Final Presentation to the Museum of Chinese in America

This week, Nancy’s Cabinets of Wonder class presented 4 concepts to the director of MOCA and her team.  Juri, Sara and I presented our idea of an annual, communal exhibit of Chinatowns.

Our idea aims to  to extend and enhance MOCA’s relationship with its community while maintaining the building as a physical center.  We spent time  looking at how to bring Chinese American communities together and how to bring visitors to MOCA, noting that these days, it is vital to meet the expectation visitors have to participate rather than simply observe.

Me presenting at MOCA

We aim to do this by a series of annual competitions, to engage the community resident in local Chinatowns in the NYC area.  For example, a photography competition entitled “Where’s Your Chinatown.”  Members of local schools, community colleges and community centers would be invited to participate by either emailing their photos to the museum, or uploading them directly to MOCA’s website.

Sara H presenting MOCA eats

People would be encouraged to vote for their favorite photographs online, with the top voted pictures being selected for judging by a panel.  The winning photographs would be displayed at MOCA, in an exhibition on local Chinatowns curated by MOCA.  There would be an opening night party, with the winners and their families invited to MOCA.

The project could be scaled both geographically, to other Chinatowns nationally, and also in terms of topic and media.  For example, other potential competions could include:

- Your grandmother’s and your mother’s Chinatown (written essay)

- Sounds of Chinatown (audio projects)

- Our family objects (show and tell-type project).

Cabinets of Wonder Class 2009

This project aims to build community links, while maintaining MOCA as a focus.  In addition, the use of technology is deliberately kept ‘lite.’  Once the initial database is built to contain the competition entries, it can be used for different media formats.

Final Project Progression – Part 2

We’ve been developing our ideas lots since last week:

In class: 11/18/09

Nancy – idea of Son et Lumieres

Concept 1:
Around the Table

Idea of grandmothers

“Round the Table”

Meeting together – where the conversation happens

- Rituals around eating
- Objects – eg pottery or sewing, the table cloth
- Food as the central theme with peripheral things/object

Idea of the lazy Susan – each sitting represents a different family

Web casting possibly

MoCA to liase with top 10 Chinese American communities (and museums)
10 dinners – maybe on Chinese New Year
Web link up for Show and Tell
Web link-up between more than 2 locations

Chinatowns of America – the stories behind them
Differences in cuisine between different Chinese communities in America
Wikipedia Chinatowns entry
- 6 Chinatowns in NYC alone (1 in Manhattan, 2 in BKLYN, 2 in Queens, 1 in NJ)

“New York City’s metropolitan area now contains at least 6 Chinatowns, comprising the original Manhattan Chinatown, two in Queens (the Flushing Chinatown and the Elmhurst Chinatown), two in Brooklyn (the Sunset Park Chinatown and the Avenue U Chinatown), and one in Edison, New Jersey.” (wikipedia)

Concept 2:
Chinatowns in NYC – photography

- Photography in each of the Chinatowns in NYC
- Online and in the museum
- Get local schools, photography classes to take pics of the neighborhoods
- Workshop on photography (perhaps Susan M)
- Can be a new theme every month
- Eg 8 students per semester
- Have a party – a gallery opening once a semester
- Touch screen – more about the area
- MoCA to add material and curate an explanation of each of the different Chinatowns.

Magnum

Discussion of the Gates and Susan M’s work in Nicaragua

Concept of a tent exhibition
Modular exhibition – ’shake a tent’
How to set up an exhibition in eg a station
Multiple exhibitions – not just Mined in China.

Final Project Development – Part 1

We have 3 weeks to develop presentations to make to the Museum of Chinese in America and Susan Meiselas of Magnum on the Mined in China project following on from our visit a few weeks ago (write-up here).  I’m working with Juri and Sara.   Here are the notes of our initial discussions this week:

Notes from prelim group discussion Sat 11/14

MoCA

Problem: as museum expands to become a national institution, how do they engage with the local community?

Need to get the community interested
Is the museum intimidating for locals?
What is the relevance to them?
How do they participate and tell their stories?

