Letting the Collections Out, Letting the Ephemerality In

Sheila Brennan@sherah1918sbrennan@gmu.e

du

Associate Director of Public Projects

LETTING THE COLLECTIONS OUT

LETTING THE EPHEMERAL IN

EPHEMERAL EXPERIENCES

http://snapchat.com

THE “EPHEMERALNET”

Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, England

EPHEMERAL COLLECTIONS?

COLLECT, PRESERVE, STORE

Visitors at the National Museum of American History,

looking not touching.

RARE LOOK BEHIND THE CASE

Memory Boxes, Red Location Museum, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

NEW MUSEUMS

Digitize existing collections.

Circulate objects.

Don’t print plastic replicas, use real things.

Create (better) museum networks for sharing.

Partner with arts and community groups to use objects.

Collect online.

SIX IDEAS TO CONSIDER

1. DIGITIZE, RECORD

Take someobjects out of storage.

De-accession.

Let them degrade gracefully.

2. CIRCULATE OBJECTS

Smithsonian storage

DON’T DUMP IT ALL

NPS Arlington House, Arlington, VA

CAN I SIT IN THAT CHAIR?

Why make arti-fakes when you can use the real thing.

http://makerbot.com

3. DON’T PRINT PLASTIC REPLICAS

OBJECTS ARE POPULAR

Share Expertise, concentrate thematically and chronologically

4.CREATE REGIONAL COALITIONS

http://www.mckittrickhotel.com/#SleepNoMore

5. PARTNER WITH ARTS COMMUNITY

aMuse event,St. Catharine’s Museum, Ontario, Candada

OR COMMUNITY CENTERS

No bicycles were harmed in this event.

http://braceroarchive.org

6. COLLECT TRACES ONLINE

http://historyharvest.unl.edu

CREATE ONLINE COLLECTIONS

University of Nebraska-Lincoln student participating in a community History

Harvest.

BE ACTIVE

Sheila Brennan@sherah1918sbrennan@gmu.e

du

Associate Director of Public Projects

THANK YOU!