Here are the responses, as well as other tips. I hope it helps somewhat.
(via email): I am visitor services manager at museum in Philadelphia. I was actually recommended by the previous VS manager.
I am seeing a number of people with numerous degrees and vast experience trying to work for me in the museum. The people I hired..
1- are brought in by current employees.
2- show personality in their resume.
3- have potential to do other things in the museum.
With the way things are right now, I recommend they do as much volunteer work as they can at various museums, and make their mark! It is all about WHO you know as well as what you know.
Bob Hole (via email): I’m somewhat of a late bloomer. I’ve been interested in museums all my life, but had several useful but unrelated jobs before getting my B.S. My university biology department (I was a bio student) had several collections and a small museum. I got to work there by knowing the seniors who were graduating. I became volunteers under them to gain experience. I was lucky enough to get an internship at the Smithsonian. Then in grad school I continued working in collections. To get my first job after school, I had to volunteer a couple places until a job opened. The place I started actually created a job for me. A lot of being “willing to learn” and not turning my nose up at cleaning the bathroom (or whatever) when needed helped me a lot.
Samuel Bausson, Webmaster Museum de Toulouse, France (via email): Even though I majored in anthropology (Grinnell College) I entered via web stuff (had done some CDROM for my department, and attended the very first web design class there) when I came back to France from USA (where I lived 6 years) in 1998. Was still kind of new here at the time and a good way to get a foot in the museum’s door (very tough otherwise). Was a good strategy I guess : still there.
JiaJia Fei (via email): Last year while applying to my first museum jobs, I received interviews from the Lehmann Maupin Gallery in Chelsea, The Museum of Modern Art & The Jewish Museum in New York.
My experienced ranged from founder and editor-in-chief of a college arts publication, internships at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C., and the Institute and Museum of the
History of Science in Florence, Italy. I also had a lot of freelance graphic design, web design, and photography experience.
I was ultimately hired full-time at The Jewish Museum (Marketing) due to a combination of design/photography skills that I assumed no one else had, and internship experience. By coincidence, the Director of Marketing and
Communications that I worked for at my previous internship (ICA) used to be the Marketing Manager at The Jewish Museum under the same Director I was interviewing with. Ergo, a pretty excellent reference.
Richard Urban (via email): Just outside of state college is the Pennsylvania Military Museum. Somehow I got the idea to call them up and to see if I could volunteer. By volunteering I got to know the director who suggested I apply for the internship program at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I got the paid internship for the summer, made some new connections with state-level staff and learned a lot about how museums work from the inside. After my internship I started work on my undergraduate thesis in history and was spending lots of time in the University archives. I got to know the director of the archives, who happened to be a colleague of the head of manuscript processing at the Library of Congress. He suggested I apply for the Junior Fellows program, wrote a letter of support, etc. I was accepted and moved to D.C. which later lead to a job at the Smithsonian Institute Libraries.
Rjstein: From academia through partnerships with museums, and loving the people and topics I got to work with.
Barbara Levine: I worked in museums for most of my career, started as an unpaid intern. Finding right internship, i.e. 1 that will make you visible to staff who can mentor/champion you is critical to job hunt success. Knowing dream job you want, taking jobs related to ideal in meantime, meet people, write, patience, & being team player all key.
MW2009: Unique subject combo (Canadian History + grad Art History) = @jtrant 1st FT job: Documentary Art @ National Archives of Canada.
Dana: Knowing people in the field is important. Attending professional conferences REALLY helps! I got 1st job @ a conference.
Lidja Johnson: Not sure there is such a thing as just one break-seems like it is a lifelong collection of tough nuts to crack. Have watched students bounce in & out and back in (& out again) of art admin. Seems like a revolving door w wicked spin… :-/
Sheila Brennan: was paid intern, then volunteered because of promise of full time employment at one museum as they waited for funds. Then took full time “temp” job at different museum because I needed the money. Was great, turned into permanent position. Sometimes you have to take chances.
Michelle Moon: Career change from classroom teaching. Started volunteering, then took an internship,climbed from there. Worked hard for cheap!