How about community nights akin to the Tenement Museum’s Tenement Talks
Food as a theme
Local restaurants showcasing
Older people showing traditional recipes
Accessible but not dumbing-down

What about young Chinese Americans at college
Would they be interested in Chinese American clothing designers?
Eg Anna Sui
CW cites Vivienne Westwood show for young members of her friend’s London club to engage younger people

Not so keen to focus on education – they seem to have that covered
Community linking and building is the focus.

Susan Meiselas – Magnum

How do you engage people on a topic they really may not want to hear about
Of interest on this problem: Emma Thompson’s Emma and Eleina’s Exposing the Sex Trade installation, at Washington Square Park at the moment.  Example of how to tell a story people really don’t want to hear.

Concept of scale is one way to do this.  What if a mine was in the middle of Manhattan, how much of the island would it take up?  How many Empire State Buildings or yellow cabs wide is on of these mines?

What is the effect of the mine on us?

What are the stories of the people who work in these mines – need to add the human element, otherwise its just a concept – eg the card of the person given when you visit the Holocaust Museum.  Make the numbers real.

Need to clarify what the task is with this project.

Mtg with Nancy 3pm 11/17

In the last class go to MoCA and we’ll talk about the problem set we’ve been given and the solution we’re proposed.  10 – 15 min max pitch, each group will get 30 min total so each presentation will be 12 min + questions.  Work on both but option to have one more fleshed out than the other.

MoCA – have a home base, want to future how the place can meet out to the large Chinese American communities. how does the museum enable other groups to take pride and connect, more of an outreach.  Eg – show and tell on Chinese New Year, much rider reach. National thing.  Museum full of object, website of objects.  Tales of my Chinese Grandmother book.  Social networking also.

Magnum – How could you put the collection in front of people, used to be in magazines, exploring a different venue, what are other venues to put into investigative reporting to show people – good places, in the nature of broadcast, people are watching narrower channels, Life Mag etc dying out, so how do you put it into the public square and public conversation – put it in the public sphere but letting people have the opt out, ie you didn’t have to have a Life subscription.

Map your presentation to the main theme, scale may be one part of it, or environmental, or the stories of the people working there.  Remember they were Chinese photographers – the main part is the photos, we’re trying to make it a 3D experience.  How do you turn the photos into an exhibit.  Think of it outside a museum at the moment.

Show and Tell – Midterm Presentation

I sat at my desk at 9.40 pm on Tuesday evening, the night before my midterm presentation, a glass of white wine beside me, PowerPoint open, and frantically tweeting:

“Terrified about my ‘make a museum in class idea.’ I actually became interactive at ITP. I used to think a Q&A after a ppt pres was interactive”

It’s true.  But a Q&A after this presentation wasn’t enough.  I wanted to see if it was possible to get the class listening and interacting with each other about the objects I had asked them to bring in.  By midday the next day I was completely nervous that the whole idea would fall flat on its face.  Having made a pit stop at Crumbs to pick up cupcakes – remember the plan is each of the 10,000 groups would get $100 to buy food as food brings people together, I headed to class.

Me presenting to the class the concept of the Great Show and Tell

My object is next to my laptop – an orange deal trophy

My concept (blogged about last week here) is that on August 12, 2010 there would be 10,000 show and tells throughout the US, funded by the cool $1 million grant from my professor Nancy.  I explaining the concept to the class and that we were about to do a trial-run ourselves right there and then.

I presented my first ever deal trophy, or tombstone as they are often known.  It was for a $300 million IPO – and this piece of orange plastic encapsulates the reasons why I became a lawyer and why I am no longer one now.  I passed the tombstone, and my first practising certificate around the class, and explained that on that particular deal, I worked with some of the best people I was lucky enough to work with, gained amazing experience, and was taught the intricacies of LIBOR at midnight.  It was my first introduction to corporate law in practice.  It was also the start of me realizing, that this career would entail very significant sacrifices of my time and relationships, that in the end, I wasn’t prepared to make.  It astounds me that one lump of plastic can drag up so many thoughts and emotions – this is why the show and tell idea intrigues me.

Next Caroline passed a red mug around the class.  The object itself wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.  It said ‘I’m special’ on the front, but the story had the whole class smiling.  Every time Caroline chips or breaks this mug (it’s happened a few times), her mom sends her a new one, exactly the same.  It gave us an insight into her family life, and – I was amazed to see how the  class warmed up as they heard Caroline’s story.

