Some Further Thoughts...

In my experience, it's always at the end of an academic project that you realize all the other things you could have done and/or paths you could have taken with your research and work.  Not because you were lazy or close-minded about your project and research, but rather that many (some might argue all) academic projects are part of a larger dialogue, and as such they can never truly be complete.

This is the situation I found myself in this morning as I was putting the finishing touches on my final thesis paper, Recommendations for Redesign: Revising the Rochester Museum and Science Center's Native Peoples of the Americas Exhibit.  As a result, I thought of a few possible directions my research and project could have moved in had I had more time to continue with this project before I graduate. 

• Further research in the Rochester Museum and Science Center's (RMSC) institutional records to gain a better understanding of the history and development of Native Peoples of the Americas and other exhibits at the RMSC, and to resolve some questions left unanswered in my paper, such as specific dates and persons responsible for different parts of the exhibit.
• As another/further project, perhaps research and write a more comprehensive history of the RMSC than the one I utilized in writing my paper.
• Develop basic, but formal evaluative criteria for both exhibits in need of redesign, and exhibits featuring representations of Native Americans, then use them to re-evaluate the exhibits/institutions I did my case studies on.
• Visit the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. and its satellite institution, the George Gustav Heye Center, in New York, NY, which I did a brief case study on, but was not able to visit in person.

While I wouldn't change anything about my thesis writing process (because that's what it was meant to be, a process), these are simply some possible expansions I would consider undertaking.  Perhaps in future, someone will take my work and improve upon it by doing one or all of these things, and add to the ongoing dialogue about Native representation and redesign in museum spaces.

Finding Inspiration... With Fish?

With regards to progress on my thesis, I can keep this update short.
I am continuing to work on writing the various sections of it. By the end of today (March 20)
I hope to only have my introduction/conclusion/implications left to write, and
I will tackle those in the following week.  I have also prepared and presented a first
draft of my thesis poster, which I will work to improve in the coming weeks.

Today I’d like to write a bit about inspiration, specifically how it can be found
in unexpected places.  For example, I would not have expected to find inspiration
for Native Peoples of the Americas at an aquarium in Canada, but I did.

This past weekend I visited the Ripley’s Aquarium in Toronto, ON, Canada.
While wandering around in their Canadian Waters exhibit, I noticed that instead of traditional
labels accompanying each tank, there were screens that would rotate through the
various occupants of the tanks and give facts about them.  This, to me, seemed like a
brilliant solution in many respects. For example, it makes updating or correcting information
easier than having to create a whole new label, as the screen could simply be turned off, a
correction could be made in the program, and it could be turned back on with minimal lag time.
Similarly, if there is a large variety of fish in a tank (or, in my case, objects in a case), but
minimal space available for text, then a single scrolling or interactive screen could save space.
And then, if the screen is a touchscreen, this not only gives visitors a low-level interactive to
participate in by scrolling through and looking at the information in “bite-sized” sections, but
allows for greater connections between items (or fish) on display via linking and internal reference.

While it was already my intention to recommend the inclusion of digital and/or touchscreens
to Native Peoples, if for no other reason than to bring the exhibit firmly into the 21st century
and provide visitors with a “moving” or interactive element, having seen them in action in a
museum setting (I believe that, as formal collecting institutions, aquariums and zoos should
be considered part of the larger museological family) confirms my initial belief that they
might be a good solution for the RMSC.

A pair of sharks swim past at the Ripley's Aquarium in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Observations on... Visitor Observations

In my previous post, I identified a few goals I had for moving forwards with my thesis project.
One of these goals was to complete one last round of visitor observations, preferably by
visiting the Rochester Museum and Science Center (RMSC) on a weekend, as I had yet
to do so and I was curious as to whether the museum would attract more/different visitors
on the weekend than during the rest of the week.  I am pleased to report that not only was
I able to visit the RMSC on a Sunday, but there were indeed more visitors than on my 
previous two visits (the Wednesday before Thanksgiving 2017 and a Friday morning
in mid-January 2018), which gave me the opportunity to make a number of important
observations about how people interact with the Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit and its content, as well as to better understand observations
I’d made on my previous visits.

My observations across all three visits led me to a few interesting and valuable conclusions
that I’d like to share here.

