words to keep in mind:

Transdisciplinary / Tactile / Immersive / hear / listen / smell / taste / nano / micro / macro // alternate sight / points of view / moving objects / slow / fast / inside / outside / down / up / above / below

1. 1. The content must shape the container. 

1. 2. Be welcoming – from the ticket booth attendant to the curator. Staff that is not angry or grumpy makes people feel welcome and happy.

1. Be interactive and not only hands but SENSES on – so kids can touch, see, hear, smell and taste and move, rearrange, pile, regroup, ungroup objects or leave them as is and learn to know what they’re allowed to handle, and what they aren’t.

1. Serve digestible enjoyable chunks of Ideas.  Go gourmet rather than big box museum.

1. Tell a story. Provide an open-ended story with different points of entry to every exhibit.  At some point, make the story feel relevant to the community and culture surrounding the exhibit

1. Give a hand to parents to help their children enjoy the museum. Don’t assume adults have been to a museum before. They may need support too. Give suggestions, answer questions politely and cordially.  Be calm, happy but never TOO excited.

1. Ask questions? More questions than answers but make sure to also provide answers.

1. 8. Be height aware – display objects, art and signage low enough for a child to see Footstools could help.  But don’t forget about people, kids or adults, with different heights. Can the objects or exhibits be reconfigured and/or customized? If you can make use of the space above, use it.

1. Make the place magical not technological.  Unless you are tech museum, then you can make it technological AND Magical.  Travelling is important, even if in the same physical space.

10.  Produce guides and trails aimed at your different visitors, but also ones that kids and adults can use together.  Can there be a day when kids become tour guides? Can there be a  “choose your own guide” interaction?

11.  Be accessible – with lifts, automatic doors, wheelchair-user friendly activities, and a place to store a pushchair. Remember not every kid or adult can do activities on the floor. Provide spaces for people to rest and be.

12.  Have lots of different things to do – art carts, picture trails, interactive experiences, storytelling, and dressing-up – for different ages, so parents don’t have to do all the work but give an opportunity for them to join if they want to.

13.  Improvise. Can you move fast enough? Can you move?

14.  Provide healthy, good-value food, high chairs and unlimited tap water. FREE TAP WATER!

15.  Respect your visitor – and they will respect the objects and other visitors. Help them to learn there are things they shouldn’t touch. Tell them why.  If it is very important that people don’t touch it, don’t leave easily accessible.

16.  Provide great toilets with baby changing facilities, where you can take a pushchair. It’s probably the one place in the museum every family will visit.  Can you provide some information at the toilets?

17.  Sell items in the shops that aren’t too expensive and not just junk, but things that will be treasured.  Sell items that promote healthy, clean, and sustainable environment.

18.  Have free entry where possible, or have family tickets allowing re-entry. Don’t dictate the size or shape of a family!  If possible not during a weekday (people cannot always miss weekdays)

19.  Don’t make assumptions about what your visitors do and don’t like. Anybody can appreciate fine art as well as finger painting. Consult with your audience – not just adults or parents – about what visitors want.

20.  Provide some open space – inside and outside – where people can relax and kids can run about and let off steam.

21.  Provide some quiet space, where people can reflect and families can sit down together.

22.  Don’t say sssssh! Museums are places for people to chat, have conversations and discuss.  And to 7.

23.  Don’t forget teenagers. They’re valuable visitors, bringing fresh ideas. Have a special place for them to gather and store their stuff.

24. Have dedicated family friendly days, when extra activities are laid on and those who want to avoid crowds can choose not to attend and will appreciate it.

25.  Remember the visit doesn’t end when a person leaves. Many people make a great effort to visit and want the experience to last. Have follow-up activities, including on the website, and invitations to come back.

This manifesto was came alter visiting various museums and also base don the kids in museum manifesto.  Which they got alter many user reviews and comments from parents and their kids. http://www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk/our-manifesto/2009-kids-in-museums-manifesto/

I went to this museum over the summer. I wanted to see the felt exhibition before it closed down and by mistake I also looked at the Design for a living world exhibtion.

and here it is. I finally made it to the MAD museum, it is a museum I really like. I went over in the summer and it really captured me. I ve known about for a long time. A festival I helped in Guadalajara, was to be named MAD (Monitor de Arte Digital) before the MAD was actually open.

It was sad to later learn the name was taken. In any case I heard about the technology implemented from lisa straunfelds (spelling?) and how pentagram apporached it.

from that talk I remember she mentioned an interactive dining table. which I really liked and still to research deeper.

