Museums and Communities - Week 5

"High and Low: Partnerships Among Museums and Community-based Arts Organizations" (Brown, 2009)

• new trend among museums and community-based arts organizations to build long-term relationships rather than short-term ones (such as for creating one exhibit)
• partnerships allow opportunities to find new solutions to problems of funding, access to resources, and perception of value
• "My Community Matters": students, working with teaching artists, produce different types of art about their communities and present it within the Chicago Children's Museum
• CCM: move of building would promote a greater access to the space for people from all socio-economic backgrounds
• Yollocalli Arts and National Museum of Mexican Art: Yollocalli provides arts education and career-training programs to youth; started by museum and thus addresses/expands the museum's mission
• will often play off exhibits at museum as it addresses needs of youth
• dealing with gentrification: find ways to link "arts access" and "high art," in this case through cultural commitment to Mexican community
• Wallace Foundation Partnerships: Community Arts Partnership, between university, community, and youth
• partnership defined as "coordinated collaboration between two or more parties to achieve a common goal... each participant also commits resources, such as financial assets, organizational capacity, public image and constituency characteristics"
• through providing funding, funders can "articulate and sustain a vision for the community that can motivate support for change"; usually funders aren't considered "active" within partnerships, but they do often dictate certain principles of the projects

Nine to Nineteen: Youth in Museums and Libraries: A Practitioner's Guide (IMLS, 2008)

• cite research that youth are less likely to engage in risky behaviors when connected to community institutions
• claim libraries and museums possess assets of rich content, expertise, community trust, and quality learning environments
• provide leadership opportunities, access to technology, career development, and family/community connections
• focus on positive youth development
• contrasts with "deficit-based" programs that focus on solving certain problems
• favor leadership and skill-building opportunities
• successful youth programs are based in strong commitment; involve youth at various levels of program development, execution, and evaluation; partnered with other community organizations, and fulfill a need not currently being met
• address problems/events within your community--focus on what makes it special/unique
• use census data to understand your demography
• LISTEN to the community
• understand obstacles
• find ways to involve youth as leaders/ambassadors/other gratifying role
• prove to them the value of their work
• article provides conditions for successful partnerships (19)
• mentions sports clubs as potential partners, as well as many other institutions and groups
• evaluation should be used not only to measure contribution and impact, but also to find ways to refine the services offerred and to share your experiences with others who may learn from them
• different groups highlight different needs of youth
• 4-H: Need to Belong, to Master, to be Independent, to be Generous
• focus on integrating family, school, and community efforts
• Richard Lerner: competence, connection, character, confidence, caring/compassion, and constribution
• defines specific ways to measure development in physical, intellectual, psychological/emotional, and social ways (27)

"My Life in Museums: The Importance of Community Outreach and Teen Programs" (Zwicky, 2010)

• free art class provided very different setting for learning as compared to "oppressive" school building; began taking much more interest in assignments and working much harder within the art class
• joined Teen Arts Council: gained personal involvement with artists and other staff within the museum; museum began to attract more teens
• confidence and real-world experience gained from working within museums seems to have affected positively his ability to go to college and do well
• became involved in education and community/access aspects of museums; now works with youth and teens much like himself
• Marit Dewhurts (Teen Programs at MOMA): "Museums offer unique spaces for having complex conversations about contemporary ideas that cannot often happen in other spaces, like schools"
• museum as space where young people can learn how to understand and use art to influence/instigate social change 
• cultural institutions as place to develop an identity
• duty of cultural institutions to pick up slack created by lack of arts funding/programming, particularly in schools, and "create safe, creative environments for this next generation of artists to flourish"
• focus of affecting youth by helping them realize their potential to be artists and to increase their desire to become more involved within school (or possibly other settings)
• brief comment to blog that mentions wilderness programs as another avenue to reach similar results of youth arts programs

Art Museums and Socioeconomic Forces: The Case of a Community Museum (Moreno, 2004)

• community museums first imagined as vehicles for promoting art and culture of minority communities
• differed greatly of conventions of traditional museums
• grassroots organizations which attempted to bridge the gap between culture and everyday life
• attempt to create arts space for cultural groups marginalized by mainstream cultural sector
• case study of Museo del Barrio: three stages
• community-educational
• museum conceived as way for Puerto Rican community to achieve cultural rights and as an education center to expose community (particularly children) to its culture and history
• received funding from education department of city
• educational mission
• wanted to create a sense of pride, a cultural identity
• exhibitions and programs were centered around community
• located within heart of community for easy accessibility
• focus on folk/traditional arts
• museum-gallery
• declaration of non-profit status: board of directors, new eligibility for grant support
• shift in focus of museum
• focus on becoming more conventional museum to better fit in with museum sector
• move of building outside of barrio to 'museum mile'
• education became secondary function to curation
• expanded Museo to larger Latin American population
• partially an act to become eligible for more funding
• focus more on fine arts
• shift towards individual rather than group exhibit
• professionalization: expanded public role?
• distanced itself from community roots--in some ways expanded community it was reaching out to; defined as "Latin American museum"
• new definition of barrio
• had to fulfill need of both education and entertainment to compete in cultural field (520)
• commercialization/commodification of art objects
• public mission again became a priority
• increased linkages of organization with business, legal, government, and cultural sectors
• question of whether institution was becoming elitist or truly representing the needs of the Puerto Rican/Latino/a community (523)
• legitimacy: gained through conforming to accreditation standards of AAM on collections, exhibitions, and public programs; copy other successful models
• the makeup of the board seems to reflect the changes that the museum went through
• while started as an alternative, "community museums such as the Museo del Barrio eventually evolved into more exclusive art institutions with a subordinate status in the museum sector" (526)
• convert to more professional practices for survival, but lose the base of who they're serving
• possibility that marketing and gaining more money on their own will result in greater levels of autonomy, but they may also become subjugated to desires of certain business considerations

