Intellectuals from across the museums sector gathered recently for the European edition of MuseumNext. Held at London’s Royal Geographic Society, it was a conference to remember. Tom Anstey was there for Attractions Management
By Tom Anstey | Published in Attractions Management 2018 issue 3
Pepper the Robot, was created to communicate and interact with humans
useumNext has been welcoming decision-makers from the museum's community to its events since 2009, to look at the future of museums and how institutions can adapt to a constantly changing world.
The ‘D’ Word Diversity was among the issues up for discussion at this year’s conference, with Shaz Hussain, assistant curator at the London Science Museum, telling delegates not to “deflect responsibility” on the issue.
Speaking at the previous edition of the conference in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Hussain had said using the word ‘diversity’ suggests a museum and its white, middle-class audiences are ‘normal’, with any other type of visitor considered to belong to ‘other’ categories. She proposed that ‘diversity’ should be replaced by ‘representation’, with the sector’s goal being to represent the entire community in its work.
Picking up the theme, Hussain said: “Last year I basically trashed museums, saying how much I hate it when museum professionals use the word ‘diversity’. I challenged everyone to think of ways in which they could make a difference and use their own power to create change.
“I receive messages every week asking me to take part in projects and speak at conferences,” she said. “I don’t tell you this to brag – actually I’m exhausted.
“Despite being a curator, I never get asked to speak about collections, only about diversity. Doing that every day isn’t fun.
“I’m not special, I’m not your poster girl for diversity. People of colour won’t carry the load and that means you have to do some work. You can’t deflect your responsibility.
“In all the conversations I’ve been having, none of it is innovative. Next time you slide into my DMs, think hard if you’re asking me to solve your problems or coming to me to tell me about what you’re already doing.”
The intelligent museum For museums to succeed, they must adapt to the ever-expanding presence of artificial intelligence. That was the message delivered by Sara Boutall – from data analytics company Dexibit – who looked at how AI is being used in museums and looked at future trends in this area.
“We have to get our heads around AI in a museum context,” she said. “We expect Amazon to know what we want to buy and Uber to know where we are. People will expect that intuition in our institutions.”
A number of projects have already shown creative use of AI. San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art recently introduced Send Me – an SMS service which acts as an art discovery tool. In Philadelphia, the Barnes Foundation art gallery used machine learning to interpret art, pairing digital work together using ‘visual identity’ to recognise art style, objects and even images of Jesus. Artificial concierges are also a new innovation, with the Smithsonian Institute, for example, developing Pepper – a 4-foot-tall interactive humanoid robot.
“We need to embrace AI,” said Boutall. “It’s a growing part of our lives, we need to teach our children about it and we can use it in the world of museums to make them more agile, more open and more flexible.”
Spearheading an initiative aimed at creating community inclusion in museums, Nina Simon, director for the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH), told delegates about the OFBYFOR ALL philosophy, which she deployed to turn around the failing institution in 2011.
The OFBYFOR ALL initiative stands for “of, by and for the community”.
Now a thriving community hub, MAH was in serious trouble when Simon took over, with thousands of dollars of debt and an identity issue that meant it was struggling to stay relevant to its audience.
Simon asked two new questions – what was the museum willing to change in order to draw new visitors and what was it willing to do to help them feel they belonged?
When she started in 2011, MAH had an annual budget of US$700,000, with seven staff members and attracted 17,000 people a year. Seven years later, income stands at US$3m a year, MAH has 32 staff members and welcomes 140,000 visitors.
Raising funds for communities OFBYFOR ALL was recently launched as a standalone programme for other museums and community organisations, to offer guidance on community transformation.
OFBYFOR ALL has already raised more than US$900,000 and the team behind it wants to involve a million new people in culture over the next two years.
“Answering two questions took us from the brink of failure to stunning success,” said Simon. “We’re able to engage, because we’re of, by and for our community.”