So anyway in the summer I went to the MAD museum on a thursday free night. It had lots of summer events, workshops and wine tasting in the penthouse. The workshops were led by artists and the penthouse was furnished with cardboard furniture.

The exhibitions at the time were related to ceramics. I enjoyed many of the pieces that had sensors embedded into them and they affected the aesthetic of the ceramic object.

I went on the 11th of november, I went to see a puppet show, (which apparently I filled with expectations). It was announces as part of the Performa 2009 festival, I emailed ITP about it, it was a modern rendition of Balli Plasticci. The website showed lots of color ad geometric shapes, almost life size puppets. and it included the words interactive and puppets controlled by the audience. It was coming from carnegie mellons entertainment and technology center. I did not have much time to research further.

A couple people ended up coming, I was very disappointed. it was a 3D animation, which I assume took a lot of work and effort but I think it was worth the admission price they were asking.

Out of the good things that came out from that show was that we got to see the MAD museum. I really enjoyed their paper exhibition and the pin collection from Madeleine Albright. The staff is very helpfulin general. The store is conveniently placed on the first floor.

They have workshops every Thursday, which I really admire. The artists come and talk with the visitor, the visitors also make their own pieces.

One thing I like about this museum is that they arrange their permanent collection by theme, which gives the visitor the chance to see different pieces in different mediums and techniques and allows them to remember them better.

I visited the website for the exploratorium it is very well designed.  I really enjoyed the games that formed part of the Mind  exhibit and some other tips and myths regarding gardening.  It is a dangerous site, since you can really invest too much time in it. which is a compliment.

coming soon.

coming soon.

coming soon.

I really feared the idea of going to Queens,  I just thought of it as being so far.  I felt like I  should be carrying an overnight suitcase.

I talked with juri we agreed to go together and suddenly the vision of travelling to Queens did not seem so bad.  We ere to meet at 11 at the NY hall of Science.

The night before, I fully charged my Iphone,  packed a reading for the subway, along with my camera and a pen and notebook.

I took  a couple of trains and finally I was in the Hall of Science.  I was again very happy because now my American Association of Museums Membership was active and the website said I could get free entrance.

I asked the girl in the booth and she told me the AAM was not entitled to free entrance.  I was ready to pay, but still was not happy that the website had given me wrong information and high expectations.  I told the girls this, just as a recommendation, she called her boss, and then I was allowed to go in.   All the time she was very polite about my situation and I really enjoyed that they were concerned about the visitor, even if required them to invest more time and money.

Once inside the hall I really liked the rotonda with crazy experiments. the fog twister was very impressive and also a viewer that I cant remember what was to be viewed, but I do remember that it was too high for children, it was fine for me but a toddler who came after me wanted to see as well.  and the viewer was way to high, even for a 10 year old.

The mezzanine was very interesting and the people helping out with the exhibits were very helpful, however  not very knowledgeable about the subjects.  The theater lab had a woman cutting up a cow’s eye and the 3 kids that were watching her, wer really engaged, even shushing the  grown ups when they interrupted.

We then went to the other halls, it all looked very space age era.   We arrived to an exit and looked through a window, an amazing playground (at least from afar) but we could not go to it. We needed to pay extra.  it seemed for smaller children, so we saw no point in paying just to see.

So we went to the open halls, one of them was closed for refurbishment.  and only saw the search for water exhibit which I did not notice it was about water but about space in general.

We finished the Hall of Science, it felt very empty in general just a couple kids running around.

I did not really know what to do about the space mini golf and now I regret I did not see it.

This week we had to visit the AMNH (American Natural History Museum).  It was very exciting, this was the third time I had visited the museum,  on the second time I had become a member, so I was happy to actually use my membership.  so I was allowed to go in and my ticket included one special exhibit.  I chose the Extreme Mammals exhibit.

I entered by the Planetarium entrance. Juri was waiting inside the museum,  after some trys on the cellphone, a call went through and we were able to meet.  She had not seen much of the museum.  We went to see the Hall of the Ocean, on our way we passed by the Biodiversity hall which I always find impressive.  On the side there was the forest, I found it to be TOO dark and I found it regrettable that visitors had trown garbage in the “forest”.  Walking in this forest, made me think why the designer had chosen to make the hall SO dark.  I figured  they wanted to replicate the darkness that can be felt in the forest .   But I wondered if the forest always seemed so dark, what happened to the sun.  So I imagined it would be great to hava lighting system that would change, to replicate the sense of sunlight in the forest and how it filtrates through the leaves and branches.