Caroline tells us the story of the mug from mom

Next, Cameron showed us his yoga beads, kick-starting a discussion on the difference between them and Buddhist meditation beads, and comparisons with a rosary.  I loved how the objects sparked discussions.  Nancy showed us a gift, with a poignant story of love, families and transitions.  We listened intently, and were very quiet after.  The mood in the room was swinging back and forth as the stories were told.

All listening intently to Nancy’s story

Finally, Daniel had us in stitches with a Valentines card from a few years ago.   Humor can be  great way to tell a story.

Daniel has the class smiling

The whole thing took about 20 minutes, and by the end of the session, the class was on a slight cupcake induced sugar high.  We had learned something of each other, we’d shared, understood a little more – and as a group, I hope become a bit closer.  Storytelling is powerful, and one way of telling these stories is via objects.  Museums have a lot of objects in them, all with stories behind them, the question is, how can we best improve the telling of their stories to one another?

Cameron showing us his yoga beads, Sara with Caroline’s mug and Eyal looking at my tombstone

Thank you Cabinets of Wonder class and Nancy for participating – am going to take the idea further in Marianne’s Collective Storytelling class.

Making a Cabinet of Wonder (Midterm Assignment)

I’ve been given $1 million to create a museum or exhibit.  I’m usually very good at spending money, and can tell you that $1 million would buy you exactly 1398 pairs of these:

Manolo Sedaraby shoe (RRP $715)

Image: http://intheircloset.com

So, as you can imagine, I’ve been pondering extensively, re-reading the Museum Manifesto I drew up last week and pondering again.  Condensing all the information and thoughts and experiences of the semester so far, I came to the thing I wanted to achieve with the $1 million:

To get lots of people together,

showing each other things,

and for each person to listen,

and learn,

and empathize,

for there to be a discussion,

for people to understand other people

and to learn something about themselves.

So – here’s how I’m going to do it:

The August 12 Show and Tell

Next year, on August 12, 2010, there will be 10,000 gatherings of people all over the US.  Why 10,000?  Because $1 million split between 10,000 places gives them each $100 to buy some wine, cheese and soda – and cookies for the kids.

So on this day, 10,000 groups of people will gather somewhere – anywhere: a park, a community center, a school.  And sit in a circle – or not, if that seems a little naff.

They’ll each bring an object that means a lot to them, for whatever reason.  They’ll drink some wine, eat some cheese (or cookies).  Then one person, who will be quite brave for going first, will stand up for 2 minutes and explain their object to the group and why it is important to them.  Then the group will discuss this – ask questions, laugh, smile, be sad, or joke, eat more cookies. People will share their thoughts, and hopefully gain some insight into someone’s life – and empathize a little, or be horrified, or amazed, or just raise an eyebrow.

And then the next person will go and do the same thing.

And then the next.

Hopefully, there will be some connections made, people will listen, and communicate and recall things they might have forgotten, and remember.  And go to sleep that night wondering about the things they heard that day.

In getting people to share what is dear to them, they are often enthusiastic – and at their most receptive to other people, it’s exercise in reaching out and listening.  It gathers people together.

The August 12 Show and Tell is for just one day (unless we get another endowment for 2011).  Think of it as a limited time exhibit. It’s fanciful, and of course I’d have to think about organizing, and marketing, and fire regulations – but not today.  Today I am just thinking about Mr Smith showing Mr Jones his war medal and Mr Jones responding with his story of the war, or Joe the 6 year old freaking out Mimi the 5 year old with his wormery.  And the sound of her shrieking, and his big huge beaming grin.

Next week in class I’m doing the first Show and Tell, in preparation for the main event.  I’ll show you my object next week and tell you it’s story, together with those my classmates shared.  And let you know how the class responded, and I’ll also let you know which are the best cookies to buy based on which were eaten first.

In an ideal world….

Task:

Write a “manifesto” – a set of criteria for what a museum or exhibit should do in the future

Response:

Having visited a number of different museums and exhibits during the course so far, and having had discussions with top thinkers in the field, I’ve listed below the points that resonated with me in making an exhibit or museum memorable.  I find it hard to define what a ’successful museum’ is because one of the other things I’ve learned during the course is that different people require different boxes to be ticked to make a visit work for them.  For example, I raved about the fantasticness of the Tenement Museum and the techniques they employ there, yet at the same time, other members of my class found the whole experience a bit of a damp squib.  So these are my own, subjective thoughts.

