The Art Engager

I’m really happy to be talking to Dr Alex Woodall about her wonderful work with objects. We’re talking about how the joys of working with objects creatively. We’re exploring how you can use objects to spark all sorts of connections, associations and fun in the museum and beyond…

Dr Alex Woodall is a museum professional and academic, inspired by the creative use of objects and rummaging in stores. 

She has 20 years’ experience working in learning, interpretation and exhibition management and leadership roles, including at Sheffield Museums, Manchester Art Gallery, the Royal Armouries in Leeds and the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia. 

She is currently Programme Director for the Postgraduate Creative and Cultural Industries Management degree at the University of Sheffield, where she teaches a large international cohort about museum management. 

In our chat today, we talk about the joys of working with objects creatively. Alex shares how her love for objects started when she was very small rummaging through her dad’s ‘museum’ full of amazing finds that he’d dug up in the garden - rocks and fossils and clay pipes and so on. And how that developed into a career-long fascination with all kinds of objects.

We talk about what objects do, ​​ how we can use them and what we can get out of working with objects.

Alex tells us what an object dialogue box is and how you can use objects to spark all sorts of connections, associations and fun in the museum. She takes us through a wonderful activity that I did with her at the ICOM CECA conference in Denmark recently that helps us to notice more details and find stuff in museums that we would normally overlook. 

We also talk about how we can use objects to inspire more creativity and imagination organisations in for example meetings, in teams, programming, brainstorming etc. And she shares two wonderful books to read if you’re as fascinated by objects as we both are. 

This is a delightful chat about creating joyful engaging experiences with objects -Enjoy!

HOW TO LOOK AT ART (SLOWLY) - a free guide for looking with 30+ activities!

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www.alexwoodall.co.uk

Alex Woodall on Twitter

https://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/

Karl and Kimberley Foster - Object Dialogue Boxes https://www.sorhed.com/

http://www.marymaryquitecontrary.org.uk/

Books mentioned:

Sandra Dudley (2010) Museum Materialities: https://www.routledge.com/Museum-Materialities-Objects-Engagements-Interpretations/Dudley/p/book/9780415492188

Pablo Neruda (1994) Odes to Common Things: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Common-Things-First-Pablo-Neruda/dp/B0058WGC84

Written by Alex Woodall: 

• Woodall A (2020) 'Storehouses of Unimagined Treasures': Delightful Rummaging and Artists' Responses to 'Unloved' Collections In Woodham A, Hess A & Smith R (Ed.), Emotion, Care, and Engagement in Museums: Interventions in Unloved Collections Arc Humanities Press View this article in WRRO
• Woodall A (2015) Rummaging as a Strategy for Creative Thinking and Imaginative Engagement in Higher Education In Chatterjee H & Hannan L (Ed.), Engaging the Senses: Object-Based Learning in Higher Education (pp. 133-155). Surrey: Ashgate. View this article in WRRO
• Woodall A (2015) Object Dialogue Boxes and Unknowing In Farnell G (Ed.), Interpreting the Art Museum (pp. 366-377). MuseumsEtc 

We’ve reached another milestone and in honour of 75 episodes, I’m releasing a new FREE resource today.

How to Look at Art (Slowly) shares 30+ different ways that you can look at art or objects in museums.

In today’s special episode I’m talking you through some of these different ways of looking slowly. 

I'll share why it's important to slow down and look carefully, before explaining the 4 sections of the guide: Static Looking, Movement, Observation by Drawing, Observation by Writing and Viewfinders.

How to Look at Art (Slowly) is a resource that can be used by anyone.

Whether you’re going to a museum alone and would like some strategies for looking, or if you’re visiting with a friend and are on the lookout for some new ways to engage with what you’re seeing.

Likewise, if you’re an educator or guide, you can use these activities with your groups. All of the activities are coded as either solo or group activities.

These simple activities offer a framework and tools for looking at art and objects for longer.

Choose a variety of different ways to look as you move around the museum. You may want to choose activities that appeal to you or you might want to step out of your comfort zone and try something new. All of the activities will help you to see more. 

Download this free guide via the link below and then listen to the episode!

LINKS

HOW TO LOOK AT ART (SLOWLY) - a free guide for looking with 30+ activities!

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Today I’m chatting to Ben Street about his new book 'How to Enjoy Art: A Guide for Everyone'. We’re talking about how we can enjoy art without needing to know anything about it.

Ben Street is an author, educator and art historian. He’s also been a school teacher and museum educator. He’s a writer of interpretation for museums and exhibitions and a writer of art criticism. He’s an academic and he writes books - “How to Enjoy Art: A Guide for Everyone” (Yale) and “How to be an Art Rebel” (Thames and Hudson) are out now.

