accesstomuseums

[accesstomuseums]

About the Author

This blog was created for Gender, Digital Media, and Social Curation with Professor Smith at Rutgers University in Summer 2020. 

I am heading into my senior year of undergrad with a History/Art History double major, a minor in Women’s & Gender Studies, and certificates in Public History and Women’s Leadership. After graduation, I plan to continue working in the museum field for a year or two before pursuing my Masters in Museum Studies.

[accesstomuseums]

Museums, Social Media, and Access

Access is a loaded term. For some, the first thing to come to mind is assistive technologies used by those with disabilities. For others, it may refer to who is represented in collections and who the museum uses its public voice to support. From a museum education standpoint, social media and online resources are a tool to present information in a digestible manner to those outside academia.

For some of us, social media allows quick and easy access to information from anywhere. Many of us take our interactions with social media for granted, without taking into consideration that our access is conditional, based on our varying levels of ability. University of Virginia professor Elizabeth Ellcessor points out that even sites like Tumblr, which have “robust social justice communities” can be completely inaccessible for audiences who use screen readers and other assistive technologies.1 Instagram is very popular for use by museums, libraries, and archives, but Instagram’s accessibility features are not easy to locate or use. Most museums do not use alt-text in their posts, and Instagram’s alt-text is often spotty and vague.2 That said, for those with mobility impairments, posting on social media and websites can make museum materials more readily available. Social media platforms themselves have a long way to go towards accessibility, but official accounts representing heavily-funded institutions should engage with as many assistive tools as possible.

During the pandemic, presenting information digitally has become increasingly popular. Social media allows (and, in some cases, necessitates) that information be translated into language that is easily understandable, relatively concise, and invites engagement. The field of Public History is all about education, which sometimes means figuring out the best way to provide context without risking losing the audience’s attention. Social media allows the institution to pair an image (or multiple images) with text, acting as a microcosm of a comprehensive physical exhibit. In normal times, these posts can act as advertisements for current exhibitions, or as a substitute that can be used for casual, free-choice learning.3 Now that museums have been closed for a few months, they can use social media to stay involved and attempt to maintain their relationship with their communities. This use is especially important for small, local sites. Many towns have local historical societies or heritage sites that many citizens are not aware of. These sites rely on the engagement of their communities with their social media in order to spread awareness, since they lack the budgets that other institutions have for advertising.

Commenting is an important feature that allows individuals to voice their opinions in ways they would not typically be able to in a physical museum setting. Commenting gives social media users a certain amount of access to the museum staff. In person, feedback typically goes to an email account or paper survey, but social media allows visitors to say anything on public museum-led forums. Social media allows informal, semi-anonymous communication with museum leadership.

At times, a museum’s accessibility (like that of corporations and institutions) can be tied to the demographics it represents and champions. Because more and more museums (again, like many corporations and institutions) are beginning to engage with digital activism and campaigns for human rights, their visitor-bases have recently had a lot to say. Regardless of the museum’s stance, as neutral as they attempt to be, they still receive criticism and praise from different groups. Many museums dance around actually stating that Black Lives Matter, but instead post a piece of African American history relevant to their site and call it a day. This attempt at acknowledging the current civil rights movement while refusing to denounce white supremacy garners disapproval from both sides. Companies and official accounts of all industries are struggling with this tendency. In attempts not to alienate any visitors, they are failing to show up for people of color. Museums, with their historical credibility, have a specific responsibility to be on the right side of history. Whether they are or aren’t is in the hands of their current staff.

The question “whose museums” alludes to equity in all branches of the museum world, whether it be collections, exhibitions, workplace environment, community outreach and education, or accessibility for all communities. Social media’s role is to be a small, public-oriented sample of museums’ practices. Justice in any of these categories will inspire similar change in the others.