Read more from this issue of Attractions Management magazine
View contents of Attractions Management 2018 issue 3
People profile: Anton Vidal
Anton Vidal is director general of Poble Espanyol which has completed a 10-year, €10m improvement plan
Interview: Coen Bertens
Fairytale theme park Efteling has
gone from strength to strength
during its 65-year history, enchanting
more visitors last year than
ever before. We talk to COO Coen
Bertens about its success
Promotional feature: EAS - Learning curves
This year’s Euro Attractions Show promises to
be the biggest in the history of the event, with
a brand new schedule of seminars to match
Aquariums: High Waters
We visited the brand new Aquatis
Aquarium-Vivarium in Switzerland
for a journey through our planet’s
freshwater environments
Promotional feature: nWave - The big picture
With more than two decades
of experience creating high quality
original content, nWave looks
ahead as it continues to produce
its own industry-leading creations
Analysis: TEA/AECOM Theme Index 2017
The TEA/AECOM Report 2017 shows major theme park
operators had an outstanding year, while stabilised global
economies and strong investment planning bodes well
for the global attractions industry going forward
Analysis: EMEA Focus
Margreet Papamichael, founder of CLEAR Associates about what The TEA/AECOM Report 2017 means for the EMEA region
Review: MuseumNext
Intellectuals from across the
museums sector gathered recently for
the European edition of MuseumNext
Theme parks: Playing the Looney Tune
As new and exciting leisure opportunities
increase in the Middle East, Yas
Island welcomes the US$1bn Warner
Bros World Abu Dhabi. We speak to
the two key members of the team
behind the landmark project
Museums: License to Thrill
A brand new James Bond visitor attraction,
nestled snugly inside a mountain peak
in Sölden, Austria, opened this July. We
talked to the operator and architect
An opportunity to reimagine one of the UK’s most recognisable towers has been formally
opened by Rivington Hark, as St Johns Beacon invites operators and partners to shape its
next phase. [more...]
Intellectuals from across the museums sector gathered recently for the European edition of MuseumNext. Held at London’s Royal Geographic Society, it was a conference to remember. Tom Anstey was there for Attractions Management
By Tom Anstey | Published in Attractions Management 2018 issue 3
Pepper the Robot, was created to communicate and interact with humans
useumNext has been welcoming decision-makers from the museum's community to its events since 2009, to look at the future of museums and how institutions can adapt to a constantly changing world.
The ‘D’ Word Diversity was among the issues up for discussion at this year’s conference, with Shaz Hussain, assistant curator at the London Science Museum, telling delegates not to “deflect responsibility” on the issue.
Speaking at the previous edition of the conference in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Hussain had said using the word ‘diversity’ suggests a museum and its white, middle-class audiences are ‘normal’, with any other type of visitor considered to belong to ‘other’ categories. She proposed that ‘diversity’ should be replaced by ‘representation’, with the sector’s goal being to represent the entire community in its work.
Picking up the theme, Hussain said: “Last year I basically trashed museums, saying how much I hate it when museum professionals use the word ‘diversity’. I challenged everyone to think of ways in which they could make a difference and use their own power to create change.
“I receive messages every week asking me to take part in projects and speak at conferences,” she said. “I don’t tell you this to brag – actually I’m exhausted.
“Despite being a curator, I never get asked to speak about collections, only about diversity. Doing that every day isn’t fun.
“I’m not special, I’m not your poster girl for diversity. People of colour won’t carry the load and that means you have to do some work. You can’t deflect your responsibility.
“In all the conversations I’ve been having, none of it is innovative. Next time you slide into my DMs, think hard if you’re asking me to solve your problems or coming to me to tell me about what you’re already doing.”
The intelligent museum For museums to succeed, they must adapt to the ever-expanding presence of artificial intelligence. That was the message delivered by Sara Boutall – from data analytics company Dexibit – who looked at how AI is being used in museums and looked at future trends in this area.
“We have to get our heads around AI in a museum context,” she said. “We expect Amazon to know what we want to buy and Uber to know where we are. People will expect that intuition in our institutions.”
A number of projects have already shown creative use of AI. San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art recently introduced Send Me – an SMS service which acts as an art discovery tool. In Philadelphia, the Barnes Foundation art gallery used machine learning to interpret art, pairing digital work together using ‘visual identity’ to recognise art style, objects and even images of Jesus. Artificial concierges are also a new innovation, with the Smithsonian Institute, for example, developing Pepper – a 4-foot-tall interactive humanoid robot.
“We need to embrace AI,” said Boutall. “It’s a growing part of our lives, we need to teach our children about it and we can use it in the world of museums to make them more agile, more open and more flexible.”
Spearheading an initiative aimed at creating community inclusion in museums, Nina Simon, director for the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH), told delegates about the OFBYFOR ALL philosophy, which she deployed to turn around the failing institution in 2011.
The OFBYFOR ALL initiative stands for “of, by and for the community”.
Now a thriving community hub, MAH was in serious trouble when Simon took over, with thousands of dollars of debt and an identity issue that meant it was struggling to stay relevant to its audience.
Simon asked two new questions – what was the museum willing to change in order to draw new visitors and what was it willing to do to help them feel they belonged?
When she started in 2011, MAH had an annual budget of US$700,000, with seven staff members and attracted 17,000 people a year. Seven years later, income stands at US$3m a year, MAH has 32 staff members and welcomes 140,000 visitors.
Raising funds for communities OFBYFOR ALL was recently launched as a standalone programme for other museums and community organisations, to offer guidance on community transformation.
OFBYFOR ALL has already raised more than US$900,000 and the team behind it wants to involve a million new people in culture over the next two years.