In our chat today, we talk about the values that guide Ben’s work and how he’s passionate about us all being able to enjoy art without needing any specialist knowledge. 

We talk about slow looking and open questioning and how we can approach art with the tools we already have within us. 

We focus on why looking is so important to the art experience, we explore ways in which we can look for longer and we talk about how scale and space affects how we relate to art. 

We discuss why we rarely feel we need to read about a piece of music before we listen to it, but with art, we feel we need to know something about it to look at it. And that artworks come ‘wrapped in text’ before we can even get to them. Why is this? How has this come about?

This chat is jam-packed with ideas and inspiration for you. Here’s my chat with Ben. Enjoy!

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Books - How to Enjoy Art; How to be an Art Rebel

Today’s episode follows on from a popular post I wrote on social media recently about how to talk about the recent climate activist protests in art museums with your participants.  I wanted to take the opportunity to explore the subject in a bit more detail here. 

Art has been hitting the headlines recently with numerous climate activist protests targeting famous paintings in museums - from Van Gogh’s 'Sunflowers' in the National Gallery in London, to Monet’s 'Grainstacks' in Potsdam and Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' in the Mauritshuis in The Hague.

Now, whatever your views about these attacks - and I’m acknowledging here that there are very passionate views on all sides - as educators, how we respond is equally important. 

Whether you’re working with groups in the museum or with students in a classroom, people will mention recent events and will want to talk about it. They may even ask you for your opinions

So, in today's episode we'll explore how these events are an opportunity to engage in perspective-taking and discussion with visitors, rather than voicing our own opinions.

It means listening to a range of perspectives and keeping an open mind, creating discussion with visitors and inviting them to explore and even understand the different perspectives involved. 

But, importantly, you have to feel comfortable creating conversations about contentious issues such as these and know that you will be able to facilitate objectively. 

So, first I’ll talk about the kinds of discussions you could facilitate around this subject and will share a range of thinking routines and questions that you can use to create conversations.

And secondly, I’ll take you through a super-useful exercise that will help you to get to know yourself and your feelings better - this is an exercise that will ultimately help you to facilitate subjects around all kinds of sensitive and contentious topics.

There are lots of resources associated with today's episode too, including a free PDF summary sheet - and I've shared all the helpful links below.

LINKS

Download the summary sheet of today's episode - Resources for talking about contentious issues (free PDF)

6 thinking routines for perspective-taking (free PDF)

Episode 11 Step Inside: Thinking Routines to Foster Perspective-Taking

Episode 43 Tips for facilitating meaningful discussions around sensitive subjects

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My Friday newsletter

Today I’m talking to Rachel Ropeik about her work. We’re talking about how we can use our bodies to react to art & the many ways in which we can incorporate movement into museum learning.

Rachel Ropeik is an educator, facilitator, adventurer, experience builder and pirate who brings thoughtful, playful, and progressive approaches to catalysing change in arts and culture. 

She currently works independently, sharing her skills with various clients. Before going independent, Rachel’s arts education career spanned many a major art museum and travel company in New York, London, Paris, and the internet. 

I first heard of Rachel’s work more than 10 years ago as part of a small group of educators that I admired and followed for their innovation and experimentation in the art museum education space. 

In our chat today, we talk about Rachel's work past and present and the values and principles that guide her practice. 

We focus on why movement has been and still is such an important part of her work and how we can incorporate more movement into our programmes. Rachel shares many examples of the different ways in which she has used movement in different programmes, with different groups and artworks over the years.

We talk about how we can create physical comfort and put people at ease so that we can use movement without any fear or feelings of uncomfortableness.

Rachel shares tools and techniques that we use to incorporate a range of movement into the way we lead our museum programmes. And also how we can use movement ourselves as a way to become more present, aware and reflective.

Finally, Rachel shares 3 amazing books that you all must read immediately. Do stay tuned for her recommendations!

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Books recommended by Rachel:

The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

Be More Pirate by Sam Conniff

Wintering by Katherine May

BBC Radio 4 abridged version of Wintering by Katherine May: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00127f5

Today I’m talking about why I created my method Visible Thinking in the Museum (or VTM for short) and who I created it for.

Why did I go and develop a new teaching method when there were plenty of methods already out there?

So, today I’m sharing exactly what prompted this 11 year mission into creating a method for engaging discussions in museums around art and objects.

Over the years, I have done a lot of research into other methods or strategies for discussing art and objects. So I know a lot about what other methods are out there for educators to use. 

From my research and experience, I've drawn key conclusions about what works well and what was lacking in existing approaches such as Visual Thinking Strategies and more.

And these conclusions led me to designing my own method that contained all the elements I wanted in a teaching method

I'm sharing the two basic needs that the new method arose out of, followed by 10 reasons why I created a new approach. And some of the reasons may surprise you!

