Interpretation as Field

In the second iteration of our Survey Snapshots series, we investigate the educational backgrounds of interpretation professionals across four types of museums, to understand the knowledge that fuels the field. As there are few direct academic ways to enter interpretation, we were curious to explore the educational pathways taken by professionals.

There were 77 distinct fields of study across 121 participants. History was the top field of study across all four types of museums, with 43 respondents listing it as part of their education. This array of responses demonstrates the varied educational path and knowledge base of interpretation professionals across the field.

As we continue to work through the survey, we look forward to sharing the results with you! The Interpretation as Field survey was conducted between January 1 - March 1, 2020. It comprised 49 questions and was filled out by 129 participants. More information can be found here:
https://interpretationasfield.com/survey/

The Interpretation as Field team is excited to announce a virtual convening on Friday July 23 at 4:00pm EST, at the invitation of our colleagues from the Association of Art Museum Interpretation. Join us as we discuss insights from our survey and reflect on the present and future of the field.

Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUtdOGgqz8uH9ZotA7fQR2hpyu968b-vAVC

In 2001, Toronto’s Ontario Science Centre (OSC) introduced the Innovation Project, a new initiative that promised to encourage visitors to be confident, creative, and scientifically literate. This capital campaign implemented hands-on interpretive elements within their galleries, including the introduction of KidSpark, an exhibition for children under 8 to explore science innovation through play.

Through the Innovation Project, the OSC reached out to new scientific and educational communities and designed interpretive experiences that were visitor centered.

How are interpretive practices implemented in new projects at your institution? Let us know!

This week on Tools & Tidbits we are highlighting a trio of resources with an emphasis on the ways in which institutions have created new ways to interact with their visitors in our new normal, both online and in person.

Exhibition:
Unboxing the BSM, an “exhibition” created by Toronto’s Bata Shoe Museum, takes the form of a YouTube series, inviting visitors behind the scenes into their collection. Host and curator Elizabeth Semmelhack explores the Museum’s storage with a new guest each week from the Toronto community or the fashion world. The pair unboxes shoes that relate to the guest’s work. This series engages “visitors” from home by creating connections between the BSM collection and the work of prominent community members like D’Wayne Edwards of PENSOLE Footwear Design.
Find episodes of Unboxing the BSM here: https://batashoemuseum.ca/unboxing-the-bsm/

Conference:
We are excited to highlight an insightful and rich conference, and we look forward to learning from other professionals in our field.

The 33rd Annual Visitor Studies Association Conference will take place virtually from July 13-15, 2021. The conference will invite attendees to reflect on how the past year of change has led (and might lead) to structural changes within their organizations and how they are re-imagining the fields of informal learning and visitor studies.
More information can be found here: https://www.visitorstudies.org/conferencemain

Article:

In a new article from AMA, Kari Ross Nelson & Stephon Ashton detail the visitor research surveys completed in 2020 around the re-opening of Thanksgiving Point Insititute, a farm, garden, and museum complex in Lehi, Utah.
Looking at how visitor motivations have been changed by the impact of COVID-19, the survey found a 400% increase in visitors with the goal of recharging physically, emotionally, or spiritually. Considering the isolation and uncertainty of the pandemic, it makes sense that visitors would return to museums for a sense of normalcy and calm.

Read the entire article here: https://www.aam-us.org/2021/03/17/using-local-data-to-more-fully-understand-the-visitor-experience-during-covid/

During their 1986 staff reorganization, the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, BC divided the museum' s activities into three departments: Operations, Collections, and Research and Interpretation. The Museum’s research work began to be overseen by the same director as its exhibits and public programs.

This change emphasized their move towards a more collaborative approach to exhibition development, and a new model of project management for the museum.

How is research integrated into your interpretive practices?
https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/images/AnnualReport1986_1987.pdf

In focus: Community Engagement
Our selection for this installment of Tools & Tidbits centers community engagement as grounding to the work of interpretation.