• The exhibit appears to attract 3 main visitor groups - parents (aged approximately 25-35)
  with young children (typically between the ages of 3 and 9), young people (late teens
  through early 20s) visiting in pairs or small groups, and older visitors (mid 40s
  through mid 60s) wandering around individually.  Visitors in the first two groups
  tend to vocally and obviously (i.e., point, gesture, or otherwise specifically indicate
  a piece of exhibit content) interact with the exhibit content, while older, individual
  visitors don’t.  However, none of the groups linger (and my site survey completed
  on my first visit clues me in to why).  This diversity in visitor groups and potential
  experiences highlights the importance of the exhibit space being adaptable and
  inclusive for all visitors, so everyone is comfortable and has an equal opportunity
  to explore and learn.  For example, visitors using mobility devices like wheelchairs
  and walkers can have difficulty viewing the dioramas, ironically, because of the
  steps in front of them that are necessary for younger visitors to better view the
  dioramas (this is a design element I have highlighted to be changed in the future).
• The gaps in visitor knowledge and in the information the exhibit provides
  overlap in places.  Parents with young children tend to have to field a lot of
  questions if their child is actively engaging with the exhibit content.  However,
  they are occasionally asked questions which they are unable to answer themselves,
  and when they turn to the (limited) text in some portions of the exhibit, they cannot
  find an answer.  This leads to one of three responses (“I don’t know,” a made-up answer,
  or pointing out another item or idea which they do know something about).
  While the exhibit text cannot possibly account for every question a curious three-year-old
  could ask, there needs to be more text that could potentially do so, or point the
  parents (or any visitor) in a direction for further research, and needs to be written
  in such a way that a parent could use it as a jumping off point to answer their child’s
  inquiry, or an older child could answer their question for themselves.
• And, perhaps most importantly for this project, people largely seem to refer
  to the peoples and cultures they are seeing in the exhibit in the past tense.
  While there is no clear indication from observing visitors as to whether or not
  this is due to the belief that these peoples/cultures no longer exist, or an a
  cknowledgement that they do not necessarily follow any traditional practices anymore.
  Regardless of the cause of this prevalent use of passive voice by the visitors,
  it underlines, at least in my mind, the importance to providing modern contextualization
  for the exhibit content, especially the dioramas, which are some of the only
  representations of actual people (in the sense that they depict persons, rather than
  just an object) in the exhibit, yet are also some of the most static.

These were just a few of the takeaways from the visitor observation portion of my project,
and I will consider all of these and more as I move closer to writing my recommendations
for the redesign of the exhibit.

New Semester, New Progress, New Goals

This is the beginning of my final semester here at RIT, and also the beginning of the homeward stretch towards completing my thesis.  As this is my first post of the semester, I thought it would be appropriate to take this opportunity to provide an update on what I was able to accomplish over the winter break, and what I still have yet to accomplish.

To briefly review, I am exploring the ways in which the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s (RMSC) Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit can be redesigned to represent native cultures more accurately and fully. This exploration will take several forms including exhibit surveys, research into the history of Native American collections and representation in American museums and suggested methods for the redesign of Native American exhibits that have been put forth by museum professionals, historians, and civil rights activists over the past 25 years, an interview with the Senior Director for Collections and Exhibits at the RMSC, and several visitor observation sessions.  The intended result of this work will be a series of recommendations for the RMSC’s collections and exhibitions staff to consider as they work to redesign Native Peoples over the next several years.

Over break I was able to return to the RMSC to speak with Kathryn Murano, Senior Director for Collections and Exhibits, in order to gain a better understanding of the thematic direction she and the RMSC see Native Peoples moving towards over the next few years.  While I was there, I also conducted a brief visitor observation session, which provided some interesting insights/considerations for me to look into as I continue my work (for example, young children need steps-ups to view the dioramas in the exhibit, however they are an impediment to people who need to use wheelchairs or walkers-- this is important to consider when making recommendations of how to better accommodate all visitors within the space, so they can all learn from and enjoy the exhibit equally).

I also visited the Ganondagan State Historic Site in Victor, NY, which I intend to compare/contrast to Native Peoples, not only because it offers an example of Native Americans representing themselves in a museum space, but because it reflects newer trends in exhibition design in general, and provides a number of interesting solutions/ideas that could be incorporated into Native Peoples.

With regards to my remaining goals, beyond the actual thesis writing process, I would like to visit the RMSC again in February in order to complete one last round of visitor observations.  I intend to visit on a weekend, as I haven’t visited the exhibit during the weekend yet (my previous visits occurred over a holiday weekend in the afternoon and on a Friday morning), and I want to see if the museum attracts a slightly different visitor pool on the weekends than during the week, and if so, what their interactions with and in the exhibit are like.