We rushed to the Extreme Mammals exhibition,  the museum in general was pretty quiet, but once we entered the exhibtion everything changed.  Juri and I felt like giants, uninvited giants but also felt great to have been able to get in to this crazy party.

The kids had field trip sheets that they had to fill in.  We did not have any, perhaps we could make one sheet for the COW class, with some basic questions to address.

The exhibition was a hit with kids they were tumbling inside a turtle shell,  Juri and I made faces in front of a mirror with animal mouths printed on it.

We came out alive from the exhibition,  and later walked to the hall of the ocean.  It is beautiful,  I still love the  diorama and really enjoyed the what they did with the screens on top of each diorama.  I also thought about the changing light idea to be applied to the diorama, so they could have a little more life, but only so much that it wont turn into interactive display or disneyfied and mechanized animals, but rather a slowly changing environment.

After the visit to the Asia Society,  Liesje and I  visited the Jewish Museum. We arrived around 4h30, there was a metal detector on arriving to the museum, which I found intimidating and unnecesary, however most of the staf was very friendly.   The only exception was the man in charge of the coatcheck, he directed and interacted with people with very few words and not a smiling face.

Perhaps I am asking too much, but being the people that give personality and warmth to a museum, I expect the personnel, to at least not have a frown.

As we approached the ticket booth,  the woman in charge was very friendly and asked me for my Museum Day printout.  I asked if I could keep it,  naively thinking I could go to another museum after.

She agreed and waived her hand to let us in.

We started on the first floor, I assumed it was a small museum, in the same dimensions as the asian society.   We started with the Meyer July exhibition.  It is very interesting because it is a collection of very recently created artifacts, made by a person, Meyer July now in his 80s, who experienced his childhood before the first and second world war.  It touched many topics we have touched in class, like oral history, community engagement and collecting history in the present.

or at least thats what came to mind while I was watching it.

I really enjoyed it because it gave me a glimpse to jewish life before the war, even jewish life in general,without it feeling very preachy. At the end of the exhibit,  people could get papers and draw their own expereince of jewish life either before the war or in the modern life.

After that we went to the top floor which was showing the roots of Judaism.  It did feel a bit dry at some point, but I guess thats why the exhibition is up on the fourth floor, accesible to people who really want to know.  We strolled through a lot of menorah sets, scriptures, and displays of how jews were discriminated against.

When finished we went to the third floor, but unfortunately,  the museum was closing down.

___________________________________________________________________

Experience as grandma and mother.

Mother –  So here it says that Meyer July  knew a boy who dressed in white to fool death.  The boy’s parents  had already buried 4 boys, so this was an attempt to  fool the angel of death.  The boy would go on in white for a long time.

Grandmother – (mumbles and start walking wiht the help of a walker)

—————–

Exchange between the Museum personnel,  Senior Lady and her daughter

Museum Aide – You can draw whatever you want in the paper,  go ahead you are free to draw whatever you want.  What do you remember?

Senior Lady – no thanks.  (smiling and mumbling)

Daughter – Ma, c’mon remember

Senior Lady – I dont now how to draw

Museum Aide- It doesnt matter

Senior Lady – No thats ok.

Daughter – Ma, C’mon,  just a small drawing.

I left their conversation and when I came back, they had convinced the lady to write a memory.  not draw it.

I found it that exhibition very interesting, it felt very well put together and very accessible.  It had some words in hebrew that were not translated but for the most part they were all translated.

___________________________________________________________

I really liked the stories told in the paintings.

The woman mopping  with her wedding dress on.

The jew who disguised as a chimney sweep to escape holocaust.

The story of the kleptomaniac woman

I noticed a machine called Boring machine,  what is a boring machine?

I read  about a school the painter went to.  it said it was a secular and zionist school.  arent the terms mutually exclusive?

I learned that jewish also hired crying women for funerals, as in mexico.  They were called planideras in Mexico  and in Jewish culture they are there to open the gates of heaven.

I loved the story of the black wedding,  I think it was to expell the plague.   The town paid for the black wedding of a poor couple.

Why is beard important to jewish culture?

I arrived at 15:45pm, to 725 Park Avenue, I was to meet Liesje inside the galleries.  I glanced at the flags outside the building and quickly passed by a screen that was on the street showing some slides about the exbitions and events the society had going on.

I really liked the flags,  and they made a more lasting impression than the screen.   They really said this was an institution and gave me a slight feeling that I was traveling,   one of the reasons I like to go to museums and exhibitions.