“Answering two questions took us from the brink of failure to stunning success,” said Simon. “We’re able to engage, because we’re of, by and for our community.”
Read more from this issue of Attractions Management magazine
View contents of Attractions Management 2018 issue 3
People profile: Anton Vidal
Anton Vidal is director general of Poble Espanyol which has completed a 10-year, €10m improvement plan
Interview: Coen Bertens
Fairytale theme park Efteling has
gone from strength to strength
during its 65-year history, enchanting
more visitors last year than
ever before. We talk to COO Coen
Bertens about its success
Promotional feature: EAS - Learning curves
This year’s Euro Attractions Show promises to
be the biggest in the history of the event, with
a brand new schedule of seminars to match
Aquariums: High Waters
We visited the brand new Aquatis
Aquarium-Vivarium in Switzerland
for a journey through our planet’s
freshwater environments
Promotional feature: nWave - The big picture
With more than two decades
of experience creating high quality
original content, nWave looks
ahead as it continues to produce
its own industry-leading creations
Analysis: TEA/AECOM Theme Index 2017
The TEA/AECOM Report 2017 shows major theme park
operators had an outstanding year, while stabilised global
economies and strong investment planning bodes well
for the global attractions industry going forward
Analysis: EMEA Focus
Margreet Papamichael, founder of CLEAR Associates about what The TEA/AECOM Report 2017 means for the EMEA region
Review: MuseumNext
Intellectuals from across the
museums sector gathered recently for
the European edition of MuseumNext
Theme parks: Playing the Looney Tune
As new and exciting leisure opportunities
increase in the Middle East, Yas
Island welcomes the US$1bn Warner
Bros World Abu Dhabi. We speak to
the two key members of the team
behind the landmark project
Museums: License to Thrill
A brand new James Bond visitor attraction,
nestled snugly inside a mountain peak
in Sölden, Austria, opened this July. We
talked to the operator and architect
Hotel de France, located on the British Isle of Jersey, has created a wellness retreat package
that includes a hot yoga session that will take place in Jersey Zoo’s butterfly sanctuary.
A new immersive attraction designed to transport visitors into the final hours of ancient Pompeii
is preparing to open near the world-famous archaeological site in southern Italy.
Experience design company, BRC Imagination Arts, has completed a transition that sees founder
Bob Rogers pass ownership of the business to four long-serving senior executives, while
remaining actively involved with the company.
Movie Park Germany has opened a new Paramount Pictures-themed attraction as part of its 30th
anniversary celebrations, using immersive storytelling and adaptive reuse to reinforce the park’s
longstanding “Hollywood in Germany” positioning.
Therme Manchester’s 28-acre development, which will include interconnected glass pavilions
that measure 65,000sq m, will be the largest bathing and wellbeing attraction in the world once
complete, according to prof David Russell, CEO of Therme UK.
Efteling has opened Hooghmoed, a new family drop tower designed to broaden the appeal of its
recently launched Sirene Island themed area and introduce younger visitors to thrill attractions.
A proposed Puy du Fou development near Bicester and Universal Destinations and Experiences’
planned resort in Bedford are emerging as part of a wider transformation of the Oxford–
Cambridge Growth Corridor into a major centre for UK leisure and tourism inv
Shedd Aquarium has opened the Immersion Theater developed in partnership with SimEx-
Iwerks, as part of a wider strategy to enhance the guest experience and create additional
revenue opportunities.
The UK government has announced a temporary reduction in VAT on visitor attractions and
children’s meals as part of a summer cost-of-living support package designed to stimulate the
visitor economy and encourage family days out.
As designer Yinka Ilori prepares for his first solo gallery show in London, he speaks exclusively
to CLADmag about his mission to spread joy, the power of play, and his bold approach to using
colour (including the colours you won’t see in his work).
The government of Thailand is exploring plans for a THB300bn (£6.3bn, US$8.3bn)
entertainment complex in the country’s Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), with officials
proposing a large-scale theme park and sports destination as part of a broader tourism and
economic development strategy.
+ More news
COMPANY PROFILES
IAAPA EMEA IAAPA Expo Europe was established in 2006 and has grown to the largest international conference and [more...]
Taylor Made Designs Founded in 1993, Taylor Made
Designs supply corporate clothing
and brand-enhancing merchandise
to [more...]
Holovis Holovis is a privately owned company
established in 2004 by CEO Stuart
Hetherington. [more...]
Sally Corporation Our services include: Dark ride design & build; Redevelopment of existing attractions; High-quality [more...]
An opportunity to reimagine one of the UK’s most recognisable towers has been formally
opened by Rivington Hark, as St Johns Beacon invites operators and partners to shape its
next phase. [more...]
