Penn Museum African Galleries | 2017

As always, archival research is incredibly eye opening and is critical for establishing a fuller narrative of an event, person, objects, or in this case all of the above. Reading through the archives casts the objects in a completely different light, changing their significance from articles of diverse and disparate cultures, to witnesses of dynamic and, largely, intrusive change occurring among the populations of colonized Africa. In fact, a variety of objects were gathered directly through the missionary work of Propst and Whight for the Africa Inland Mission to British East Africa. The collectors even note that "We are pleased to find that collecting specimens for you is quite a help to our missionary work . . . the buying of curios brings many people around whom otherwise we would not come in touch with" (Wight to Gordon June 8th, 1915). This correspondence demonstrate the direct link between the gathering of ethnographic objects and the cultural/religious intrusion of ...

Friday's meeting with Dr. Zuberi in archives gave me a greater sense of the direction of the curatorial mission of the project. Understanding his vision as oriented around the provenance of the objects and the stories engrained in the history of their collection by various persons and dealers reminded me of an exhibition concept I had been introduced to by a former internship supervisor, Paul Davis.  His project ReCollecting Dogon seems to me to parallel Dr. Zuberi's vision of highlighting the ways the Western gaze and associated collecting practices by European and American actors has affected the long-term museological interpretation and perception of African peoples. The effort of the exhibit ReCollecting Dogon " strives to destabilize the authority of ethnographic display" of  Dogon material culture and highlighting the collection as a result of " how people in Europe and America perceived and valued objects than the artistic practices of people on living o...

Unfortunately I do not have much to update the team on regarding my activities on Thursday. My day was focused on inputting as much response data into the Imagine Africa Comment cards spreadsheet as I could. I am very hopeful that the data will ultimately be useful for the project, especially in terms of the what visitors saw as lacking in the Africa exhibitions (both in terms of Imagine Africa and the older Africa gallery). One particular highlight of my day was the ability to meet interns and other professionals of the museum. For instance during lunch, I struck up a conversation with an intern working for Academic Engagement, who is from Boston. Recognizing that students from across the Northeast come to the museum to participate in an internship at the museum (especially one that is unpaid) hit home that the Penn Museum really is a central figure in the study of archaeology for students locally and regionally. Later on in the day I met one of the conservators and an individual ...

The way museums function as institutions is so dependent upon the collaboration of the people who work in them. The most interesting moments I have experienced throughout my work in museums has been, hands down, the inter-personal dynamics of museum professionals. I think I find this aspect of museums so interesting because, coming into museum spaces, the most immediate and accessible elements are final products that intimate that there is absolute cohesion between the many actors involved in the conceptualization and execution of galleries and exhibitions. Working in museums has shown me that the opposite is true. The final exhibition is just the tip of the iceberg that is a long and arduous process of negotiation between numerous people, departments, and interests that starts years in advance of instillation. As a result, the curatorial process is understandably an undertaking that people invest heart and soul into because of the level of work and effort involved in making an exh...

Today, I worked mainly on inputing responses of comment cards into a copy of the master excel sheet of the Imagine Africa data-set. Reading the comments is at times interesting, on occasion its entertaining, and, unfortunately, in a few instances it has been disturbing. In general, the comments have been helpful in understanding the overall types of suggestions that visitors have made regarding the Imagine Africa and African Section galleries, but it has also opened a window into the more direct social role I think the future gallery should take to address unconscious and conscious prejudice regarding the popular Western impressions of Africa. One particularly disturbing comment that stuck in my mind was "Africa smells like black people and monkeys." The comment was written on the back of the response card with the respondent's demographic information also filled in. The respondent, not shockingly, identified as caucasian. Another comment form contained the comment ...

Experiencing the Odunde festival was absolutely critical as a point of comparison for me to reflect on distinct differences between the vibrancy of cultural expression of a social, festive space and the static, still, and didactic environment of the museum. The Odunde festival was an altogether visceral experience where no matter where you turned your senses were engaged in an environment that was alive and celebratory. The current Penn Museum galleries cannot live up to said vibrancy, but I think the question that I have asked myself throughout this reflection is whether that is the role of the museum. I am heavily attached to the view that museums are social spaces, where fostering dynamic engagement in an exhibition and its content is a necessity instead of a luxury. However, what does that engagement look like in practice, and is engaging the visitor effective? "Imagine Africa" illustrates a great example of an exhibit that aims to create a festive environment that enga...

Today was a great leaning experience in navigating moments when plans do not turn out as one might initially expect. While I had expected the day to be oriented around testing questions and survey methods, knowledge and newly articulated considerations related by the exhibitions team demonstrated the further work that was necessary before a testing phase for the survey instruments could begin. The realization of next steps was informative, especially in terms of understanding the institutional factors involved in regulating internal and external audience research of the institution,which, understandably follow specific and delineated procedures. As a result, the rest of my date centered around gathering sources to investigate standardized methods of evaluation utilized by the Penn Museum and other institutions. Unfortunately, the volumes I was most enthused in acquiring (specifically Serell's Paying Attention: visitors and museum exhibitions and Diamond's Practical Evaluati...

Today the workshop and brainstorming session offered another fruitful day of ideas and insights into the trajectory of the project. The metanarrative exercise was very productive preparation for the crash course in the museum's mission and history  as an institution that we received in the intern morning workshop. Alex Pizzati was as entertaining as ever, giving an overview of the museum's narrative that not only highlighted the historical progression of the museum and its collections, but an understanding of the many personalities that influenced the character of the space. While I have visited the archives before, I always feel that I am able to pickup on something I never fully appreciated previously, For instance, the archaeological illustrations that were out on the table really stood out to me, not just for their quality,but for the level of artistry that captured both the image and essence of the artifacts copied. The brainstorming session regarding the initial surve...

Over the past four years I have become familiar with the twist and turns of the halls of the Penn Museum, and maybe even too familiar with its internal logic as an institution to the point that examining its exhibits in the lens of an introductory visitor seems impossible.  I am realizing that this  familiarity can be detrimental to my ability to access and fully grasp ways of meaning-making outside of my established knowledge of the institution. Touring the halls this afternoon, however, was an exercise that has helped reorient my pre-established thoughts and feelings concerning the story that the institution is telling especially concerning the role of objects in crafting narratives.  According to the museum website, the self-described mission of the institution is to "encapsulate and illustrate the human story: who we are and where we come from." Thus, people are described as central to the mission and reasoning for the museum's existence, but is this expressed an...

This morning, I was introduced immediately to the work that needed to be done with inputing the data collected from the comment cards collected from 'Imagine Africa.' These 'Leave us a note' response sheets can be accessed throughout the gallery at multiple stations, and allow visitors to complete and leave handwritten responses and demographic data in deposit boxes. These responses have been collected throughout the tenure of the exhibit, but currently are not represented in the evaluation written by Elizabeth Tinker, which focuses on the in-person interviews and survey data. In fact, 'Leave us a note'/Comment stations are mentioned in the evaluation as the least utilized form of feedback seen during observation periods. There are, however, around 1000+ responses from comment sheets inputed on excel spreadsheets housed within the main folder of analyzed data collected throughout the tenure of the gallery. Two further cardboard boxes of responses were found ...