The List for Successful Museum-ing

1) Operational

- Clean restrooms – with spacious cubicles that are cleaned frequently.

- An efficient system to get into the museum, hopefully it’ll be super popular, so good queuing system is vital along with jovial and amusing security guards, and if you feel the need to go airport-style, please, do it nicely.

- Very smiley and helpful staff, even in the bookshop – even if its boring.

- Places to rest.

- Sandwiches that are not overpriced.

- A bar on the roof with special events would be nice, the Met hit the jackpot with that one.

The bigger things: take-homes:

- Make people want to know more, inspire wonder, emotion and curiosity.

- Try and enable people to relate to the material in some way, and if that’s not possible, to be amazed and educated by the differences between them and the material being shown to them.

- Inspire conversation and debate.

- Have things for people to touch. Or engineer an exhibit to surprize people with the scale of something: its minuteness or its hugeness.  Again, inspire wonder.

- Make the museum more interesting than the brightly colored gift shop.

- That said, make your gift shop really good, it’s an important source of income.

- Have people tell their stories if at all possible, make the statistics live and breath.  Humanize the incomprehensible, bring the far-away closer.  Make my heart understand, even if my head can’t.

- Make old, tired, jaded, cynical people want to play.

- Make children shriek.

- Make botoxed women’s foreheads crinkle.

- Make people forget to check their BlackBerries.

- Have special events that bring people together to learn.

- Offer free wine at these events.

- Have an area that children don’t want to leave.

In conclusion, hope that on the journey home, and at the dining table following the visit, and on the subsequent day’s inevitable blog posting, or first tweet – that your visitors are intrigued, and thinking about what they experienced when they spent some time at your museum.  That they came away with some sense of understanding, or a smile – or a heartbeat that was out-of-place, or an image of someone they will never forget.

Heavy thoughts.

The discussion we had this week at Thinc Design with Tom Hennes, their Founder and Creative Director made more sense to me than any of the other conversations we’ve had so far in this semester’s Cabinets of Wonder class.  My notes from the meeting are below.

Notes from meeting with Tom Hennes, Founder and Creative Director of Thinc Design Inc.

Museums – Place where people form a new identity, and bond with new material.

Job of a museum: to put something in front of someone/people and get them to tell stories and discuss around the object, the museum further facilitates this discussion by providing further props to make this conversation happen.

Particularly hard when a museum is composed solely of the narratives of something.

When creating an exhibit, the exhibit creators need to understand the people who are having their stuff exhibited – eg, you exhibit a bunch of rocks, you need to understand the scientists who research and study these rocks, what makes them tick, why are THESE particular rocks so important to them that they want them exhibited.

Everyone in the process of creating an exhibit wants something different out of it —> difficult juggling.

The aim of a museum is:  [relational theory] to enable people to see each other through each other’s eyes and change who we are as a result of that interaction.  This is in contrast to the usual curatorial view where the success of an exhibition is measured via how many people ‘got’ the idea that they the museum was trying to show.

Nancy commented that the difference between education and entertainment was that education is where you care what happens afterward.

Zannah commented that the job of a museum is to preserve and capture the complexity of an event – even as time goes on.

Concept of black and white photography being used rather than color as a technique to distance oneself from the event, being wary of re-traumatizing people.

Long, linear exhibit = colonic exhibition, transformative too (!)

Discussion of how fun it would be to form business proposals of exhibits/ideas, and pitch them to museums: hard to do due to funding constraints.

I asked Tom what the purpose of the Freedom Park was – he said primarily reconciliation but also, to that end to provide a place for people to remember and have their stories heard.  The need to balance the gore and pain aspect with telling a story.

With the 9/11 Memorial Museum, it is a space to remember the victims, but also to tell the story of what happened, as this will be a permanent memorial.

I found it fascinating to really pull apart what the purpose of a museum is – I take for granted its just to ‘educate’ but the concept of someone spending time in a place, and being transformed in some small way as a result, or seeing themselves or others in a slightly different way really was quite mind blowing.  This is the week I truly got excited about this course.