Cathy Hannabach, "Imagine Otherwise: Elizabeth Ellcessor on Disability Media Accessibility," 2016, in Imagine Otherwise, podcast, audio, 33:33, accessed July 3, 2020, https://ideasonfire.net/8-elizabeth-ellcessor/. ↩︎

"Creating an Accessible Instagram Account," In Sight: Full Life, accessed July 3, 2020, https://www.insightfulllife.com/accessible-instagram/. ↩︎

Cherstin M. Lyon, Elizabeth Nix, and Rebecca Kathleen Shrum, Introduction to Public History: Interpreting the Past, Engaging Audiences (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 9. ↩︎

[accesstomuseums]

Museums & Digital Black Lives Matter Activism

Any institution with a platform has a responsibility to be anti-racist. In these increasingly digital times, hashtags are an important tool in showing support. Yarimar Bonilla and Jonathan Rosa open their article “#Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media and the US” by explaining the significance of hashtags in any modern social justice movement.1 Hashtags reflect a digital arm of a movement that has body parts in both the virtual and physical realms. Many of the observations Bonilla and Rosa made about #Ferguson on Twitter are applicable to #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackoutTuesday on Instagram. These tags link posts together, regardless of the poster’s viewpoint or intent, and allow easy access to these posts by removing them from their original context and lumping them together. 2 The inclusion or omission of #BlackLivesMatter is taken as a political statement by many and has become a criterion for holding institutions, celebrities, and content creators accountable in standing up to racism. In the same vein, a poster’s use of #BlackLivesMatter on an image of a black square shows their lack of awareness, as the millions of black squares rendered nearly all the information on the #BlackLivesMatter tag impossible to find. It is widely recognized among activists that simply posting a black square is not sufficient in using one’s platform, regardless of their follower count. As citizens, we have a responsibility to use our voice and elevate others’ by sharing their posts to our stories and feeds. Digital activism is not the be-all end-all, it is only the beginning. In the case of institutions, their Instagram activity represents the first steps they are taking towards a more equitable future.

This post will examine the ways two very different museums (the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Poster House) engage with Black Lives Matter activism on their Instagram accounts. I will evaluate their activism based on their genuity versus performativity, the #blackouttuesday debacle, and duration of their support.

In a post from May 31, the Met (@metmuseum) posted a picture of Freedom of Speech by Faith Ringgold and was continuously called out in the comments for beating around the bush. One commenter said “Say what you NEED to say [with] your chest. Not these loose allusions or references”.3 The Museum responded with “Thank you, you’re right. We’ve amended our post”, but the caption still does not say Black Lives Matter.4 The Met did include #BlackLivesMatter in a caption on June 1, but the post was a black square that took up space on the hashtag during a critical period of organizing. This is not activism.

In the caption of their black square post, the Met pats itself on the back for the letter it sent to its employees. Regarding social media, the letter says: “We have been using our social media channels to highlight works from our collection that invite reflection on our nation's complicated past and present...We will continue to use social media to contribute to the national conversation, and we hope to respond to these issues thoughtfully in our blogs and other online programming in the coming weeks”.5 Since then, the account has included the work of Black artists in their posts more than they previously had, but not exclusively. On a search of the Met’s website for “Black Lives Matter”, the only relevant result is their Racial Justice Resource Library which contains links to third-party sites and a paragraph long disclaimer, which states that “The Met's inclusion of these websites does not constitute an endorsement or an approval by The Met of any of the services or opinions of the third-party content provider”.6 They have yet to explicitly say Black Lives Matter outside of their unfortunate hashtag situation.

The Poster House (@posterhousenyc) provides a much more responsible example of what institutions can be doing. Keeping in mind that the Poster House (physical location) is currently celebrating its first birthday (compared to the Met’s 133 year history), we see a commitment to justice that is reflective of the period the Poster House was developed.