Building a Community-Based Identity at Anacostia Museum (James, 1996)

• founded on direct community accessibility, identity based on community-centered core
• people had different conceptions of what was meant by "neighborhood museum" concept
• dialogue concerning museum often focuses on process in addition to completed installations
• original identity became very wrapped up in the first director: John Kinard
• like Museo, originally a storefront museum
• originally intended bring artifacts of Smithsonian Institution to a community not currently visiting the museums on the Mall
• knew involvement would only occur "if it is their museum"
• wanted to situate museum in a place where qualities of stability and involvement were already inherent
• original site used museum employees and members of the community to help renovate it; doesn't discuss but likely gave some community members a feeling they had a stake within the museum
• originally, visitors could often touch/handle objects
• community group met weekly to plan what museum would be like
• originally focused almost exclusively on community outreach and exhibition production; very different from organization of conventional museum
• community did saw museum as an emissary of the Smithsonian, but one to share their own thoughts and experiences with the Smithsonian and its public audiences; claimed the museum as their own
• early exhibitions often dealt with broad subjects relevant, but not always directly related to, the neighborhood
• first place where Smithsonian produced a major exhibition on African-American history and culture
• wanted exhibits to be relevant to present-day community
• community members were greatly involved in creation of exhibits
• interaction with community members began to be confined to education department
• absence of collection was central to museum's identity: had to develop community networks for support
• shifting idea of museum being more focused on curating the community in a way as the scholarship of the museum came under scrutiny
• museum shifted location; still within the community, but not as readily accessible as it had been
• professionalization resulted in some loss of the community element within the museum's process (34)
• question of whether the museum really ever was a "neighborhood museum"
• name change prompted by Kinard
• museum began having more traditional indices of success; travelling exhibits, national relationships, etc.
• Black Mosaic exhibition: refocusing on community
• question of who was included within the museum's community
• community once again became heavily involved in process
• some were held back from participation because they didn't understand the role/work of the museum
• used locally travelling exhibition to raide additional interest in larger exhibition
• artifacts of community (of everyday life) used to discuss larger issues
• exhibit increased engagement of people within the community, who produced additional initiatives and proposals
• new challenge: find ways to integrate community perspectives within existing museum structures
• problem of defining institutional identity
• future lies in relationships between museums and communities

Questions/Comments

• Are there any examples of museums or community arts organizations pairing with sports clubs?
• Find examples of the research which has shown that students are less likely to be involved in risky-behavior if they participate in these types of institutions
• Are long-term partnerships limiting at all?  Should they be 100% preferred to shorter partnerships?  How many groups can be involved successfully within a partnership?
• How can resources and learning actually be shared two-ways, when one organization might think of themselves as "greater" than their partner?
• How can a positive youth development program measure its success if it is not focusing on addressing a single problem?  Does this put it at a disadvantage when vying for funding and awareness?
• it would have been nice to hear more of Zwicky's story of how his involvement in the arts affected more than his general interest in the arts, how it prompted him to become reinvigorated within the school environment and to gain skills that could be used outside of museum space; this can be extrapolated but would be nice if it was more bluntly stated
• How can museums act both as an alternative to schools and as a resource to help schools in some way provide a better learning environment?
• How can community museums become financially viable without professionalizing and adopting the role of more conventional museums?  How can they preserve and serve their original audiences?
• What were the effects of expanding the audience of the Museo?  Did the integrity of the museum actually suffer, or were they able to tackle larger issues?  
• How did the location of the Museo affect the role it played?

Further Reading

Community Development Journal

Eccles, J., and Gootman, J.A., Eds. 2002. Community Programs to Promote Youth Development. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

IMLS. 2002. True Needs, True Partners: Museums Serving Schools, 2002 Survey Highlights. Washington, DC: Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Lerner, R. 2005. "Positive Youth Development: A View of the Issues." Journal of Early Adolescence 25(1):10-16.

Marek, L. I., Mancini, J.A., and Brock, D.P. 1999. Continuity, Success, and Survival of Community-based Projects: The National Youth at Risk Program Sustainability Study (Publication 350-801). Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Cooperative Extension Service.  

Lippard, L.R. 1984. Get the message? A message of art for social change. New York: E.P. Dutton.

Museo del Barrio. 1972. The community museum concept. Quimbamba: Bilingual Education Quarterly, June: 19.

Pankratz, D.B. 1993. Multiculturalism and public arts policy. Westport, CT: Bergen & Gamey.

Taylor, J.C. 1975. The art museum in the United States. In On Understanding Art Museums, ed. S.E. Lee, 34-67. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.