Clarissa Ceglio: No job where I volunteered but recs from them + mtg future boss through that circle Before job opened paved way. Writing skills key.
Allison Agsten: I produced CNN’s coverage of the King Tut show @LACMA… the rest is history.
Paul Fraser Webb: Getting job in museums: 1-be good at your job, 2-network like crazy, 3-chase every opportunity, 4-return to stage 1. Never easy
Erica Pastore: Look for opportunity to do something new-even if you have no experience, when someone gives you a chance, take it.
The Awesome Nina Simon: I said: “I’ll volunteer for three months and then we’re going to talk about potential for a job.” Set expectations early!
This proposal was disregarded. “Saving for the nation” has become code for a professional belief that anything hidden in a curator’s store was better off there than when shared with the public: the ultimate conspiracy against the laity.
The only improvement I could suggest would be introducing GPS and location-aware software so the device starts the sign language video dependent on where you are rather than punching in a corresponding number. Hell, you could make it an iPhone app. Apart form the fact that I can’t imagine many people with hearing difficulties owning an iPhone.
Maybe QR codes could trigger the video? Put a small camera on the back and take a picture of the codes? Or RFIDs and just be near a video trigger.
You could go even more over the top and use augmented reality, so you hold the handheld in front of you and the person signing walks around the museum with you, signing as she goes. Maybe giving actual tours, signing “take a left here” or “look over there” and signing when you hold her in front of something.
Trust me to take a very cool simple idea and turn into a massively expensive one.
Museum Presentism is multi-faceted. It can mean the actions of museums for short-term gain or without long-term vision. It can also mean that history is pushed to the corners for exhibitions of Right Now.
There’s so much going on here. This is a museum acting almost like a journalist with the most integrity ever and reporting on current events, to which I applaud such a move. But part of me shouts out when something appears in a museum that’s barely a week old (and isn’t art).
“You cannot really document history until well after the fact,” acknowledges Leena Akhtar, who co-curated the exhibit at the museum just steps away from the New York Stock Exchange.
I’m glad there’s an acknowledgement of this, which leads me to hope that they’ll be updating the exhibition as more news comes along.
It’s a finance museum doing probably the most important financial event in 80 years, so it does make sense. The point I’m making about museums dabbling in journalism is more a point about the current state of media journalism. Open any newspaper or look at the rows upon rows of magazines and you’ll see what sells is celebrity or the insipid. Proper journalists, those people with actual journalistic skills as opposed to any idiot with a column, are being slowly phased out.
So I warn about the dangers of going down this route. The potential reward? Museums could become the replacement for the dying print media industry to act as the “real” in this digital world. (Must investigate further).
For some reason, I tend to give science museums a lot more leway in criticisms, due to the fact that they tend to walk a parallel path to other history based museums (Well, certainly in the UK).
There is something that makes sense and doesn’t make sense to me about this: the Science Museum in London has a new £2 million exhibition called Cracking Ideas, and the theme is Wallace and Gromit. For those who don’t know, Wallace and Gromit is a series of stop-motion animations by Nick Park. One of the main plot points is Wallace’s love of crazy Goldberg-esque contraptions or bizarre devices (and his use of the adjective “Cracking”).
So, science museum, aimed more at those still in school, Wallace & Gromit, animation, strange machines, must be some science. Yeah, I can see the whole thematic sense even though Wallace’s machines are far more on the side of fantasy and humour than science. But I like I said, I’m more easy going on science museums.
The exhibition is the idea of the Intellectual Property Office, who decided to plug into the wackiness of Wallace and Gromit in order to increase the flow of people taking out patents on inventions.
It cost £30 to £100 for the IPO’s services. And then it all becomes clear. £2 million to make an exhibition child-friendly by making it look like the world of Wallace & Gromit to shill for the IPO. This isn’t science, this is looking at people’s bad ideas of sellotaping pillows to their head for sleeping on a train.
Wallace and Gromit? Another celebrity endorsement.
I’m recently qualified with an MA with distinction in Museums and Galleries, with a specialism in history of textiles. I can’t get a job for love nor money. There are many, many post-graduates like me in the same position: newly qualified, with nowhere to go. I know we are in a recession and there is lots of competition out there, but there does not seem to be a way to get a foothold in the industry.
