community Voices on Water is a collection of community stories, each about an individual’s relationship with water. One such voice is that of Maura Graber, whose family owns Graber Olives, a working and historic olive farm in Ontario:

“People take a lot of our resources for granted, and I think people need to understand that the air that we breathe, the water we need for crops, to grow the food that we need to eat, these are all things that we have to have for survival. These are things that you’ve got to be able to manage wisely and utilize very carefully, and really pay attention to how you’re using the Earth’s resources.”

After listening to the voices, visitors can contribute their own story on a printed water droplet display and read submissions from other visitors.

Connecting to Wellness

Our region continues to change. Parts of Ontario’s agricultural land is being developed into tract housing, offices, parks, and logistics complexes. Water permeates every aspect of our lives and society. Not only do we need water to live, but it’s a crucial component of food production, business, recreation, and so much more.

Much of the conversation around wellness is centered on mindfulness, a practice that focuses on consciousness, the present, and how we think or feel in our own bodies. However, the physical environment is equally, if not more, important. The health of our physical environment—including our water and air quality, the green spaces in our communities, and our access to healthy food options—has a direct correlation to our community’s wellbeing.

Part of our job as a museum is to offer information that is easily digestible, compelling, and encourages further exploration. With “Built on Water,” we considered how we could also empower visitors. Wellness in the museum can be embodied in a moment when someone recognizes how they are one piece of a larger narrative in which each individual’s action can shape the story. If we, as museums, are willing to give up some of our power as narrators, we can create more dynamic spaces for discovery that empower our community members.

SIDEBAR

‘Conduit’:  A Complementary Exhibition

As a museum focused on local history and contemporary art, we wanted to develop an art exhibition that would complement “Built on Water.” That exhibition, “Conduit,” uncovers how the diversion of water has shaped the way we live through a critical examination of the tension between urban growth and the natural world.

The exhibition features seven Southern California artists: Christy Roberts Berkowitz, Gerald Clarke, Noé Montes, Lorene Sisquoc, Samantha Morales Johnson, Stuart Palley, and Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio and includes drawing, photography, sculpture, and mixed-media installations. The artists investigate wide-ranging topics, including the relationship between colonization, the erasure of Indigenous people, and urbanization; recent environmental disasters; and speculative ecologies.

For example, roberts berkowitz’s installation of charcoal drawings, Sacred Ground: A Garden In Service and Gratitude to Dorothy Ramon and the People of Maara’, features 10 plants chosen by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians (Serrano peoples) that are significant to the region. A small, framed drawing in the middle of the installation depicts mustard and English reed—two invasive species introduced by settlers to the West and East Coast, respectively.

Clarke’s installation, One Tract Mind, made after the 2008 housing crisis, is a commentary on the effects of land development in Temecula, California. The work includes a series of cups filled with water placed on the “roads” of a miniature tract-home community. It asks us to consider who rightfully owns the resources necessary for this and similar developments throughout Southern California.

“This group of artists has been brought together thanks to their diverse and astute observations of feedback loops,” guest curator Debra Scacco explains. The exhibition provides another opportunity for visitors to reflect on the broader impact of individuals and how each of us might envision a different future. “Conduit” is on view at the Ontario Museum of History & Art through May 19, 2024.