Exhibition:
In the digital exhibition and searchable resource Photostories Canada, the National Gallery of Canada shares stories of Canadians through photographs collected from 1955 and 1971 by the National Film Board of Canada’s Still Photography Division. The exhibition features stories about the forestry industry of BC, or pottery artisans in New Brunswick, among others.
The project invites visitors to tell their own stories through their photos, which they can upload to the exhibition's mobile app. You can find the exhibition here: https://photostories.ca/

Webinar:
The Tamarack Institute of Community Engagement, located in Waterloo ON, hosted a talk featuring Hiba Abdallah and Chris Pandolfi, artists who specialize in community-engaged art, and shared inspiring examples from their practice.
Find a recording of the webinar here. https://www.tamarackcommunity.ca/library/webinar-making-case-arts-based-engagement-hiba-abdallah-christopher-pandolfi

Article:
In “Rebuilding Pathways: How DEAI and Creative Aging Intersect at the Speed Art Museum”, Toya Northington, Community Outreach Manager at the Speed Art Museum discusses recent programming with author Marjorie Schwarzer. With emphasis on intergenerational programming, listening to audiences, and thinking about intersectionality, this article highlights ways in which art museums can engage with their senior audiences through workshops. This initiative culminated in an exhibition featuring artwork of workshop participants.
Read the article here: https://www.aam-us.org/2020/12/14/rebuilding-pathways-how-deai-and-creative-aging-intersect-at-the-speed-art-museum/

In 1990, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC had two departments working on interpretation: the Exhibition Programs department coordinated interpretive programs and materials to support visitors' understanding and appreciation of works of art. The Education department contributed interpretive materials about the gallery’s collections.

This collaborative effort between departments reflects the multidisciplinary approach to interpretation that developed in art galleries during the 1980s.

Do the exhibition and education departments work together at your institution?

[Image Description: Cover of the National Gallery of Art's 1990 Annual Report. A stone statue of two winged figures sits in front of green foliage.]https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/About/pdf/annual-reports/annual-report-1990.pdf

Check out our new series! In “Tools & Tidbits”, we highlight some of the latest work from the field -- exhibitions, virtual events, and articles. Here’s one of each to get us started. Watch our channels for new tools and tidbits every month!

From the Museum of Vancouver, A Seat at the Table: Chinese Immigration and British Columbia presents historical and contemporary stories of Chinese Canadians and their lives in British Columbia, using food and restaurant culture as an entry point to feature stories that reveal the great diversity of immigrant experience and the impact of racial discrimination on Chinese Canadians. Find out more here: www.museumofvancouver.ca/a-seat-at-the-table-mov

Interpretation in a Changing World: Forum for Interpretation in the Americas is a virtual conference organized by the Global Alliance for Heritage Interpretation, scheduled for February 9-11, 2021. The virtual conference connects interpretation professionals from Interpretation Canada, the Interpretive Guides Association (Canada), the National Association for Interpretation (USA), and InterpatMx (Mexico) together. Registration is open! www.gahi.online/forum-for-interpretation-in-the-americas/

In a recent article from the American Alliance for Museums, Josette Souza spoke to the Director of the National Geographic Museum, Kathryn Keane, and discussed ways in which museums can use storytelling to engage audiences – both in-person and digitally. Check out the article here: https://www.aam-us.org/2020/07/17/how-to-use-storytelling-to-build-and-engage-audiences/

Stay tuned for more from the field in the next installment of Tools & Tidbits!

The Interpretation as Field team has been hard at work during the fall and is ready to roll out some survey findings. Our first few installments will feature information on our survey participants.

The Interpretation as Field survey was conducted between January 1 - March 1, 2020. It comprised 49 questions and was filled out by 129 participants. More information can be found here:
https://interpretationasfield.com/survey/

Here is the first round of findings, covering the type of institutions our participants came from, the institution staff sizes, and a focus on the job titles of participants from art museums. Stay tuned for more of our findings in the new year!

In 2002, the Canadian Aviation & Space Museum in Ottawa tried something new for them: costumed interpreters in the special exhibition Wind in the Wires: A Scrapbook of Aviation 1909–1914.

Two young Montrealers from 1914 shared with the visitors the excitement and wonder of the early years of aviation. Visitors were introduced to the time period through firsthand accounts by the costumed interpreters stationed at the entrance, along with interpretive text and artifacts.

Has your interpretive team ever included live interpretation in their exhibitions? Let us know!
https://ingeniumcanada.org/sites/default/files/2020-01/AnnualReport2001-2002.pdf

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston named a Head of Interpretation for the first time in 1991. This position was listed under the Department of Education and Public Programming. A look at the annual reports in following years reveals that the position became Director of Public Learning in the early 2000s, and in 2014, was restored back to Head of Interpretation.