So I went inside and two gentlemen greeted me,  I had my museum day print out in  hand and the man in charge of tickets gestured me to get in.

I was asked to leave my backpack, which I greatly appreciated, it was a heavy backpack packed for a full day of museum hopping in a possibly rainy day.

So I went upstairs to see the galleries.  it was an exhibition on contemporary pakistani art called Hanging Fire.   There were two doors on the first floor, the exhibition did not really lead you into one door or the other.  I went to the closest door and there was a very impressive and intimidating giant  winged woman horse  type mythical creature from an artist from kuwait, hamra Abbas.  Along the walls of this tiny room there were 4 to 5 pop up/ cutout sceneries, by Asma Mundrawala, inspired by Bollywood films.  In the same room there was a camp out/ tent with a screen playing an animated version of the afore mentioned  pop ups.  I enjoyed the presentation of the pop ups and the red sculpture, but the set up for the tent really did not help.   I felt it took too much  attention from the pop ups and cut outs that were so delicate.  One of the pop ups, the last one, seemed hidden and overtaken by the tent.

I moved to the second gallery and being bigger, it featured more artists.   I must say  all the pieces were very interesting,  I specially enjoyed a photographic red carpet, made of little  pictures,  another piece which included a taxidermy bull standing on the verge of a greek column.

The people at the museum were very helpful and freindly, even after having to stand all day, listening to a video piece by artist Bani Abid, in which a band local band in lahore rehearses the star spangled banner.

That piece is very good but after a whole day standing by it, the poor guard must be suffering.

We left the exhibition, and liesje pointed me to a painting on the wall on top of the  stairwell, the paint appears to have dripped and made a drawing  on the floor below.  I enjoyed that surprise on my way out.

off to the jewish museum.

I really liked the what the Smithsonian did with Museum day. http://microsite.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/about.html

It basically opened up many museums for one day on a free entrance.   The museum goer had to print a badge from the website to use it as a ticket. I printed my badge,  but realized when I went to the New Museum, that I needed a badge for EACH museum and that was not very well specified in the website.  or at least not in a very clear manner.   I guess organizers dont expect people to be museum hopping.

I was also surprised that it was not widely publicized, either through schools or on the museums websites.

I would be interested to know what is their target audience. Again I guess graduate students are not their target audience.

So I went to the Frick collection.  I made two trips to it.    The first one was along the same ride when I saw the Asia Society  and the Jewish Museum.  Museum Day was hard work. 4 museums in a day.

So I went in  I went around very quickly, I did not even get an audioguide, I really like to be told stories around art pieces but somehow I hate carrying a device in my hand. I feel like I should be speaking on the phone.

So I went around the house,  it was impressive, the first room with the ceramics, I passed by the indoor garden, then to the galleries where the Goyas are, then on to  to the next room.  I skipped the auditorium, I had no time, I had to meet liesje at the Asia Society.

I went to the room with the green floor, walked past a guard in the division of the rooms,  I was admiring the  carved wood ceilings, while my feet suddenly felt the softness of carpet.  It brought me back to the room, I went past each painting into the room with many small scultptures.

I looked at teh very quickly, with the painting I was trying to guess which painting belong to which painter, wee if I could recognize paintings and schools and techniques.  It was really gratifying that I could read the original label on the frame to answer my own personal trivia game.

I went to the room that looked like a library,  it was rewarding to see actual frniture in the room,  with the desk and lots of books. I was curious to see what the books were, what titles were shown.  At the same I felt scared to even get  close to the collections.

I walked past the other two rooms, stopped longer time at the St. Francis painting and arrived to the childrens room and then to the exit.

I had to get to the Asia Society.  I did make time though to quickly scan the gift shop mainly book shop.   Very interesting titles,  I got a book about vision and art. off to the Asia Society.

____________________________________________________________

After that quick visit I decided I was going to return, soon.  So I did.  While my aunt and her inlaws were in town,  they wanted to go to a museum, but subconsciously they also wanted to go shopping.  I recommended to go to the  Frick collection, I thought it wasn’t on every tourist to do list, it was small enough to be handled in one visit, and the house itself and the pieces were enough to keep 6 people with very different interests engaged or at least not bored.

So we went on two cabs,   my aunt her boyfriend and his parents and a couple who was a friend of the family.   the age range was from 28(being me) to 60 being the parents in law.

They enjoyed the visit,  mother in law was very interested since she was seeing some of the paintings she had studied in her art history course.  My aunt was really interested too in some of the paintings and the house it self.   The other part, her boyfriend, his father and the family friend couple  was very interested in the house.  They live in a region in Mexico where wood carving is very prominent and those ceilings really made an impression.  They were also trying to imagine what it must the top floor look like, if the bottom floor was so nice.

