country
activities

St. Petersburg

Training Seminar for Exhibitions of Unknown Treasures from Small Towns
March 18-22, 2002

This seminar was the first of three The Fund is sponsoring to assist the State Russian Museum [RSM] with the planning and execution of an exhibition of treasures from small regional museums in Russia not normally seen outside their own cities. The exhibition is scheduled to coincide with St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary in 2003. It is the first time that the Russian Museum has mounted an exhibition of this nature, and it marks the beginning of a 10-year effort to include regional exhibitions in its over-all offerings.

Small Museums Seminar Left to right: Sandra Lorimer, Olga Reva, Natalia Kuleshova, Deputy Director of the State Russian Museum, Tatiana Kolpakova, Director, Dept. of Regional Museums, and Barbara Charles

The four-day seminar for 30 directors of small regional museums was conducted by Barbara Charles, Principal of Staples & Charles, Ltd., and Sandra Lorimer, President of Lorimer & Associates, in conjunction with the RSM and succeeded in defining the basic themes of the exhibition. Given the number of participants and art works they wanted to include, this was no small feat. It was also determined that the exhibition should focus on "a group portrait of museums of Russia", emphasizing each region's individuality and unique contribution to Russian art.

The next seminar is planned for January 2003 and will primarily address texts/labels, design, planning of programs and promotion, and adjunct computer and video programs. The final seminar will be a critique and evaluation of the exhibition itself.

Seminar for Deputy Directors of Regional Museums
May 13-18, 2002

Patrick Sears and Olga Reva St. Petersburg, 2002

In May, The Fund produced a special seminar at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg especially for the deputy directors of regional museums. Conducted by Patrick Sears, Deputy Director of the Freer Museum and Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution, and Pamela L. Myers, Executive Director of the Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC, this was the first time the RSM had organized a seminar for deputy directors. The seminar focused on how to make museums more interesting, enjoyable, accessible and responsive through their exhibitions and programs. A heavy emphasis was also placed upon the use of design as an aid in making museum collections more meaningful to their audiences.

Pamela Myers

Recognizing the important role deputy directors play in regional museums, the discussions also centered on partnerships, traveling exhibitions and, specifically, on how regional museums can become forces for positive change in their communities.

This seminar was so successful that participants requested we set up a hands-on design workshop to follow. We hope to offer one in the not too distant future.

Russian Museum Libraries Conference
May 21-24, 2002

The major challenge facing the Russian museum library community is to prove the ongoing value of their collections and services to their own organizations and to their communities. The Russian Museum Libraries Conference in May was organized to provide Russian museum libraries and their librarians with ideas on how to best automate their collections; thus making them accessible to other museums and more responsive to the research and informational needs of their communities.

Libraries Conference

At our request, Allen Townsend, Arcadia Director of the Library at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, participated in the conference. He stressed that museum librarians around the world are grappling with many of the same issues as the Russian libraries. He emphasized the need to create cooperative arrangements with university and state library colleagues and to set and monitor standards as collections are automated and made more widely available. He surmised that consolidation of many of the smaller research collections would be necessary if they are to be preserved.

Pskov

Fact Finding
June 24-27, 2002

At the request of the Committee for Culture of Pskov, the Pskov Oblast Culture Committee, and Pskov Museums, and with the strong encouragement of the American Consulate in St. Petersburg, Jillian Poole and Paul Elicker conducted a three-day fact finding mission in June to investigate whether The Fund could assist in the promotion of the cultural heritage of the area.

They found Pskov to be a potentially attractive tourist site with many places of historical and sociological interest. Unfortunately, traveling to Pskov is difficult and there is a striking lack of tourist support facilities such as hotel accommodations and restaurants, well-marked sites of interest or tour routing. Market research that could help identify potential tourists has not been done.

Martin Sullivan with host in Pskov

Tourism Development Seminar
October 21-25, 2002

Paul Elicker returned to Pskov in October with Rena Zurofsky, an arts consultant, and Martin Sullivan, President of Historic St. Mary's City, MD, to conduct a tourism development seminar. The seminar's main goal was to establish action-oriented objectives to ensure that concrete action would evolve from what, at that point, was simply a "wish list."

Notwithstanding the attendees' desire for action, the possibilities for productive activity here are far from assured. Unless they receive significant support and encouragement from the appropriate governmental officials, it will be very difficult for the participants, operating at a lower level in the management chain, to initiate and follow through on an action program. The Fund was not in a position to identify whether this support and encouragement would be forthcoming. Meaningful action may well depend on follow up that The Fund is willing to undertake, provided there is some assistance with funding.

Ufa

Left to right: Lyndel King, Jim Finke, Sally Yerkovich and a seminar participant

Arts Management Seminar
September 3-5, 2002

At the invitation of the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg and the National Art Museum of the Republic of Bashkortostan, The Fund presented a seminar on arts management in Ufa in early September. Sally Yerkovich, President and CEO of The New Jersey Historical Society; Lyndel King, Director and Chief Curator at the Frederick Weisman Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota; and former corporate executive James Finke led the seminar on behalf of The Fund.

