Isabella: Last Round of Visitor Evaluations

Because it was a sunny Sunday morning, the museum's huge flow of visitors from Friday had slowed into a trickle. Luckily, we were able to fulfill our quota of 100 visitor evaluations and I was able to have many interesting conversations with museum guests. Almost everyone I spoke to today was incredibly thoughtful about the collections. One father was talked to me extensively about the ways that slave trade impacted Africa's connections to the rest of the world and how more space needs to be dedicated to the African collections in the Penn Museum. One woman I spoke to who travelled extensively around the continent of Africa was adamant about including specific dates and times and provenance information on the labels. In fact, after our interview, she hunted me down again just to stress its importance. Finally, another man I interviewed was telling me about his large African art collection. He was a white man who used to work in the Canaan section and he owned African shields, spears, masks, fabrics, and more. Overall, even though today was less crowded, I believe I was able to collect so many rich interviews that will be informative for the future exhibition.

One question I have is about the distribution of the Kachina dolls. After doing brief research, I read that the Kachina figures were originally given to young girls and new brides to teach them about katsinas, immortal beings who bring rain and who are an important link between the spiritual and human world. I think it's important to acknowledge that we're conducting interviews about critically engaging with cultural objects, but are giving away cultural objects as prizes without even speaking to guests about their meaning. Perhaps it would be better to find another prize or give people a little more information rather than potentially appropriate Hopi culture? It'll be interesting to discuss this as a group because I still know very little about the Kachina dolls.