7th International Conference on the Inclusive Museum

 In early August I attended the 7^th International Conference on the Inclusive Museum in LA. The Inclusive Museum Knowledge Community facilitates the annual conference as well as drawing together a community of those who are passionate about ensuring public museums are engaging and accessible civic spaces for all people irrespective of their backgrounds. All conference delegates are admitted as members of the Community providing opportunities to publish in the peer reviewed journal or book series. This year’s conference was hosted by the Autry National Center of the American West, and has a distinctly interdisciplinary focus bringing together a diversity of scholars, researchers and practitioners to discuss challenges, new initiatives, and most importantly and more specifically how museums are addressing relevance in the their respective communities. Papers were presented under the themes of ‘Visitors’, ‘Collections’, and ‘Representations’. The paper I presented was titled “Performing the DIY Museum: Shirting the Frame of Conception, Production and Representation” and broadly spoke to Eilean Hooper-Greenhill’s notion that "the museum in the future may be imagined as a process or an experience. It is however, not limited to its own walls, but moves a set of process into the spaces, the concerns and the ambitions of communities."

A few of the many highlights of the conference for me included plenary speaker Charmaine Jefferson’s address reflecting on her significant experience in the sector including recently concluding 11 years as the Executive Director of the California African American Museum to issue a challenge to the sector to discard preconceptions about what a museum should be and do and focus on what museums need to be and do in the here and now. The Natural History Museum tour was particular enhanced for me by the evident passion and drive of its staff who have developed a number of initiatives that reach out into their community including for example Zombee Watch. This project is a partnership between the Museum and the San Francisco State University’s Department of Biology to discover more about zombie fly parasitized honey bees. Participants can become ZomBee hunters in order to contribute to research and to this end the Museum website provides instruction on, for example, safe handling of bees, the construction of a light trap and how to collect, store and share the collected information with the Museum. There were numerous paper presentations I found inspirational which will continue to inform the development of my own research. I am grateful for the support of the Southern Institute of Technology in attending the Inclusive Museum conference.