Museums Showoff next Thursday — including “Why the very idea of a science museum is just plain silly, but if we’re going to have them they should be less like Harrods and more like a junk yard”

I just read about a great museum initiative in London — the Museums Showoff. You may have heard about Science Showoff — a forum for all kinds of people working with science communication, who meet and share their work in a performance-based way, “and then chew it over with a pint in hand”. It’s very participatory, non-hierachical, and democratic — in other words, very Multitudinous. Museums Showoff is the sister to Science Showoff, using the same basic idea and format “but filling the stage with people who work in, study or are interested in museums, libraries and collections rather than science” — “an open mic night featuring curators, conservators, librarians, collectors, Museum Studies students, archaeologists, social historians, educators, multimedia developers, explainers, visitors, theorists and everyone else associated with museums and library special collections” (I think they’ve listed all the relevant categories). The format for this low-budget bimonthly event is emulation-worthy: There are ten slots for presentation — each slot is 9 minutes each; some are for invited guests, others for first-come-first-slotted. After a short intro the signed-up performers take to the stage, where they might: Show and tell: Their new acquisition Their favourite or a ‘star’ object from their collection An interesting find from the stores Something they’ve conserved Their current research Run a group ...
Source: Biomedicine on Display - Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Tags: events museum and knowledge politics museum studies seminars Source Type: blogs