If the Poster House did engage with #blackouttuesday, they have since deleted the post. Many organizers asked social media users not to engage with this trend at all, even if the #blacklivesmatter hashtag was not used, because it still crowded people’s feeds and led to censorship. The Poster House has a permanent highlight on their page, posted three weeks ago, titled “BLM Resources”. The first slide states “Poster House will continue highlighting posters that speak to the worldwide fight against: -Racial Injustice -Police Brutality -Oppressive Government Systems, As well as amplifying content from BIPOC creators”.7 The second announces a forthcoming program from their Education Department that will provide “a deeper understanding of the history of Civil Rights protests in the USA leading up to the Black Lives Matter Movement”. Comprehensive histories that place the Black Lives Matter movement within the context of racial justice efforts is a worthy and much-needed endeavor.

@posterhousenyc’s engagement with the current Black Lives Matter effort began on May 30, when they posted an Amos Kennedy poster that reads “If there is no struggle, there is no progress -Frederick Douglass”. The Poster House continued to engage exclusively with racial justice posters from then until June 9. After June 9, they began to integrate gay rights posters into their Instagram feed, but have continued to discuss antiracism.

Digital activism is only valid if one’s activism continues offline. The composition of museums’ leadership, their treatment of nonwestern and nonwhite artists, and their workplace politics all contribute to the authenticity of their Black Lives Matter statements.

Yarimar Bonilla and Jonathan Rosa, "#Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media and the US," American Ethnologist, 2015, accessed July 3, 2020. ↩︎

Ibid. ↩︎

@thatgirlyoh on @metmuseum Instagram post. May 31, 2020. https://www.instagram.com/p/CA3OhwVFSKZ/. ↩︎

Ibid. ↩︎

Daniel Weiss and Max Hollein, "Standing in Solidarity, Committing to the Work Ahead," The Metropolitan Museum of Art, last modified June 1, 2020, accessed July 3, 2020, https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/now-at-the-met/2020/standing-in-solidarity-president-director. ↩︎

"Racial Justice Resource Library," The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed July 3, 2020, https://www.metmuseum.org/learn/adults/racial-justice-resources. ↩︎

@posterhousenyc. Instagram post. https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17903462683467377/. ↩︎

[accesstomuseums]

Racism in Museum Leadership and Exhibition

The museum field needs to lead efforts towards diversity, inclusion, and equity in both their exhibition practices and as workplaces. This dual effort has the same moral origins: gains in each territory will benefit the other. If museums are led by bourgeois white men, their values will seep through to their practices. If museums hold their employees to high standards of justice-mindedness, museums themselves will become more equitable. Over the past month, museum professionals have turned to social media as a way to anonymously start conversations and demand accountability for museums that uphold white supremacist structures.

@_fortheculture2020 was created in mid-June 2020. The bulk of their work is connected to their open letter, which calls for “the immediate removal of ineffective, biased Administrative and Curatorial leadership to demonstrate good faith of the board for real systemic change”.1 The letter also asks “that [museums] acknowledge [their] participation in this systemic oppression, which complicity damaged the lives of the many Black/Brown employees who have suffered in silence, who have left their jobs without other means of income, who have suffered health issues, who have worked tirelessly and effortlessly all to be compensated significantly less than white employees, while working in a perpetual state of fear.”2 The letter, directed specifically towards the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Opera, The Museum of Modern Art, and The Guggenheim Museum, has over seven hundred signatures and counting. Add your name and find a complete description at https://fortheculture2020.com/.

Another account, @changethemuseum, contains the statements of 93 anonymous witnesses of racism behind the scenes in museum settings. By posting these stories on social media, @changethemuseum holds the staff of these institutions accountable for their racism in the workplace. Some of the posts hint at the identity of the individual who expressed their prejudice and many contain the names of the institutions. The number of stories people have are disheartening. Discrimination impacts museum workers of all levels, including curators.