The program concentrated on several topics. They included:

• Defining an institution's mission;
• Becoming "visitor or user-friendly";
• Creating programs that serve the unmet needs of new and specialized audiences;
• Using the disciplines of business management, community involvement, and fundraising (particularly via building relationships) to advance an institution's goals;
• Cooperating with others on a regional basis; and
• Learning to think "outside the box".

Left to right: Rif Abdullin, Director of the National Art Museum of Bashkortostan, Lyndel King, Olga Reva and Jim Finke contemplating mare's milk!

Participants, many of whom came from the eight branches of the Art Museum, had not worked together before. They divided into four groups and set about to invent a museum, arrange a program for a well-defined segment of potential visitors, and write a grant proposal. Participants said that the seminar made them think about their museums and its problems in different ways, and they appreciated the interactive aspects of the seminar. We hope that our work might prompt the participants to work together outside of the seminar and to consult one another for advice as well as for collaboration.

Yekaterinburg and Perm

Joint Dialogues
November 18-27, 2002

Jillian Poole conducted a series of 'Joint Dialogues' with arts leaders and managers in Yekaterinburg and Perm in response to the interest generated by a video conference held a year earlier. Ms. Poole also explored whether there were other areas in which The Fund could be helpful to arts organizations in the region. The Fund is grateful to the U. S. State Department and the Consulate General of Yekaterinburg for arranging the trip and especially to Yelena Alferova for preparing an excellent itinerary.

Two Dialogues programs were held in Yekaterinburg. The first began with 60 participants, whose assignment was to list the three most pressing issues they face (aside from shortage of cash). The topics ranged widely, but the top three were stress (burnout); issues concerning managing one's friends, and lack of staff communication. From further discussions, it became apparent that the group would benefit from a seminar on strategic planning and creating mission statements. A representative of one of the few institutions that has mission statements led that discussion, and this proved effective.

For the second program, Elena Levshina, Rector of InterStudio, the State Institute of Innovative Programs for Professional Development of Cultural Workers in St. Petersburg, was enlisted to discuss advocacy, and Petr Strasnikov, Deputy Minister of Culture, explained the priorities of the Ministry, programs to which cultural institutions can apply, methods of application, and ways managers can and should keep themselves informed. Including these Russian presenters in the program greatly enriched the Dialogues.

The Dialogues sessions in Perm consisted of fifty managers of museums, libraries, theatres, palaces of culture, and the conservatory. The session opened with a discussion of Mission and followed with an afternoon session that was led by the Minister of Culture and dealt with the issues of the roles of cultural institutions in addressing social problems of their communities. On the following day the focus was on fundraising with discussions led by Nadezhda Belyaeva, Director of the Perm Museum. The Perm Museum has achieved considerable fundraising success. Once again, the format of including local leaders proved effective.

As a result of this trip, Nadezhda Belyaeva has agreed to be The Fund's Russian seminar partner. We are particularly gratified for this since she is Director of one of Russia's most important regional museums and has broad professional experience. She has also attended several previous Fund seminars, and has made a trip to the U.S. under the aegis of the State Department. Clearly in her own museum, she has incorporated many of the practices she has learned and is persuasive in sharing her ideas with audiences.

Several other activities are also planned for this region. The Fund will be conducting a seminar for a range of cultural leaders in conjunction with the art museum in Yekaterinburg. The Fund, at the request of Aleksandr Koloturskiy, Director of Sverklosk Philharmonic, will supply consultants for three meetings of the Association of Concert Organizations of the Urals and for the regional meeting of directors and financial officers in Spring 2003. The themes of interest are strategic planning, marketing, aspects of concert hall management, and coordination of touring activities. During a meeting with the Orchestra's trustees, the notion of a videoconference with trustees of an American orchestra was developed and will be conducted. These programs are on our calendar for 2003.

Museum Training Video

During The Fund's Museum Assessment Seminar in St. Petersburg, in late November 2000, Jessica Glass, Audio Visual Specialist with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, filmed the proceedings in order to create a training videotape to use during other museum seminars. The seminar focused on museum planning, management, and exhibition design, and was conducted by Ralph Applebaum, Principal of Applebaum & Associates.

After more than a year of tireless effort, Ms. Glass completed a rough-cut version for presentation at our Annual Meeting in December. It focuses on how to increase the number of visitors, quality of visits, and income to museums. We appreciate Ms. Glass producing this training tool for us.

2003 Projects:

Seminar for Exhibitions of Unknown Treasures from Small Towns, Part 2, St. Petersburg
Cultural Development Seminar, Ivanovo
Advanced Management Seminar, Petrozavosk
Education and Programming Seminar, Yakutsk
Arts Management, Yekaterinburg
Urals Orchestra Managers Seminar
Major Russian Orchestra Leaders Seminar