How has the interpretation team changed at your museum over the years?

[Image Description: Cover of MFA Boston's 1991 Annual Report of an abstract painting by Stuart Davis. The painting is made up of a blue background and orange, green, and white shapes.]

In 1986, a new position appeared in the biennial report of the Field Museum in Chicago, hall interpreters.

The hall interpreter program started in the summer months of 1985 and featured interpretive activities, such as fossil discovery, shadow puppet shows, and touch stations with horns and antlers of mammals. Identifiable by their blue aprons, hall interpreters were the museum’s first venture into the world of hands-on interpretation.

Did your museum have hall interpreters? Let us know!

[Image Description: Black and White cover of the 1985-1986 biennial report of the Field Museum. Photos feature various activities and exhibitions of the museum.]

We would like to highlight a duo of interpretation conferences coming up this Fall in a virtual format. You will find members of the Interpretation as Field team in the audience, as we are very excited to learn from our colleagues. Interpretation Canada presents their annual national conference, This Time It’s Personal: Rethinking Non-Personal Interpretation, on September 22-24, 2020. https://interpretationcanada.ca/2020-Conference

The National Association of Interpretation’s 2020 conference, Virtually: New Beginnings, is happening November 10-13, 2020. https://nai2020.pathable.co/

We look forward to hearing the latest from our peers in the field.

For project updates, subscribe to our mailing list at: https://interpretationasfield.com/resources/

Check out our most recent summer update at: https://mailchi.mp/3a807932542b/interpretation-as-field-summer-updates

Interpretation as Field: Summer Updates

Interpretation in the Archives scopes museum archives for insights into the history of museum interpretation.

We start our journey in Toronto, at the Royal Ontario Museum. In 1987, Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) hired not one, not two, but ten interpretive planners. They worked in the Exhibit Design Services Department, as the ROM transitioned towards an exhibition team model. If you are an archives buff, like we are, here’s the full Annual Report! https://archive.org/details/annualrepor38roya/page/28/mode/2up

Do you know when your museum hired its first interpretation professional? If you do, let us know!

From January to March 2020, 129 interpretation professionals from Canada and the United States responded to our 4-part survey. Thank you to all of you who participated and helped spread the news!

This state of the field survey is the primary data collection method for the Interpretation as Field project--it is our first step in gathering firsthand accounts from interpretation professionals about their work. A few important things we want to capture through this survey are the roles of interpretation professionals in the exhibition team; their place in the organization; and common practices, strategies, and tools. We are also very much interested in the challenges and power dynamics permeating interpretation work.

The team is now interpreting the data—stay tuned for some exciting and rich deliverables.

INTERPRETATION AS FIELD SURVEY The most significant data collection method for this project is a state of the field survey, conducted with interpretation professionals in Canada and the United States.  Survey questions You …

Interpretation is the future of community-centered museums, and interpretation professionals are the backbone of visitor-centered exhibitions. They advocate for inclusive design, develop engaging experiences, and connect communities with history, art, and the natural world. Interpretation as Field is a collaborative project that researches the shared practices, experiences, and challenges of interpretation professionals in four types of museums -- art, multidisciplinary, natural history & science! How did the field start? How has it changed? How has it evolved within museums’ structures and as audiences shift?

Watch our pages as we share resources from the project and the field. Tell us what you want to see... ask us anything... and challenge us as a community to help the field grow!

A warm thank you to former research assistant Alexandra (Ally) Forand! Ally ended her RAship in June 2020, and her work was integral to our project, from creating our website to helping us run our community virtual chat back in May. Thank you, Ally, and we wish you well on all future endeavors!

[Image Description: blue writing on yellow background. Picture shows woman standing in front of water fountain surrounded stone sculptures.]

Meet the Interpretation as Field research team in some of their favorite museums! Our diverse academic and professional expertise is a strength of our collaborative work!

Interpretation as Field is a collaboration between University of Toronto researchers and practitioners, which explores the work of interpretation professionals in four types of museums.

We are very excited to join interpretation colleagues on Facebook! Watch this space for updates on our research, resources, and discussions pertinent to our field.

[Image Description: White writing on a yellow background. Text reads “Interpretation as Field: a project about interpretation professionals and their practices”]

Interpretation as Field updated their business hours.

Interpretation as Field updated their website address.

Now it's easier to contact Interpretation as Field.