Regarding the role of museums in climate protests
Museum of Solution wins international Hands On! Children In Museums Award
My former home, The Museum of Solutions, Mumbai (MuSo) has won the prestigious international Hands On! Children in Museums Award for 2024.
Congratulations to the MuSo team; founder Tanvi Jindal, the JSW Foundation and supporters — and the extraordinary community of young people MuSo is privileged to serve. <3
The Hands On! award has been given annually since 2011 by the European Museum Academy and the Hands On! International Association of Children in Museums to recognize excellence and innovation in children's museums "through interactive exhibits, educational programs, or inclusive design...that inspire curiosity, learning, and a sense of wonder in young minds."
In bestowing this award, the judges wrote — quite poignantly,
“The different zones on each floor address issues and ideas that are contemporary, bold and emotional. MuSo is not just about exhibits, it is about unlocking the potential within every child to change the world, using exhibitions, educational activities and public programmes to promote learning, enjoyment, reflection, creativity and knowledge. MuSo asks kids to put their ideas into practice, to make projects, finding strategies and solutions, and to realise them.”
The citation continues,
"MuSo is revolutionary, but its ethos is a model for many other countries […] MuSo has a strong belief in the power of children and that children are the changemakers. The young visitors are encouraged and empowered to think for themselves and to find methods and solutions, looking to the future, to make a better world for their communities. The museum does exceptional work, thanks to its extraordinarily committed staff. In the long run, MuSo contributes to raising responsible members of society. Who else but a children’s museum can carry out this educational task in such a holistic way?"
I'm a bit overwhelmed by the judges' words! This feels like what MuSo set out to do so many years ago and yet it still seems bold and aspirational to me, full of challenges and unknowns as well as deep significance.
(I am remembering a story MuSo's Abhik Bhattacherji told me months ago when I was still in Mumbai. As I recall, he had asked an elderly woman in the museum's library — LiSo, the Library of Solutions — how she was enjoying her visit and she burst into tears. She told him that she had grown up in great poverty, and she never imagined that in her lifetime she would see her two young grandchildren happily reading books together in such a beautiful, joyous, purposeful space.
Almost every day brought a story like that, and almost every day brought a new glimpse of just how deeply significant and impactful [and necessary!] this new kind of museum can be. Let's have many more of them. Young people, and our collective future, deserve no less.)
Galactic-sized responsibility
References for European Heritage Hub Forum, Bucharest
Just scrapping together a quick list of references for my talk today at the European Cultural Heritage Summit in Bucharest.
This was an event organized by the Europeana Foundation and the European Heritage Hub in association with Europa Nostra.
The topic was an exploration of the role of digital cultural heritage in the triple transition of Europe (digital, green, and social).
My role was to present a short provocation advocating for the daring, urgent use of cultural infrastructure to catalyze global effort - - actual action - - towards the climate emergency and the SDGs.
Links and references:
About the program (Monday, October 7), European Heritage Hub Forum: Championing a Responsible Digital Transition for and with Cultural Heritage.
Link to converence livestream recording (tbd)
Slides from my provocation (Google slides)
Relevant projects, works / ideas cited
On the opening of the Museum of Solutions, Mumbai (MuSo homepage)
Culture, Activism, and The Big Frikin’ Wall (MuseumNext interview, 2022)
A Concept of Digitality for Cultural Climate Action (Slides from MuseumNext and Computers in Libraries, 2022)
Video and slides/links for NEMO webinar, Create Dangerously: Museums in the Age of Action (2022)
Report: On Thin Ice: Disproportionate Responses to Climate Change Protesters in Democratic Countries (September 2024)
Think Big, Start Small, Move Fast (my pptx on Google Drive, or on SlideShare)
Examples of projects on the other side of the Big Frickin’ Wall
Leiden European City of Science 2022 (365 days of programs in the community)
NEMO - Network of European Museum Organizations (activity around climate action, political action, etc)
List of references (good Digital stuff) prepared for European City of Science (40+ projects in 4 blog posts starting here)
National Geographic Society’s pivot toward environmental/social impact reporting (I don’t have a reference for this, but as I recall the editors decided to pivot to a more activist voice as a result of the programs and panels that took place during the Society’s 100th anniversary in 1988.)
