Research Essays
Risk Management in Art Institutions: Knowing Your People from the Inside Out (2023)
Artists, activists, and art workers are forces to be reckoned with. In recent years, they have pushed major museums within the United States to remove controversial donors from their board committees and gallery wings and to refuse future investments. Museum staff members have also formed unions to fight for better labour and working conditions for themselves and future employees.
Inward to Outward: Transforming Museums into Alternative Art Spaces and Community-Driven Projects (2022)
The landscape of art has dramatically changed from the birth of museums to the contemporary moment. Instead of guiding audiences through gallery spaces as spectators, museums can encourage visitors to actively engage with artworks through participatory or experiential learning. As catalysts for changing the face of museums, this essay highlights a community-based project by Indigenous artist Ursula Johnson and three alternative art spaces developed by the Indonesian art collective, Ruangrupa.
Reframing Hollywood and Diversifying Representations within Cinema Museums (2022)
Cinema museums within the United States are currently rethinking their relationship to the film industry as they seek to hold Hollywood Studios accountable for its lack of inclusion and diversity throughout the twentieth century. By bringing these truths into the spotlight, film curators and educators can create exhibition spaces that empower those voices that were previously suppressed. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is a key example of how cinema museums become changemakers when they are receptive to multiple communities and untold stories.
Reclaiming Cultural Identity with Parafiction and Fictioning Practices: A Case Study on Michael Blum's exhibition, A Tribute to Safiye Behar (2022)
Parafiction incorporates both historical fact and make-believe to challenge viewers to uncover the fabrications and hidden motives that are present within politics, society, and the media. Fictioning is a method or intervention that artists can put forward as a way to politically engage and imagine alternative futures that could better society. As part of the 9th Istanbul Biennial in 2005, Israeli-born artist Michael Blum staged an apartment as an imaginary museum to encourage citizens to critically examine and re-interpret the making of a nation's cultural memory and history.