I want my personal adventures and the adventures I design for others to have that electrifying sense of resonance and surprise that can only come when you’re deeply connected. I want to be part of making experiences that push me and my fellow adventurers productively outside our comfort zones, right up to our learning edges. I want experiences that will make us feel tingly or warm or refreshed or zapped or soothed or light, or some other somatic, embodied feeling that roots us right there in that moment, individually and together.

I’m offering a new series of virtual monthly workshops in 2022. The series is called Interchange, with each month’s offering focusing on a different theme. Since it’s the launch of a new endeavor, here’s a bit of backstory and information about it. You can consider this an FAQ, but since these aren’t technically questions that have been frequently asked, think of it as Framing, Articulating Questions.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m always trying to offer visitors an unexpected experience during their time in the museum. I like delight and surprise (who doesn’t?), and I heartily believe that an art museum is ripe to provide both of those things.

An interdepartmental team of curators and educators came together to brainstorm ideas for how to take action in response, and after some discussion, we decided to focus in on this section: “Always be just as ready to listen as you are emboldened to speak out for or against others.”

One of the more exciting, progressive ideas to enter the museum space in the past decade has been the idea of “museum as platform” — the concept that rather than having to be the sole and final arbiter of all that goes on within its walls, museums could become platforms upon which others create their own cultural and educational experiences.

How do I want to make the shift from coordinator to manager? What kind of path do I want to forge for myself on this journey? How can I “pay it forward” to empower those around me to find their own paths?

What would happen when a bunch of us excellent talkers and wordsmiths were asked to put together an object-inspired experience in a short amount of time without the resources and familiarity of the usual lesson planning process?

This program was an exciting step towards a goal near and dear to my heart: using digital technology to explore museum collections without the technology overwhelming or distracting from the artwork.  And it was a chance to explore the world of game design in museums, which has been on my museum education radar for a while.

The spirit of play. That’s how I’m referring to it, at least.  The same idea was talked about as “being OK with failure”, “going in without predetermined outcomes”, and “iterative approaches”, but it was all shades of the same thing, and it was popping up everywhere.

There was much local museum-going when I was growing up. I remember a lot of it, and I’m sure that early exposure fed into my art history degrees and my love of museums.