Chaedria LaBouvier was the Guggenheim’s first Black curator and called her time there “the most racist professional experience of her life”.3 The leadership of the Guggenheim excluded LaBouvier from programming that is customary for the curator to lead. When LaBouvier was not invited to a panel held in honor of the exhibition’s closing, she stood up for herself publicly. A video of her speech circulated on social media, shedding light on the inequalities that persist in the museum field. LaBouvier tweeted, “I cannot in fair faith suggest anyone of color join most museum ranks”.4 The spread of the story on social media led to an email campaign in which allies questioned “the panel, [LaBouvier] being barred from de-installation, digital products such as digital guide x Spotify playlist created w/o [LaBouvier’s] knowledge/input, and [LaBouvier] not being asked to give high profile private tours, as curators do”. This story has been a prime example of museum leaders’ failure to include even curators of color in curatorial decisions.

Communities of color are often belittled in major museums’ exhibition practices as well. On June 12, Anisa Tavangar (@anisatav) posted a graphic on Instagram summarizing her thesis research on the Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which houses the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. The title of this gallery alone is troubling. In her post, Tavangar traces the history of the Rockefeller Wing through its name changes, strange display practices, lack of provenance, and conflation of several geographically distant cultures. She finds that attempting to create an encyclopedic museum is inherently problematic because it strips objects of their contexts. In her article “Coded Exposure: Is Visibility a Trap?” Ruha Benjamin states that “The desire to see others in a derogatory or in an exotic light, just as much as the practice of invisibilizing them, reproduces long-standing forms of authority and hierarchy”.5 The amalgamation of these vastly different cultures into one department explicitly relays the message that the art, and subsequently the people, are “othered”. The Met has two departments distinctly for European Art alone, and was included in a study that found 85% of the art is by white artists in the most-visited museums in the US.6 The Met has a massive budget and could certainly strive for equity in their display of non-western objects--if they cared to. In “‘New Genres of Being Human’: World Making through Viral Blackness”, Ashleigh Greene Wade explains that the development of “Man” during the era of Humanist philosophy “coincided with European expansion and colonization”.7 Since the modern museum structure was developed around the same era, historians have contributed to ideas of non-western cultures as “other”, “exotic”, and completely at odds with European society. Their collection and exhibition practices prove and propagate this imperialist view. It is shameful that the Met and many other allegedly encyclopedic museums participate in these same customs today. Tavangar has since made a second post that invites viewers to call for change by emailing the Met’s Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. If you would like to contribute, write to feedback@metmuseum.org.

Because museums have so much credibility in presenting history to the public, they have a pressing responsibility to do it inclusively, equitably, and authentically. The type of curators who will produce this kind of exhibition will need to actively practice these principles in their workplaces and daily lives. The connection between what museum workers see and what the public sees cannot be understated. The next generation of emerging museum professionals is at the forefront of the fight for more honest histories.

"An open letter to New York City's Cultural Institutions," #ForTheCulture, accessed July 3, 2020, https://fortheculture2020.com/. ↩︎

Ibid. ↩︎

@_fortheculture2020. Instagram post. June 22, 2020. https://www.instagram.com/p/CBvNonrldu9/. ↩︎

Erin White, "Curator Says Museum's White Supremacy Silenced Her," afropunk, last modified November 12, 2019, accessed July 3, 2020, https://afropunk.com/2019/11/chaedria-labouvier-guggenheim-white-supremacy/. ↩︎

Ruha Benjamin, "'Coded Exposure: Is Visibility a Trap?,'" in Race after Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (Polity Press, 2019), 75, accessed July 3, 2020. ↩︎

Hakim Bishara, "Artists in 18 Major US Museums Are 85% White and 87% Male, Study Says," Hyperallergic, last modified June 3, 2019, accessed July 3, 2020, https://hyperallergic.com/501999/artists-in-18-major-us-museums-are-85-white-and-87-male-study-says/. ↩︎

Ashleigh Greene Wade, "'New Genres of Being Human': World Making through Viral Blackness," The Black Scholar, 2017, 34, accessed July 3, 2020. ↩︎