In addition, I intend to virtually “tour” several exhibits from the National Museum of the American Indian or NMAI (which has branches in both New York City and Washington, DC), in order to see how a museum focused solely on Native American representation (some might argue the museum of Native American representation) presents various themes and topics, both from an intellectual (content) and technical (design) standpoint.

I look forward to continuing the thesis process and seeing it completed in the (very) near future.

A Glance Back and a Short Look Forward

Well, this is it.  The end of my first semester of thesis work.  It seems like only yesterday that I was struggling to sort through all of my potential thesis ideas, yet here I am today, with my initial proposal submitted for feedback, writing my final post of the semester (and of 2017, I suppose).  While I have accomplished a lot over the course of the semester, my work on this project is far from finished and a good deal of it will have to be accomplished over the upcoming winter break.  This will include conducting interviews with members of the RMSC’s staff and local Native communities, before performing at least one (although it will probably end up being several) thorough survey of the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s (RMSC) Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit, with what I have been told in the interviews in mind (I already completed an initial, cursory survey over Thanksgiving Break).  I will also use this time, and the resources that have been provided to me by Kathryn Murano, Senior Director for Collections and Exhibits at the RMSC, to take a more focused look at the history of Native American collections and representation at the RMSC, in order to better understand how this exhibit fits with its fellows across the nation (as briefly outlined in my most current draft of my literature review).

With regards to finding the time to work on all of this, I will, of course, have to work my interviews and exhibit surveys around the various winter holidays that are coming up, and I have a strong suspicion that, in some cases, I will have to wait until at least just after New Year’s to make any major headway with regards to interviews.  Thankfully, I will be fairly flexible in my ability to take time to interview people, as I will be staying in Rochester for the entire break and have a semi-flexible work schedule during that time.  Because of this, I am not worried about setting a schedule for my thesis work at this time, as it will be easier to work around other people’s schedules than my own.

I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone who has helped me with this process and my project thus far, including Dr. Tamar Carroll, Kathryn Murano, and Dr. Juilee Decker, and wish everyone happy holidays.

While many of the photographs from my recent survey of the Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit turned out very dark due to the low lighting in the exhibit, my friend Skye Tryon did take this picture of me at the RMSC with a taxidermied pangolin, an endangered African and Asian mammal similar to an armored ant eater.  The pangolin is part of The Science of Ripley's Believe It or Not!® exhibit, which is on display at the RMSC until January 2, 2018.

From "Thoughts" to "Defrost": The Evolution of My Thesis Project Thus Far

A lot can change in thirteen weeks, and that has certainly been the case for my thesis project.  When I initially conceived my project, I intended to devise ways to redesign or alter not one, but two, of the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s (RMSC) Native American history exhibits (Native Peoples of the Americas and At the Western Door) to bring them in line not only with the other exhibits at the RMSC, but also with the RMSC’s mission to “[stimulate] broad community interest and understanding of science and technology, and their impact — past, present, and future — on our lives.”  The changes I envisioned were largely thematic and one possible solution I wanted to put forth was the potential deaccessioning of the RMSC’s Native American materials to an institution (or institutions) with a more appropriate mission(s).

However, as I began to discuss my ideas with others and read sources for my literature review, it became apparent that there is a much larger issue to be addressed with regards to Native Peoples of the Americas and exhibits like it, specifically the representation they provide of Native Americans and their diverse cultures.  Most Native American exhibits in smaller, traditional museums like the RMSC are outdated, not just in appearance and modes of presentation, but in the ideas they present about Native American cultures.  Many institutions have exhibits that have not been thoroughly reviewed and updated since the 1950s or even the 1900s, when the belief was that Native Americans-- and their cultures-- were going extinct and needed to be preserved, thus resulting in the “freezing” of Native American cultures.  While this is not necessarily the view espoused by the RMSC’s exhibits, the exhibits still depict solely “frozen” cultures, rather than historical and modern representations together.

Because of these revelations, I have elected to shift my topic to focus on ways that the RMSC can “defrost” Native Peoples of the Americas (the older of the two exhibits, with many more “frozen” depictions of cultures and outdated methods of representation).  My goals moving forwards are to conduct a detailed survey of the current exhibit in order to understand specific areas and design elements that need to be addressed, speak with museum administrators and staff to gain a better understanding of how they might envision the exhibits be redesigned or altered, and take a deeper look into methods of redesign that have been put forth by other museum professionals, historians, and Native American activists.  The end results of this work will most likely take the form of a proposal for the redesign of the Native Peoples of the Americas, to be submitted to collections and exhibitions staff at the RMSC for their consideration as they move forward with redesigning some of the museum’s exhibits over the next 5 years.