Links

VTMO Beginners Course -starts 1 November

Episode 62 - 7 ways to be creative with thinking routines

Episode 1 - The moment when I first heard the words Visible Thinking...

Episode 51 - What is Visible Thinking in the Museum?

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Slow Looking Club

Today I’m so happy to be talking to Hanna Piksen about deconstructing the traditional guided tour and creating a completely new experience where guides are given free rein to design and lead the tour entirely from their own perspective. 

Hanna Piksen is the Head of Co-learning at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. This is the national museum for digital culture, design and architecture in the Netherlands. 

Hanna has a background in art history, art education and in collaborating with artists. 

She believes that the most valuable and unexpected things happen when museum education is content based, visitor focused and experiment driven. 

In today’s episode Hanna talks to me about the Detour Experiences that she has developed in Het Nieuwe Instituut. Detours are unlike any other guided tour you have been on.

Detours are deconstructed museum tours that give their guides the flexibility to present information in a way of their choosing. Each one is specially designed from the Detour guide’s unique perspective as a musician, dancer, art teacher or designer. 

In this episode we talk about the innovative hiring process for their unique team, the qualities that they are looking for in a Detour guide & the unlearning that the department had to do in order to co-construct these new experiences.

We explore how a Detour Experience works and the ways in which it differs from a traditional guided tour. 

We also chat about what benefits the guides and the audience get from these experiences and Hanna shares feedback on how they have been received. 

This one will open your eyes to new ways of looking at, thinking about and designing guided tours.

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Hanna Piksen

Het Nieuwe Instituut

More info about Detours and Detour Guides at Het Nieuwe Instituut

MuseumNext article about Detour guides https://www.museumnext.com/article/overcoming-museum-fatigue-with-detour-guides/

Body language is defined as ‘the conscious and unconscious movements and postures by which attitudes and feelings are communicated’.

When we talk about body language we’re talking about a wide range of human expression - such as posture, eye contact, use of space, voice, gesture, and so on.

And these are signals that communicate with us nonverbally, they are ‘wordless signals’ that can be indicators of engagement.

These signals are quite often done instinctively, rather than consciously too.

Being both aware of and able to read these signals helps us to create connections and build rapport with our groups and thus to create engaged groups.

So during this episode think about what signals you are sending to your group through your body language. Are you putting people at ease, building trust and connecting people to you by your body language? Or does your body language undermine what you’re saying or doing in the museum?

And also, how can you use what I’m talking about here to better read your group and build more engagement?

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Listen Like You Mean It by Ximena Vengoechea

Amy Cuddy's Ted Talk

Today I'm delighted to be talking to Marina Gross Hoy about how to look, and in particular, how to look at your daily life as if you were looking at a work of art.

Marina Gross Hoy is a museum studies PhD candidate and a writer. Her doctoral research at the University of Quebec in Montreal focusing on how museums develop digital projects to create engaging experiences for visitors.

She has a Master's in Museology from the École du Louvre, and she has previously worked on the education team at Agence France-Museums, the French agency that supported the creation of the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Marina's writing, which is wonderful, explores how looking at daily life with the same gaze we use with art in a museum can open us up to wonder, wholehearted living, and empowerment.

In today's episode, Marina shares how one evening in 2020, she realised that she would look more closely into a painting of a sunset than looking at the one right in front of her.

And this led her to experimenting with what it would mean to look at her life like a work of art, using what she started calling 'the museum gaze'.

In today's episode, Marina shares the main characteristics of 'the museum gaze' and how it works in practice. We discuss how observing life with the same gaze we use with art in a museum works in practice and the numerous benefits we can glean from a regular practice of looking at life in this way.

Links

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Episode 7 How to Develop a Daily Slow Looking Practice

Marina Gross-Hoy's website

Marina's newsletter The Museum Gaze

Marina's Instagram

Many of us are experts in our field - possibly art historians, historians or archaeologists - and want to share that incredible knowledge with the groups we lead in our programmes.

But sometimes having that knowledge can be a burden. It can weigh heavy on us.

Knowing what information to share, when to share it and how to share it is tricky. How much is too much?

And how can you share it in way that engages the group, energises the discussion and inspires new thinking?

In today’s episode I want to shift your mindset about information. I want you to encourage you to think carefully about how you view information and how and when you share it in your programmes.

I'm exploring the 6 main problems with sharing contextual information in museum programmes and providing you with a series of coaching questions to help you work out how you really feel about sharing your knowledge.

I'm introducing you to my What? How? When? framework which allows you focus on knowing what information to share, and how and when to share it.

I'll end by sharing my thoughts about how I genuinely feel about information. Does it help to deepen and enrich experiences in the museum or does it hinder personal discoveries? Find out in today's episode.

Links

Episode 12 Best Practices for Sharing Information

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