Soft Spots…

Occasionally, you have a real soft spot for something.  For me, its Cheetos, men who like to argue intelligently and 5 inch heeled shoes from Kurt Geiger.  Its arguable whether any of them are good for me.

More wholesomely though, I also have a real soft spot for one of New York’s downtown museums: The Tenement Museum.  Its the first museum I ever visited in NYC, and also the first place I ever worked in America.  Both quite big milestones. Milestones aside, I love this place because it is truly about people, real people – and their lives and their struggles.  By the end of a tour at the Museum I always come away with increased respect and a greater understanding for the immigrants who came to NYC and lived in quite awful conditions.

This week, the whole class was assigned to go visit the Tenement Museum to see an example of a single-issue museum, in this case: America’s urban immigrant history.  The Museum operates differently to most in that the only way to see it is to go on a tour, lasting approximately 1 hour.  I took the ‘Getting By‘ tour, which tells the stories of two immigrant families: the Gumpertz family, originally from Germany, who lived at 97 Orchard Street during the Panic of 1873 and the Baldizzi family, originally from Sicily, who lived at 97 Orchard Street during the Great Depression.

Our Educator immediately cottoned on to some important points as she was introducing herself, for example, she saw one of the members of the group taking notes, and asked who was taking the tour for a class assignment – and then offered us handouts at the end of the tour with detailed notes of what we had just seen to save us scribbling during the tour.  These are little things, but indicate a high level of experience and also thoughtfulness.

Our Educator Judy Levin introduces herself

The key to making this tour such a success for me, is that in explaining the lives of the people who lived at 97 Orchard Street, our Educator continually asked us questions – for example, ‘does this look like a kitchen to you?’ as we looked around the cramped, dark ‘kitchen’ of Nathalie Gumpertz – with no running water or refrigeration.  In addition, she also linked the past to the present.  As we discussed the problems of low income housing in Manhattan today, the problems of the past seemed incredibly relevant, even though the apartment we were looking at seemed a million miles away from the apartments we live in now.

A tour group enters 97 Orchard Street

There was good use of technology.  We stood in the kitchen of Adolpho and Rosaria Baldizzi listening to a recording of their daughter, Josephine (now a grandmother herself) telling us about the soap her mother used to wash her with and how her father used to play checkers with her at the kitchen table.  It was incredibly emotive seeing and hearing these recollections.  The way in which someone’s story is told is important – the museum stresses that these are stories about real people, and their personal stories are told with dignity, especially when discussing sensitive topics, such as extreme poverty or loss of a family member.

Finally, from a business perspective, the Museum does very well with its branding – the logo is incredibly distinctive.  The shop is known in its own right as a great place to pick up NYC history books and as a source for materials on the stories of specific immigrant groups in the US.  The Museum has a vibrant Tenement Talks evening lecture series, also available online.  The website is innovative and I found it easy to navigate.

I appreciate that this is clearly a review from someone with a ’soft spot’ for this particular place, but its key success is linking the history to real people, and furthermore, linking these real people to today.  In doing so, the Museum increases the overall impact of the building and its history on the visitor, and encourages understanding and empathy with the challenges faced by immigrants, or any family struggling for whatever reason.

Field Trip:

Interactive in London

This week, we were supposed to visit the New York Hall of Science in Queens.  Now I did go to Queens this week, but instead to Kennedy to go home to London where I organized my best friend’s bachelorette party this weekend.  So instead of the museum, I went wine tasting on Saturday.  However, the trip to Vinopolis on London’s South Bank revealed some really interesting points in terms of education, interaction and in a way, the place has a lot of similarities to a museum.  I’m blogging about it because this week’s museum visit was supposed to be to an interactive museum, and the visit to Vinopolis was also an interactive experience.  Its worth noting some observations from the trip, even though I was shepherding 6 fairly giggly girls and a very wonderful bride-to-be.

Vinopolis is not a museum.  It calls itself a ‘visitor attraction.‘  But I have to say, they do what they do very well.  It is a huge complex on London’s South Bank, with 4 attached restaurants/bars, classes and special events as well as the tours.  The basic taste 5 wines and a gin cocktail tour is approximately £20 but they allow you to add on numerous additional tastings and upgrades for a small fee.

