Changes to my Research!

My research question in particular has changed over the course of the semester. As I've done more and more research into my topic and talked more to my professors about the Hostile Terrain exhibition I've shifted my question to become more focused. My purpose in the exhibition will be more public and community outreach and helping to table writing events that contribute to the exhibition. To follow in line with my purpose in the exhibition I've made my research question this: "How do museums and exhibitions engage visitors and their communities with contemporary human rights issues, such as the humanitarian crisis on the US-Mexico border?" Now I've taken a greater focus in visitor/community engagement and contemporary human rights issues. I have also found two case examples for my research which I've already begun to read about! I am using the Tenement and Holocaust Museums in New York City. Each one has amazing projects to reach out to their visitors and surrounding communities to engage with not only historical, but contemporary human rights issues such as immigration, refugees, genocide, and antisemitism. From this I see my research evolving to include doing short impromptu interviews with people in the writing sessions for the Hostile Terrain Exhibition to gain insight on their feelings and thoughts about engaging with this material and about being a part of the exhibition.

Still Thinking...

Hello All, 

I’m still a little unsure about a topic for my thesis. I have a couple of ideas in mind, and hope to officially pick my topic by the end of the week!

My first idea and the one I’m focusing on right now is a guided interactive experience. The camp I interned at over the summer is celebrating its 100th anniversary and I would love to do an interactive map for the event that would take individuals around the camp and blend past and present spaces. When I was at the camp I initially thought I could do something similar to this on a brochure but quickly realized that I needed a bigger space to work with. I would love visitors to be able to touch a specific place on the map, and see archival material about that particular spot, and connect it to their own memories. In an ideal world there would already be a software that I could work off of and I could build my map this way. I’ve started to contact individuals about my idea and we will see where that leads. 

If this idea does not work out I’d love to work on a topic that surrounds the theme of grassroots activism and how this might be inserted into the museum, allowing those who come into the space to engage with the project and maybe even add to it or become involved. I would love to find a local museum or library who might be working on a similar project to see how they implemented their ideas and how this might have impacted the surrounding communities.