First Day Reflection

As I unwind after my first day at the Penn Museum, I feel both incredibly energized for the summer to come and a little bit overwhelmed with all that I have to absorb. There is a lot to think and feel all at once, which makes blogging the perfect venue to deconstruct where I am at this moment.

As an international studies major, I feel that I am coming to the group with less of a background in anthropology and art history. I feel anxious about this, but I want to turn my nervous energy into a positive frame of mind. For one thing, I am bringing a new perspective and a different interdisciplinary background to the research team. For another thing, instead of looking at my limited experience as a setback, I want to pose it as an challenge. I also could not have felt more supported by Monique and the members of my team, which makes any challenge feel exciting and approachable.

Already,  I am teeming with questions after our team conversation with Jessica. I was especially interested in the conversation that we had about the tour guide who was using potentially inaccessible academic language when speaking to a class of young black students. Some questions (brought up in conversation by Monique and Jessica) that I want to explore deeper over the summer are, "How can language be alienating in an already alienating institution?" "How do we celebrate our audiences instead of making them feel condescended?" "It's important to have specific language, but does it matter if the audience doesn't find it accessible?" Ideally, I hope to see museums as community spaces where all audiences can interact intimately with the art and artifacts and feel comfortable asking questions and learning and re-learning the meanings behind what they see. By taking tours of the Penn Museum myself tomorrow, I'll be able to see the reality of the museum as a community space and dig deeper into these questions.

What struck me the most about this first day was my tour with Maeve through the museum. It was clear to me immediately how desperately the African exhibit needed to be renovated as the space didn't encourage interaction and crowded the objects in stuffy glass cases. I am interested to see if the mixture of contemporary art and older artifacts (which I saw in other exhibits, such as the Syrian and the North American exhibits) could be successfully implemented in the African exhibit. I can't wait to go through the exhibit again with fresh eyes tomorrow morning and begin brainstorming future ideas with the research team.

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