I have a couple of years’ worth of volunteering experience in museums doing documentation, storage and exhibitions. I have paid experience in a museum education dept as an interpreter/ demonstrator and as a gallery assistant. I have a good CV and I think I’m pretty presentable at interview: I’m smart, intelligent and amenable.
Despite this, having sent out my CV or an application to around 80 jobs in the past 3 or 4 months, I have only been up for two interviews.
The most recent of these was for a position as a seasonal museum assistant.
I was selected from over 600 applicants for three positions and was interviewed last week. I thought I performed pretty well. I received a call back to say I was unsuccessful and I asked for feedback as to why. I was told that I was overqualified. This really does beg the question of why I was interviewed in the first place.
Seriously though, the reasons I am getting for being turned down for museums jobs are thus: either I don’t have enough experience (5 years seems to be the popular figure), or I am overqualified. Short of volunteering for another three years and living off the state, or missing off my qualifications on application forms, I am at a loss of how to rectify this situation.
Will I ever make the career change I went back to university for? Will it be back to nursing work again for me? I haven’t spent 6 more years in education for that.
Where is the middle ground, and the jobs for newly qualified post-graduates, just starting out? Those of us with the qualifications, but not the large amount of experience. Something in recruitment needs to change to accommodate us. We’d be useful to you!
Ingrid Murnane is an MA Museums graduate and artist. You can contact her at Ingrid(dot)murnane(at)gmail(dot)com or follow her on twitter for the ongoing saga of the job hunt!
If you want to be part of ArtFriday and have your work displayed on here, drop me an email pete(at)newcurator.com and I’ll give you instructions. The only rules are that It has to be something I can display and link to as I can’t offer hosting and it has to be recent/the latest thing.
I like to think that newcurator.com always has the future in mind. Every post and article or weird thing I uncover is either presented as “Imagine what this will be like in a museum” or “This is the beginning of a greater trend”. So wondrous things like augmented reality to more fundamentals like deaccessioning policy are going to be part of whatever path museums will take. The purpose is to allow for a bit more creative/imaginary discussions without dealing with the absolute finer points
I don’t tend to offer too many opinions, rather offering food for thought and commentary. I do have opinions on everything but I like to save them for discussions rather than use newcurator.com as a personal soapbox.
But I am fascinated with the future and the movements happening right now. I consume tons of media about this even thought I’m no futurologist. I recognise my influences on my interests and what made me think the way I do. I can’t think of anyone else that has influenced me more than British writer Warren Ellis (I imagine that link will be NSFW at times).
Mr. Ellis writes comics. I first read his work TRANSMETROPOLITAN… years ago. Spider Jerusalem, outlaw gonzo journalist (based slightly on Hunter S. Thompson) writes about his world of a grimy ultra-consumerist future. This isn’t your Glossy Star Trek future or Terminator 2 future. This is a future of future-shock and cultural weirdness instead of apocalypse or utopia. But parts of this comic are becoming true.
It was first published in 97 and look at what it talked about before it happened: Strange tech like News “feedsites”, sunglasses that take pictures and cats with two faces. Then look at the events, like a hurricane destroying a city acting as a distraction during for a corrupt President who then removes civil liberties or a man being gunned down by police because of his “suspicious behaviour” of holding onto his wallet because plain-clothes police rushed at him. You may recognise the history Mr. Ellis is repeating with his own spin, but it’s scary when his own spin is suddenly accurate. We then look at the other things that populate this world and wonder if they’re next. Splicing genetic code for fashion statements? Tattoos that act as television screens? Air Jesus trainers that allow you to walk on water? Downloading your consciousness into a cloud of nanobots?
Everyone once in a while, something of TRANSMET breaks through into our reality.
Who influences your Vision of the Future?
So, I recommend you pick up TRANSMET, and also look at DOKTOR SLEEPLESS and if you’re feeling particularly Strong/Brave, CROOKED LITTLE VEIN.
