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Controversial Museum Interpretation and the Interconnection of Museum and Academic Spheres

 

The confrontation of uncomfortable but necessary historical topics which arise in present-day historic sites are offered in Brown, Gutierrez, Okmin, and McCullough’s article Desegregating Conversations about Race and Identity in Culturally Specific Museums. Here, the authors explain that in museums such as the Asian Art Museum and the Museum of the African Diaspora (both located in San Francisco, CA), museum educators struggle to determine which ways they can present museum exhibitions and historical discussions in a means to promote open and honest discussions without leaving out certain narratives or offending the museum’s visitors. One complaint that people held with the Asian Art Museum was its lack of interpretation upon how the objects of Asian origin were obtained, which would require museum educators to speak of colonization upon Asian nations which lead to these artifacts being held in California[1]. From what I understand, topics of colonization often make visitors of a certain demographic uncomfortable because they often feel like they themselves are at fault for the theft of certain artifacts. However, I do believe that by allowing open discussions about interpretations of the artifacts as well as how the objects came to be displayed in the Asian Art Museum, museum educators are actively working to promote more open and productive conversations about previously discomforting topics thus allowing historic sites to be a safe place for diverse historical discussions.

2]

In a similar frame of cultural and racial historical topics in historic sites, I really enjoyed Margaret Sanford and Janaye Evan’s presentation in the conference Death to Museums UnConference  in which they discuss the outright existence of White Supremacy evident in the exhibition’s practices, mass incarceration, and lack of diversity in the exhibition and museum programmers of the Eastern State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania. Sanford and Evans carefully explain the history of the penitentiary and the lack of attention given to the minorities who have been imprisoned here. One remark that I appreciated from this conference was Evan’s conclusion that most visitor’s of the museum are White and middle class and that the penitentiary’s educators are often not properly trained to engage with visitors who could become hostile with them due to subject matter[3]. I felt that this was an important reality to note, because though topics which involve race and systematic inequality are more than necessary, they are not often expressed to the extent that they should be in historic sites and the museum interpreters who speak of racial content are known to be verbally assaulted by visitors. As a public historian, I would want to be adequately trained on a variety of topics that encompass the history of a site, no matter how harsh or uncomfortable. I would also like to know how to speak with visitors who may have a differing opinion that I may have. When I learned that this training was not efficiently given to the educators of the Eastern State Penitentiary, I was honestly surprised. In this case, I really did appreciate Evan’s and Sanford’s honest and thorough discussion of the penitentiary and their push to eradicate White Supremacy in this site.

4]

Throughout Timothy Patterson’s work documented in Historians, Archivists, and Museum Educators as Teacher Educators: Mentoring Preservice History Teachers at Cultural Institutes, the practices of study participants and youth involvement in historic sites show that historic sites can either help foster broader insight into historical topics or hinder visitor’s from certain interpretations. One thing that stuck out to me in Patterson’s article was the observation of the teacher named Peter who admitted that before having his experience touring a museum with his mentor (a museum professional named Scott), he had thought of museums as just places which housed historical artifacts; after seeing the work of curators and the way a site’s exhibition design can really help them relay a certain narrative, Peter gained valuable knowledge as to how historic sites are model sites for learning[5]. I am happy that Peter was illuminated to the ability of museums to be strong sites of education and learning, as I have known people who like Peter, downplayed the capability of museum education to teach certain historical narratives. I am an advocate for helping museum visitors understand the quality and significance of what museum and historic sites have to offer them as far as historical education, and thus appreciate studies like the one Peter partook in.

 


[1] Brown, Gutierrez, Okmin, and Susan McCullough. Desegregating Conversations about Race and Identity in Culturally Specific Museums. Journal of Museum Education: 42:2, 2017, 122.

[3] Evans, Janaye and Margaret Sanford. Between Apathy and Action: The Educator and the Museum Mission, A Case Study at Eastern State Penitentiary. Death to Museums UnConference: August 2, 2020. https://youtu.be/QlkLGgyk0Ss?t=11328

[5] Patterson, Timothy. Historians, Archivists, and Museum Educators as Teacher Educators: Mentoring Preservice History Teachers at Cultural Institutes. Journal of Teacher Education, 2020, 5.

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