Hip Hop Festival, Maramureş History & Archaeology Museum
https://hiphopkulture.ro/evenimente/roots-festival-de-cultura-urbana-2024-baia-mare/
https://www.directmm.ro/comunitate/cultura-urbana-la-muzeul-de-istorie-maramures-in-premiera-va-avea-loc-concert-special-de-hip-hop-in-incinta-institutiei-cand-are-loc-recitalul/
https://www.directmm.ro/comunitate/cultura-urbana-la-muzeul-de-istorie-maramures-in-premiera-s-a-organizat-un-concert-special-de-hip-hop-fondurile-pentru-achizitia-de-rechizite/
https://www.maramuresmuzeu.ro/
Green Council, Șirna Communal Library, Prahova County, Romania
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC1CC4lhEmQ
Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/irna-public-library-romaniapdf/257829154
https://www.ifla.org/events/ifla-ensulib-webinar-series-sirna-public-library-from-romania/
The technology they like, no matter the social cost
Huxley and Orwell
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.
Messy
A lunchpail job
…Although, I am told that at some point the sun will run out of hydrogen.
Harvesting
In some of my writings I have suggested the role of concept manager. This is someone who has the responsibility for stimulating, collecting and shepherding ideas. This is the person who would set up idea-generating sessions. This is the person who would put problems under the noses of those expected to solve them. This is the person who would look after ideas in the same way as a finance manager looks after finance.
Overwhelming sadness
Making up s**t
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and theoretical physicist Brian Greene in conversation about the great leaps of logic and intuition behind discoveries in quantum physics.
GREENE
The way the nutrino was predicted was from looking at these particle decays and finding that the energy budget was not adding up. And so the idea was maybe there's an invisible particle that's carrying away some additional energy…
TYSON
Was this Enrico Fermi?
GREENE
Yes!
TYSON
So what I like about this is [Fermi says] “Look folks. I can’t explain this. Let’s make some shit up.”
GREENE
Yes! But geniuses…make up shit that’s right!
TIME names MuSo one of the World's 100 Greatest Places for 2024
TIME Magazine has named MuSo, the Museum of Solutions, one of the World's 100 Greatest Places for 2024.
Congratulations to my beloved (brave, visionary, foolhardy, loving, stubborn :) MuSo colleagues — and the kids and community who keep it real there, every day.
MuSo is in good company here. Fifty-one cultural and nature/heritage destinations in 31 countries are named in TIME's list, among them are the Putep ‘t-awt nature trail and whale observatory in Quebec, Canada; the Ivomo Tea Cooperative in Gisakura, Rwanda; and the Bab Al Salam Mosque in Muscat, Oman.
These are marvelous destinations indeed! But for my own part, as I've said before, I'm a little uncomfortable with these kinds of honors. They can feel arbitrary and superficial, and there are always hundreds of other extraordinary places, projects, and communities, all over the world, that will never get the recognition and support they deserve.
Also, as part of MuSo's founding team, I know our blind spots and skeletons-in-the-closet all too well: If only the reviewers knew too…LOL! My lips are sealed!
That being said, little winks of recognition like TIME's Greatest Places list provide a kind of validation that is incredibly useful to the teams and founders/funders who leap into the void, almost literally*, to start and sustain risky projects like MuSo.
It's scary — a vulnerable feeling — to create a startup venture of any kind, let alone one that seeks to reach so deeply, and so publicly, into the "now" and futures of young people. A billion decisions must be made, often quickly and in a vacuum of expertise and evidence, and it can be hard to tell which decisions are consequential or costly, right or wrong, until long after the moment has passed. Successes often feel quiet and fleeting, while mistakes can be public and harsh.
And a new concept like MuSo is an uncertain proposition for visitors and community too: What is this strange, new place? What will be expected of me? What will I do there? How will it make me feel?
So the editorial imprimatur of TIME — really every sliver of evidence that something new is heading in a good direction — really does help to give founders, funders, teams and communities some confidence that the bold new thing they're creating together makes sense at some level.
That's half the battle, as far as I'm concerned: to gain the confidence and resilience to keep working on hard things together ("Work that matters", as Tim O'Reilly once said), whether in the schoolyard, at the family dinner table, or on a global scale.
In a way, there's some symmetry in this equation. Some poetry too. Finding confidence and resilience is in the meta-purpose of MuSo: to help everyone keep working together — joyfully, purposefully, and playfully — until we get the good stuff right.
//
This post on LinkedIn (link)
TIME's 100 Greatest Places, 2024, MuSo: https://time.com/6992399/museum-of-solutions/
The whole list: https://time.com/collection/worlds-greatest-places-2024/
* During MuSo’s construction I almost stepped off a scaffolding into an open 9-story stairwell.