Defrosting Native Peoples of the Americas

Before I get to the assigned prompt of this post, I feel that it is important to announce that I have slightly shifted the topic of my thesis work.  Again.  I believe this is either the third or fourth time I have done this since I began to work on this project, but as I conduct more research, I keep finding myself forced to further refine and alter my topic.  To review, I had originally intended the focus of my project to be on the ways in which the Rochester Museum and Science Center (RMSC) could alter or redesign its Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit to conform to the museum’s mission and visitor expectations, and ultimately whether or not the exhibit belonged in the museum at all, or if its contents should be deaccessioned and transferred to another, more appropriate institution.  However, it has been pointed out to me that, given the nature and history of the Native American collections held by the RMSC, this exhibit will, at least for the foreseeable future, be a part of the museum, and deaccessioning its contents and the rest of the collection is not a viable option at this time.  Between this revelation and points raised within my sources, I now intend to focus on how the RMSC can “unfreeze” Native Peoples of the Americas and modernize it to make it better match the other exhibits at the RMSC, rather than trying to force it to conform with the mission, present or future, of the institution.

This brings me to my research, which has not so much taught me anything new as it has confirmed my prior knowledge regarding the origins and methods of display of Native Americans in science and natural history museums.  18th, 19th, and early 20th century European and white American ethnocentrism and perceived racial superiority resulted in the placement of Native American remains and artifacts into science and natural history museums so they could be preserved for later study.  However, the anthropologists and scientists who did this were only interested in preserving native cultures at a point of pre-European contact, thus essentially (and in most cases, inaccurately) “freezing” Native American cultures at a given point in time, making it seem as if members of those cultures were not still alive, well, and adapting to a rapidly evolving world.

While the authors of most of my sources rightly call for the “unfreezing” of exhibits on Native Americans and greater inclusion of Native American voices in the exhibition design and redesign process, they offer no practical suggestions for museums and exhibition designers who would like to move forward with defrosting their Native American exhibits.  No mention is made of ways to rewrite wall text, or integrate modern examples of native cultures alongside static presentations of their predecessors.  What this means for my research moving forward is that I will have to devise my own methods for the RMSC to use to unfreeze Native Peoples of the Americas, based on input from museum staff, members of local Native American organizations, and visitors to the exhibit, as well as my own knowledge of exhibition design and visitor engagement techniques.  I would also like to include a possible exhibit layout or some other visual form of proposal for changes to the exhibit, in addition to just a list of recommendations of what to do to the exhibit.

Native Peoples of the Americas, Redux: The Plan

Every thesis, or any research project, for that matter, begins with a working research question.  Now, this question may change and develop as research progresses and new information is brought to light or new ideas form, however, it helps to begin with a fairly concrete idea.  In the case of my thesis, this idea was that the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s (RMSC) history exhibits seem out of place, both within the museum’s mission and their physical space.  To narrow this down further, the Native Peoples of the Americas exhibit appears especially outdated (both in terms of theme and method of display) and incongruous when compared to other parts of the museum, even its fellow history exhibits.  This leads me to ask the following question.  In what ways can Native Peoples of the Americas be altered or redesigned to better fit with the RMSC’s mission, both present and future, and visitors’ expectations for the museum and their experience within it?

In order to answer this question, I will need to conduct research in three different areas. To begin, I will review the existing body of literature on the history of display and representation of Native Americans in science museums in order to better understand the history of this practice, as well as how other museums are adapting/changing their Native American exhibits to bring them in line with both their current missions and modern understandings of native culture.  I will then interview key members of museum staff to gain insight into what they view the future direction of the RMSC as a whole to be, and what changes they might envision for the exhibit moving forward.  Next, I will survey visitors to this exhibit about their visit experience within the exhibit, how they feel this experience fits into their overall experience at the RMSC, and what changes could occur to the exhibit to improve their experience.

The end result of this research will be a set of recommendations for the exhibitions and curatorial staff of the RMSC, synthesized from all three sources of research, regarding how best to alter and/or redesign Native Peoples of the Americas, if and when it becomes a priority to do so in the near future.