country
activities

Murom
October 15–18, 2007

The Fund was invited by the Russian State Museum and the Okalandia Regional Museum Association to present a four day seminar on museum education and marketing in Murom, a small city near Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia. Honee Hess, Director of Education at the Worcester, MA Museum of Art, and Deborah Edward, co-founder and former Executive Director of the Austin, TX Children’s Museum, led the seminar. Thirty participants represented regional museums and educational and cultural organizations in the Okalandia area. The seminar focused on education, visitor experiences, exhibit labels, partnerships, and communication and marketing. The Fund would like to thank the Murom Museum of Art and History for hosting the seminar.

Following introductory remarks, the seminar began with a discussion of why people come to museums and what museums can do for communities. Honee Hess presented a slide program on how the Worcester Art Museum answers those two questions. Deborah Edward then provided an overview of theories of teaching and learning in museums and invited seminar participants to apply these theories to understanding their existing and potential museum exhibitions and program activities. Participants then engaged in a learning activity that used observation, analysis, drawing, and poetry writing to experience the theories of learning that Ms. Edward had outlined. The group brainstormed ideas on what makes a museum visit successful in anticipation of the next day’s visit to the Murom Museum’s Art Gallery. The work of the day concluded with two participants reporting on programs at their museums.

The second day began with a guided tour of the Art Gallery, which is in a separate museum complex a few blocks from the seminar’s location. Following the tour, participants discussed what made this museum visit successful, and Ms. Edward gave a presentation on the Austin Children’s Museum. Mr. Hess introduced an interactive exercise on labeling that used objects which the participants brought and that examined the ways that museums serve as mediators between the object and the visitor. A second label-focused activity was organized in which small groups wrote a label for a painting from the Murom collection according to an assigned perspective and/or format. At the end of the day, the group made a list of types of visitors and potential visitors to their museums. They were given an assignment to take on the role of a particular kind of visitor the next day during the planned guided tours of the Murom History collection.

Following the tour of the Murom History collection, participants discussed the visit from their perspective visitor types. Mr. Hess presented slides on several programs; including the exhibition, Hope and Healing, and a contemporary mural project, Don’t Be Afraid, which challenged traditional ways of thinking about museum exhibits and programs. In the afternoon, small groups designed their own exhibitions through a step-by-step process that included visitor research, object selection, development of goals, and creation of exhibition macquettes using their personal objects and simple recyclable materials. Each group gave “tours” of their maquette to the full audience. The late afternoon discussion focused on community partnerships and elements of partnerships followed by a slide description of Worcester’s Community Mosaic.

On the fourth day, participants discussed a variety of marketing techniques and a model for communications planning that provided a process to identify target media, audiences, and appropriate messages and materials. A key discussion topic focused on monitoring and measuring success quantitatively. Finally, participants broke into two groups to create a series of principles to take from the seminar. The success of the seminar can be inferred by the quality of the principles presented: 1. Involve Community, 2. Make Friends with Your Visitor, 3. Make your Museum Comfortable, 4. Learn! Be Creative! 5. Analyze and Follow up, and 6. Do Not Be Afraid.

By way of evaluation, the host committee indicated that a high and consistent attendance was one of their criteria of success, and this was met.  In addition, they were hoping to get more direction on label writing and to strengthen the network of the Okalandia Regional Museum Association. These goals seem to have also been met, but whether there will be the long term change the Association hopes for remains to be seen.  The Fund will stay in touch on this matter.