PCMP Quarter-Year in Review
aka In Case You Missed It
We’re coming up on Christmas vacation week soon, which mean my museum friends are slammed with conducting special programs and activities on the museum floor and processing end of the year gifts back in the offices. You’re tired and busy!
But if you have some downtime, how about catching up on the posts you might have missed? Here are some of the categories I’ve written about since launching in September:
Why Museums and Planning?
Start at the beginning, with why I think museum people and planning professionals need to talk to each other. Or if you like origin stories, find out how I became planning-curious.
And if you’re wondering where the PCMP is headed – so am I! But my very rough road map (with some Dick Chaney-esque known and unknown unknowns) is here.
What is Planning, Who’s Doing it, and How Do I Find Them?
In this interview, architect and urban planner Wendell Joseph walks me through the different arenas where planners work, the different planning specialties (several of which he’s done). He gives a little planning history lesson, a list of his favorite organizations and publications, and his philosophy on how community engagement should be done. Getting Started (Part 1): Find Your Planner and Getting Started (Part 2): When Your Planner Can’t Partner are pretty self-explanatory!
Why Museums Have Superpowers that are Relevant to Planning
Non-group visitors come to museums with family and friends, who are the most powerful of all Trusted Messengers. Here’s why I think that’s important for climate action, but also for sparking conversations around a host of issues. To that point, the Exploratorium’s Studio for Public Spaces engages in Rewriting the Social Script in Public Spaces with its Middle Ground exhibition. The exhibit, installed at the invitation of the City of San Francisco’s planning department, encourages people to interact with others while learning about the science of bias.
Climate Action
Since the collective “We” (science communicators, museums, the Media, etc.) have managed to communicate to the majority of Americans that climate change is real and already wreaking havoc, “We” have helped create the climate “Hope Gap”, which leaves people depressed, anxious, and disempowered. So for some counter narrative, read about the learning, beauty, and joy in these Inspiring Stormwater Management projects.
Building climate literacy goes hand-in-hand with writing and enacting climate resilience plans (and, when knit together, help counter that hope gap.) The work of the Science Museum of Virginia and Groundwork RVA to map neighborhood heat islands is the perfect example: that community science work produced data that soon informed the city’s climate resilience plan, which presumably is why the City later enlisted the museum’s project lead, Jeremy Hoffman, to serve as a member of the Environment Working Group for the City’s Master Plan, Richmond 300.
There’s a further link in that chain of events, which did not make it into my post about the project: Residents and activists in Richmond’s Southside cited the City’s master plan and the heat island data to successfully fight the city Fire Department’s plan to build a fire training facility in the midst of one of the neighborhood’s few green spaces. As I explained a couple of weeks ago, a planner once told me that one of the important goals of her community engagement work is simply increasing people’s awareness of plans and planning. And this Richmond story helps show why that awareness matters even after a plan is published.
There it is – my first quarter of PCMP
Next week, I’m taking a break from posting. Like many exhibit professionals, I’ll be doing visitor testing of prototypes at a client’s museum next week. Wishing everyone a lovely tail end of the year.
If you like what I’m putting out, please share! Share this with someone else who might want to read it. Share your project or ideas with me, so that I can help spread the word. If you’re already collaborating, tell me about it! Interested in expLoring a collaboration with me? Let’s talk! betsy@exploringexhibits.com
See you bright and early in January to showcase examples of engaging people with model-building activities, or through their experience with sound, and more. Stay tuned!
~ Betsy Loring1
The Planning-Curious Museum Person
Sharing stories and ideas for other Planning-Curious Museum People and for Museum-Curious Planning People.
Betsy Loring is founder of expLoring exhibits & engagement. She has over 20 years’ experience in project management and exhibit development in multidisciplinary, indoor and outdoor museum settings. Her services include exhibit master planning, content and interactive development, and writing, with a focus on hands-on STEM. She also offers staff training in exhibition planning, formative evaluation, and prototyping. Special interests include multi-institutional collaborations, peer-to-peer professional development, and of course – collaboration with municipal planning practitioners.