The big hit was the shop and the indoor garden.

Today I received sad news,  my aunt’s father in law passed away.   heart attack two weeks after we had traveled together and I suggested to go to the Frick museum.   It is always intriguing to learn about the death of someone.

amazing.

This was my third visit to the NYBG.  First time I had come during november 2008, thanks to a recommendation of my father to go see the train exhibtion that is built inside the glass house.  My father had seen the reviews on TV and while my mother and sister were visiting he asked us, constantly, to go see it.  We were very indecisive about, it was freezing cold, the garden was inthe bronx,  I did not really know how to get there,   a taxi was not the best option.

After a lot of requests from my father,I printed the mapquest, we made our way, we got psychologically prepared and headed to the bronx.

We got to the station and contrary to all the scary stories, it was just another subway station, with lower buildings and more spread out blocks.

We walked to the park, and asked to go to the train exhibition. We were told it was closed, it was to open next day.  We explained our story, said we were travelling all the way from Mexico (my sister and my mother were).  and after talking to many employees and managers we got granted access to the train exhibition.  IT was great,  very impressive, they built a reproduction of eery landmark building in New YOrk, with sticks and boulders and plants and natural materials.

I vowed to return.  During the spring I learned about a new exhibition they had going on, the edible gardens.  Apparently it was what the name meant.

Liesje and I went to see the exhibition, we only got the regular ticket which included no exhibitions.

It was very nice to walk around the grounds and take in the magnitude of the space.

After two months at the end of summer, my father and sister were in town and I took them there.  To the grounds and exhibtions,  it went very well,  my father was astonished and can probably say it was his favorite visit in New York.

We made the exhibits,  rode the train and even took part of the fair the garden set up for their closing day.

The exhibits were really well put together,  some of them had a cellphone guided tour.  Which I found very unamusing even if it had mario batali speaking.  I’ve been thinking about how audio tours or cellphone tours could be in different languages and how the places that cater to multiple languages, provide a richer experience.

The audio on the cellphone was not really scrollable and at some point, I felt it very unnecesary.  I was in this giant beautiful space, “far away” from the city and the last thing I wanted was to be reminded of my cellphone. and being a cellphone it would be great to have an option in Spanish or other languages.

One very nice thing about the glass house was the transition from the desert to the jungle,  you walk underground from the Mexican and American desert unto the Amazon forest.   The feeling of discovery is great.

In the library at the entrance, all the staff was really nice,  actually all througout the grounds.   The guard in the library was reading some of the books that were on display which I found very amusing,  and imagined he enjoyed working there.

This was the trip to the New York Botanical Garden.

visited on sunday 13 of september

so I am in new york city with my father and sister.   my sister likes to go to museums and my father not really.  My father, trained as a doctor but really a jack of all trades, loves to see new gadgets and toys.  So in my attempt to have time with them and also visit a museum I took them to  the sony wonder lab.  I had been told it was a very interactive and fun hands on museum for children.

The website recommends you make reservations and place big emphasis on it, warning that tickets may run out.   I was very stressed, I did not make a reservation, and after hearing many recommendations on the place did not want my family to miss out on this museum.

We arrived and the place was empty, which is a good thing, we had the space almost to ourselves.

We were introduced into a elevator where we were given keys, a card that hung from the wrist.  Our group was my family and four other people.

They let us out in a room with 10 screens and boards where we were supposed to make a profile with our voice trademark, taking a picture and choosing a song from the sony artists.

Each did made their profile and continued to the exhibition.  It takes you from one station to the other, however at some points you feel like you need to skip some that are not very well explained, have only text for you to read,  or the interaction is not very responsive.

We arrived at the station with the motion capture, that was a hit.  persons of any age were enjoying it.

after that the was a whole floor on video games.  we did not even stop there.

then we arrived to the final station to print our certificate.  while waiting for the elevator, our staff member was aiding us with the elevator, but had a very bad cold  (handkerchief, cough, sneeze everything).  when you are in such an enclosed area, this makes you feel very uncomfortable.

I went in with very high expectations and they were not quite met. perhaps I was not the right audience member ( I know its for children).  but  the navigation was a bit confusing,  some stations were ommitted or forgotten, some stations (the one for remixing for you picture) was divided and hidden from the hallway.  The station for nanomaterials had a lot of text and video, which I dont think was enough  after being treated to interactive materials.