RUSSIA     2006  

St. Petersburg
November 13–16, 2006

Ward Mintz and Jillian led a seminar at the State Russian Museum’s Mikhailovsky Castle called Cultivating your Publics: Tools for Success. They shared the teaching for the seminar for regional museums sponsored by the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

The agenda for the seminar was carefully planned with The Fund’s sponsor, Tatiana Kolpakova of the State Russian Museum. There were thirty-five official attendees and ten or fifteen others. Participants came from places as far away as Astrakhan, Semipalatinsk (Kazakhstan), Surgut, Chita, Habarovsk, and Sakhalin and many from closer to home, either from St. Petersburg and its surrounding regions or from Moscow and its surrounds. Half were directors or deputy directors and many of the others had the title Research Fellow. While many in the group were in their 50s or older, there were also many who appeared younger, in their thirties and forties.

Ten members of the group began the seminar by giving presentations on their own museums, focusing on a success of the past year. It was a useful way to gauge how well the museums represented in the seminar were making the transition to the new economic and political environment in Russia. In fact, the presenters were doing some interesting things. The Astrakhan Art Gallery, for example, had presented an exhibition of art from the Armenian Diaspora and gained the financial support of people from the Armenian community. The participant from the Museum of the Mariy-El Autonomous Republic (“our motto is “Let’s Meet at the Museum””) talked about the museum’s efforts to reach out to young people and successes at getting sponsorships, while the Director of the Priutino Literature and Art Museum in Vsevolozhk gave a thoughtful presentation about the challenges of the public-private partnership and screening potential supporters from the business community.

Their colleague, Tatiana Kolpakova, also updated the group on the success of the “Russian Museum: Virtual Branch” and the centers based on Russian Museum technology that have been established in a number of museums (Samara, Petrozavodsk, Kaliningrad, Murmansk, Perm) and universities. The audiences range from university classes to teacher training workshops to drop-in visitors. It was gratifying to see how easy the Russian Museum has made it for institutions to add highlights of their own collections into the Russian Museum database.

After lunch, Ms. Poole and Mr. Mintz discussed the usefulness of devising an elevator speech and creating a mission statement. At the end of the day, their hosts had a Welcome Reception for all the participants.

The second day of the seminar took place at the Museum of Political History, which is located in the palace of the celebrated ballerina, M. Kshesinskaya. Due to mechanical difficulties, Mr. Mintz was unable to show the AAM Centennial film, Riches, Rivals and Radicals: 100 Years of Museums in America. He focused on aspects of the visitor-centered museum and audience research, and in doing so, talked about exterior and interior signage and wayfinding, the importance of visitor orientation and exhibitions. He shared the Excellent Judges framework developed by Beverley Serrell and her colleagues in Chicago and handed out a copy of the frameworks in Russian to each participant in preparation for their afternoon visits to museum exhibits, which included both the Political History Museum and the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Both museums were interesting candidates for critique. The Museum of Political History covers the sweep of 20th century Russian politics in a quite straightforward way. The Museum of the History of St. Petersburg provided a useful comparison between the first floor, which dated from Soviet times and its recently completed second floor, replete with interactives, strong colors and sophisticated lighting and graphics. In the evening, the group gathered to apply the Excellent Judges frameworks to their visits and we had a very lively conversation. While all shades of opinion were represented, including the confession from one director that he felt comfortable “bathing” in the old-fashioned approach of the Soviet era, the participants seemed to understand the utility of addressing the visitor experience and developing the language to talk about it.

While they were at the Museum of Political History, Ms. Poole asked the participants for topics, issues of questions they would like to have us discuss. Among the suggestions were the etiquette of dealing with foreign business people, how to write a winning grant proposal, how to address personnel issues when two museums merge, and dealing with local government. For the remainder of the seminar, Ms. Poole wove these issues into their presentations.

On Wednesday, back at the Palace, Mr. Mintz connected mission and community with a presentation on “Under the Skin,” an exhibition he co-organized at the Asheville Art Museum. In the afternoon, the participants divided into groups. Each participant was responsible for coming up with a program or exhibition for a new audience, and choosing one to present. It would have to also be able to attract grant support or earned income, inspire additional future programs and be based on an analysis of the community. An Awards Committee of participants, each one representing one breakout group, was also selected. What resulted was a lively and provocative group of program suggestions, from an exhibition on wedding rings to another on art made by gay people. The winner was a program on tolerance—a summer program for adolescents where they would learn about the Saami people and their culture. That evening, they used the winning program and discussed creating project budgets and “shopping” it to potential supporters.

Ms. Poole led the presentations on Friday, when she focused on “making friends” for one’s institution. She talked about donor cultivation, getting people to volunteer, and creating business partnerships. Connected to that were figuring out how much to ask for and donor recognition. She also touched on staff evaluations—performance reviews—and effective ways of critiquing problematic staff members.

Toward the end, participants were given evaluations to complete and also certificates acknowledging their successful participation.

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