First up was a short 10 minute class on basic winetasting.

Concentrating hard in wine class

Nice touches such as all being handed a tasting glass of wine (part of the entry package but not one of the 5 tokens we were given to taste wine).  A very swift, basic winetasting 101 was dispensed and after that we were free to roam the 4 or 5 ’stations’ in themed rooms (Italian, French, New World etc).  You could hand over a token and in return taste any time at that particular station.  The rooms were themed appropriately with huge informational friezes, maps on the floor, props, and in some rooms, eg the Spanish tasting room, you could also purchase nibbles (in this case, tapas).  Lots of space to stand and chat and plenty of chairs – or themed barrels.

The bachelorette on a Vespa in the Italian Room

In terms of interactivity and technology, apart from the classroom, the actual tastings themselves, and the little wine books and pencils they gave us to make notes, there were some cute touches.  For example, in the picture above, there was a line of Vespas in the Italian tasting room, with projectors in front of the windshields showing videos of the Italian countryside.  And we were encouraged to sit on the scooters.  Interestingly, the best form of interactivity, and the magic of this place, is that as a group, we were all of sudden wine buffs, enthusiastically sharing wine, comparing notes, vividly describing smells, pulling faces!  It was great – and I know wine is a great social lubricant, but I’m not attributing it entirely to that.  As a group, we certainly didn’t all know each other, and by the end of the tour, we were splitting off into smaller groups and gossping away.  As a space it greatly facilitated interaction, and actually I think we all learned something.

I’m a little snobby, because its a ‘themed’ place, not a museum and fiercely commercial (the final tasting was sponsored by Bombay Sapphire) but as in interactive learning experience, it was unexpectedly good.

A toast to the bachelorette!

Thanks to Emma, and her wonderful friends for a great day, and I promise I had no plans on Saturday to make you all my homework assignment….

Fish.  Lots of them.  At the AMNH.

This week we visited the American Museum of Natural History.  Sometimes, school is a hell of a lot better than you ever could imagine it to be.  This is often the case at ITP – but being taken to see the secret fish stash at the AMNH aka the Icthyology Department is right up there.  Its impressive for many reasons.  Firstly, because its the bit of the museum people usually don’t get to see – so of course, this added to the excitement.  Plus, lets be honest, over 2M dead fish in jam jars is a little freaky-compelling-fascinating.

To give an idea of the overall scale of the fishiness of this place, here’s the official piece from the website:

“The American Museum of Natural History’s ichthyological collection comprises approximately 2,000,000 specimens, 200,000 lots, 35,000 skeletons, 2,500 tissues samples, and 500 types. The scope of the collections is worldwide with special strengths in African, Australian, Central American, Chinese, and Malagasy freshwater fishes as well as Bahamian and Gulf of Mexico shore fishes.”

We spent time in the lab with our host Adriana Aquino, she is a scientist and educator at the Museum.

Icthyology Laboratory

Fish Specimens

Adriana explained the reasons for collecting the specimens – including to see which species are new, which ones are dying out, and to continue to research evolutionary aspects of  fish.  She then showed us the main ‘fish library’ – the photo below speaks for itself:

Fish Library

I asked if they had any ‘really big fish’ to which Adriana smiled and showed us to a big metal trunk.  We crowded round, and the huge lid was opened.  Wafts of potent alcoholic fumes made us cough, we bent forward undeterred.  And then there were gasps and disbelief (I promise I’m not laying it on here….) we were utterly, completely bowled over by a 50 year old (or thereabouts) nearly 5 ft fish.

Coelacanth

Museums like the AMNH are very interested in these fish (more details here) because for a long time they were thought to be extinct, and are incredibly important in evolutionary studies.  At one time it was thought they were the fish that walked, and now it is known that the lung fish, the forerunners to mammals is in the same family.  Utterly fascinating.

The visit was of huge value in showing the vast amount of work done in a large world-famous museum such as the AMNH that is simply not seen by the general public.  The Icthyology Department felt akin to an academic department within a university, and its scale was simply mind blowing.

Intrepid Fish Stalkers