Apparently, the scenario is that you are curator Susan Anderson and you’re in the museum during a large earthquake. Everything is thrown onto the floor and there are puzzles to solve in order to save objects and get around the museum’s security systems.
Now, the large graphic on the front of the box says “Hidden Object Game”. Is that like the hidden objects games I used to play in Flash? Where you had to find almost a single pixel amongst a huge complicated image like the world’s most frustrating Where’s Wally? Wouldn’t know having not played the actual game.
It’s nice to see museums as settings in computer games. I can’t think of many times that has happened. I can only think of a GTA IV mission and the level from Condemned 2. Warning: The video in these links are ultra violent, contain naughty language and people getting killed in a variety of graphic ways. Strange how museum’s are typecast. The Condemned 2 video is interesting through, because it’s basically a guy walking around a museum with an advanced mobile phone. The game obviously works upon a set of location triggers. How hard could it be to make Condemned 2 in real life using augmented reality hardware? (Without, you know, the brutal murder and stuff).
Can anyone else think of museums in computer games?
This is kind of interesting to me because I’ve had a great idea for a computer game involving museums. But, I have no idea how one goes about getting ideas on paper. I can’t code or draw or make models, but I already have a framework of what the game in my mind. Can anyone help point me to a format of how to write/author a game?
I know of web teams that have one person per 30,000 pages. I know of web teams that don’t even know how many pages they have. I know of web teams that don’t even know how many websites they have. Is that quality? Is that management?
Contemporary American museums are in a precarious spot. They have freedom that commercial galleries don’t have and, as a result, show some amazing work that just could not end up in any but the biggest galleries. While they are not beholden to the needs of the consumer market, they too often are focused on what shows will bring in the most feet through the door. Case in point is the ICA Boston, my hometown contemporary mecca. Recently, I went to the Shepard Fairey show and I couldn’t help think, while walking through the PACKED (on a Thursday!) show that the ICA really scored on this one. They found this artist who represented liberal/ progressives/ Obamaphiles to draw the fawning masses to the Art Museum. I’m all for art for the people, but this entire show seemed like a set up to me, not even getting into the fact that the BPD arrested the guy on the way to the show. (Yeah, what better way to boost the rebellious cred than getting arrested. Brilliant!!) The images were of the highest production value, but even he will tell you, this ‘aint art. Not when you’re doing avatar stencils for Joey Ramone and saying things like “I’m not a musician, but I’m still gonna rock it hard as nails.” That was actually written on one of the gallery walls, someone had to fish through Shepard Fairey quotes and say, yeah, that’s what we want to use.
The ICA can’t take a risk because it can’t afford for attendance to drop, so they are satisfied with putting on these massive retrospectives (in an ostensibly contemporary museum?) that bring in the crowds, but end up leaving educated viewers unimpressed (and depressed). How about bringing in some fresh talent, actually doing your homework to find interesting and forward-thinking artists to grace your galleries? I overheard on twitter the other day someone saying “Martin Kippenberger can’t be all that great because no one in NYC has heard of him.” That’s the problem. No one in NYC knows anything about anything but American art and the snippets of Damien Hirst and various other heavy hitters in international art. There are other museums that seem to have found a great working model (MASS MoCA in Western, MA), but the ICA, at least, looks like it has no desire to change. At least they have some nice trinkets at the gift shop.
I’m a big alternate/augmented reality nut, as many of you may have guessed. I look at every development in wearable computers and think it won’t be long before our relationship to information is going to change. I think about how we find, pull and manipulate information and how museums are going to have to adapt to it.
Then I watch a video like this and get all excited.
This surprises me since I thought SL was pretty much dead because it was always empty and full of 3D billboards. The quote of “100 million a month” is clearly an over exaggeration.
Find and Replace almost every mention of “university” with “museum” and it’s still a poignant pair of articles. I would even go on to say museums are probably in an even better place to protect creativity.
New Blog: Piotr Adamczyk’s Museum Pipes. “A blog to augment a suite of Yahoo Pipes that work with Museum website and public collection information.”
I have no idea how it works, what Yahoo Pipes do exactly, but I know some of you will find it very interesting and it’s fascinating to look at.
Jelling Stone by squashpicker. Used under Creative Commons.
