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exploring museums, technology, and ideas
Farewell BMA, Hello GWU!
Today marks 808 days since I moved to the USA to join the staff at The Baltimore Museum of Art. It was by far one of the best things I’ve ever done. Living in Baltimore and working at the BMA has expanded my perspectives–personal and professional–and highlighted the limitations of my prior experiences, which were ultimately pretty narrow. […]
Posted in: Personal
A Series of Epistolary Romances (the CODE|WORDS experiment continues)
February 10, 2016
Late last week, we quietly announced that CODE|WORDS–the experiment in online discourse that Ed Rodley, Rob Stein, and I kicked off in 2014–is back. It has a new format and a new set of instigators, plus new authors and new topics. I’m happy to see its return. When we started CODE|WORDS, our aims were to pilot a new approach to the […]
Posted in: CODE | WORDS, Museum Sector
#drinkingaboutmuseums Baltimore
February 8, 2016
Although I haven’t felt significantly homesickness since moving to the USA, one thing I do miss is the group of friends and colleagues who regularly used to congregate in Sydney for #drinkingaboutmuseums. In that diverse group of professionals, which ranged from emerging career folk to those in leadership positions, were likeminded souls who pushed my thinking and grew […]
Posted in: Drinking about museums
Transforming audiences, transforming museums
January 27, 2016
Digital transformation is really about something else that often isn’t openly talked about – transforming audiences. – Seb Chan What does it mean to transform an audience? Is it a shift in the make-up of an audience, how that audience is conceived, how an audience behaves and interacts with an institution, or all three? I’ve been trying […]
Posted in: Ideas, Institutional change
Invisible Architectures
March 11, 2015
Well, the MCN2015 theme has been posted, and I could not be more excited to share it with you: MCN 2015: The Invisible Architectures of Connected Museums: Making Meaning with People, Collections, and Information The world continues to move past the simple physical/digital dialectic towards a more nuanced matrix of architectures uniting digital and material culture. For […]
Posted in: Conferences, Ideas
The long hello.
March 7, 2015
Last week marked nine months since I moved to the USA, and in that time I have barely written. It seems an age since my blog was a critical part of my museum practice. But why? I’d long wondered whether my move into an institution full time would impact my work, and the obvious takeaway from […]
Posted in: Personal
Do museum professionals need theory?
June 10, 2014
Last night I had terrible insomnia, and so at 3.30am picked up Pierre Bourdieu’s The Logic of Practice. Nothing like a bit of dense French sociology to help calm the active mind, right?! As I read and tried to make sense of the complex concepts at play (subconciously lamenting that it was Bourdieu beside my bed, […]
A newsy post: On coming to America and projects new and old.
May 22, 2014
Today has been my last Wednesday in Australia in the foreseeable future. On Sunday, I pack up my life and move to Baltimore, MD, to join Nancy Proctor as the Digital Content Manager at the Baltimore Museum of Art. I am on the cusp of some of the greatest change in my life, and I […]
Posted in: Museopunks, Personal
Do new technologies democratise museum collections, or reinforce conservative values?
January 21, 2014
I am fascinated by power. When I was involved with the music industry, and my friends were busy dissecting the production values of obscure indie records, I was reading the street press to find out who the power brokers were. I wanted to know which individuals shaped what I heard, or could make or break […]
Posted in: Ideas, Institutional change
August 9, 2016
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