In September, Dan Lutzick—our special projects manager—attended the Western Museum Association and Museum Association of Arizona combined conference in Tucson, along with wife Ann-Mary who is the director of Winslow’s Old Trails Museum. The conference gave Dan and Ann-Mary a chance to promote Winslow’s museums to an audience of western museum professionals, plus, exchange ideas and best practices with museum colleagues and attend a variety of informative sessions. The concepts explored will help further grow and expand our mission at Affeldt Mion Museum.
Sessions
The tours and sessions included both indoor—like a tour of Tucson Museum of Art and a session on mindfulness led by LACMA presenters Elizabeth Gerber and Alicia Vogel Saenz—as well as outdoor activities, like the nighttime Presidio Plaza tour and the kick off event at Tohono Chul Desert Gardens, where animal-lover Dan got to meet this spectacular desert tortoise.
The session “Art of Noticing: Using the Outdoors as a Context for Learning” inspired many ideas for Dan regarding the future expansion to outdoor spaces at Affeldt Mion and the further development of the garden tours at La Posada Hotel.
Small Museums
During the Small Museum Happy Hour, Dan and Ann-Mary got to share stories with other directors of small museums and discuss the mutual challenges faced by similarly sized organizations.
Expanding Narratives
One of the highlights Dan noted was a session called “Expanding Narratives and Representation Through Community Based Curation,” (presented by Marianna Pegno, Christine Brindza, Elizabeth Denneau, and Feng Feng Yeh). They used a high speed group curation activity to demonstrate many of the aspects of community based exhibit content. The toolkit publication for this presentation is available free online.
Augmented Reality
Dan also found the exploration into augmented reality in a museum context to be particularly interesting. During the “Innovation in Community Collaboration and Engagement Using Augmented Reality” session (led by representatives from the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, and the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center) Dan got to experience a tour via a digitally inserted video added to his smartphone. What a wonderful addition to a small museum like ours, that does not have a docent on hand to guide visitors through our exhibits. We are excited to explore possibilities and figure out ways to implement more virtual explorations.
Thank you, Dan!
We are excited to dive in and explore the many things Dan learned over the course of the event. Stay tuned as we begin to implement some of the innovative ideas shared!