I seem to have developed quite a fondness for runes in stone since my post on TeknoMagi.
The Jelling Stones represent the birth of Denmark. The inscription on them talks about King Harald’s unification and Christianisation of the Danes (That’s Harald Bluetooth, namesake of the technology). When it comes to national monuments, this is up there with some of the world’s most important. No surprise with it being part of UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites.
UNESCO’s own experts say it’s better to stay where it is, outside, in the rain and cold and submitting to the whim of that crazy climate change. UNESCO would also take away the World Heritage status if the stones are moved.
Whenever I think about museums gaining/losing their autonomy, I always thought about it on a national level. All of a single country’s museums associated under the government or membership organisations, complying with rules handed down and enforced with prissy fatwas. I’m of the belief that museum’s need to start gaining more autonomy in order to act globally, much like people do. I never expected a global organisation essentially blackmailing a national museum. Save your nation’s heritage from dissolving or save the prestige of a UNESCO’s honorific?
I do believe that’s a scenario that never shouldn’t have occurred in the first place. I question the future of such museum organisations that have such carrot-or-stick approaches.
Google Street View Car in Bristol by byrion. Used under Creative Commons.
This is both cool and tragic. Google Street View in the UK was announced a few days ago. For those who don’t know, this means Google drove around in a car with a massive amount of cameras on the roof that takes pictures every few metres. The pictures are then stitched together to form a panorama you can somewhat move around.
I am a fan of museums and maps, and think there’s a lot more interesting stuff to be done with museum objects and GPS co-ordinates. Where an object is located, where it has been, where is it going (on tour?) where it was dug out of the ground or created would make great additions to museum documentations. Then, release it with an API and let people make there own maps from the collections. I’m sure someone is already doing this.
This part is the tragedy. As part of their privacy policy, any image can be requested to be removed or censored. (I’m not going to link to any article to prove this as they all seem to be reactionary nonsense). There are many other “sensitive” images removed and it’s already affected the Tate’s map.
The last time I did this there was a great reaction and I had enough to cover my trip to Poland.
Now, museum news is pretty slow. Every other story being about museums closing or laying off staff or slashing budgets. This isn’t really “museum” news as it’s happening to everyone. It seems my usual sources of inspiration as pretty quiet and I’m reluctant to turn this into just a rehashing of Museum 2.0.
So, I throw open the doors to all of you like a newcurator open mic night.
The theme of the guest post this time around is “What do museums need to change?” Maximum 400 words, a chance to air grievances, pet peeves, analyse situations whilst still keeping one eye on the future. It can be about anything in general about the museum industry.
Send your guest posts to pete(at)newcurator.com with something you want said about yourself, name, location, profession, website ideally.
I’ll post them when I get them and kick off discussions as well. I’ll do this all week.
1) People who work in or with museums or directly related to the museum industry
2) Artists, Arts Organisations and Galleries
The NewCurator twitter account hopes that the accounts it follows will act as a definite list for people interested in these fields, so will aim to follow as many os possible.
The NewCurator twitter account will allow anyone to become a follower, as long as:
1) They are a real person
2) They are genuinely interested
The NewCurator twitter account will block any other accounts who are:
1) Bots and “zombies”
2) Bad attempts at advertising
3) Follower-hoarders, meaning having far too many followers and not related to museums and art, making there no chance in making a connection and saying anything meaningful.
4) Offensive.
NewCurator will:
1) Try to respond to all @s and DMs. Don’t be shy, I like hearing from people and will try to answer all questions.
2) NOT respond to “welcome DMs” that say nonsense like “thanks for following” like I just signed up to your newsletter. NOR will I DM you saying anything similar.
3) Use twitter to announce blog updates
4) Ask strange museum-related questions and crowd-source answers.
Here’s the New and Improved ArtFriday. I think we can call this experiment a Win. The ArtFriday social network is coming along nicely. People are using it and making connection. If you are an artist of any kind and want to join in, send me an email (with maybe a link to something you’ve done) to pete(at)newcurator.com and I’ll send you instructions.
On with the show. Click the thumbnails to enlarge.
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