| Phoenix, AZ, September 6, 2024 — Readying the Museum (RTM) is a solutions-based methodology developed by a cohort of museum directors, artists, and arts workers to address existential issues that impact and inhibit museum missions and practices. The model, which starts with the call for a commitment to personal transformation, provides a framework to help effect systemic change. The core findings and directions are accessible to leadership, workers, and the public via a free-to-view dedicated website (see below).
RTM focuses on the people who hold leadership and board seats at museums as well as those who work for and visit museums, preparing these institutions to redistribute accountability to their constituent communities as opposed to their entrenched power structures. The RTM model centers the prioritization of challenging conversations between artists and arts workers alongside museum directors, board members, and staff, an intentional combination of voices that are not usually part of such conversations and efforts. RTM also addresses museum issues regarding community accountability, whiteness, racism, patriarchy, hospitality and events, labor conditions and compensation, philanthropy, curatorial practices, wealth, and museum collections, among other related topics.
The cohort is emphatic that Readying The Museum is not a replacement for on-ground community and activist work, nor should institutions adopting RTM’s methodology co-opt the efforts of those engaging with important movement work. RTM is an additional methodology meant to work in concert with what is already being done to move institutions toward structural and systemic change. Furthermore, RTM advocates for more resources to be placed into the hands of the individuals, groups, and communities already doing this critical work.
RTM was formed in March 2021 by a cohort of artists and museum professionals consisting of museum directors Lori Fogarty (Oakland Museum of California) and Miki Garcia (Arizona State University Art Museum), artists Cannupa Hanska Luger, Cruz Ortiz, and Xaviera Simmons, and arts workers Frederick Janka (Board President, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara), George Scheer (Executive Director, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts), and Olga Viso (Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, Phoenix Art Museum)
Garcia and Simmons conceived of RTM in October 2020 in response to the global uprisings following the killing of unarmed Black people by armed white police officers and the problematic responses from museums to address the concerns of their community members. During that time, they both were simultaneously being called upon to consult with museums and arts nonprofits and foundations seeking guidance on how to best address the moment. They, as well as the other cohort members, had found DEI workshops and temporary committees to be insufficient in bringing about the personal transformation required to achieve meaningful institutional accountability and tangible, actionable shifts. To begin the work of RTM, Garcia and Simmons gathered cohort members of varying backgrounds, specialities within the art world, and experience levels who were prepared to explore how arts organizations can work to become equitable spaces for redress.
The cohort’s work has culminated in readyingthemuseum.com and the Readying The Museum podcast, free, solutions-based resources for museums and community members. The website details the cohort’s process of confronting their own biases, building relationships with local communities, and navigating internal and external dissent, among other key actions relevant to the process. In the podcast, the cohort shares learnings and processes from their years of work, providing a more accessible entry point into the model. By exploring these resources, museums and museum workers can expect to gain insight into how to build their own meaningful community relationships, reshape their modes of providing hospitality, work toward creating healthy, open work groups to address whiteness, patriarchy, labor inequities other topics, and lessen the siloing of artists, arts workers, activists, directors, and board members. The website also houses The Readying the Museum Journal, which commissioned a series of writers to contribute new essays.
The RTM cohort serves as a proof of concept, operating for the last three years as a think tank that sought to build and support new forms of healthy relationality between institutions and communities. Through their work, the cohort formed whiteness and patriarchy groups, engaged with local communities who have grievances with museums, created an accountability statement, worked to unravel the white supremacy and patriarchy within the group and began to apply the work to their lives inside and outside of the cohort. It was crucial to the work that dissent and difficult conversations be embraced with the goal of building frameworks for institutional accountability. It was also integral that artists, arts workers, and museum leadership be involved equally in all facets of the group’s processes.
The framework subverts traditional models for workplace change by calling for individuals to undergo personal reflection and accountable transformations in addition to institutional accountable transformation. RTM argues that personal reckoning with issues of labor inequities, whiteness, patriarchy, etc. must occur for museums to develop accountable, equitable, safe, and community-driven environments. The cohort asserts that, while it can be difficult to make time for this in-depth manner of work, it truly is imperative to place extended focus on addressing both the internal and systemic issues that inhibit museum practices and thwart the creation of reciprocal staff-community-institution relationships.
During the cohort’s work, they sought out groups and individuals working toward a similar objective, many of whom helped to deeply guide their process. Since 2021, the cohort has engaged over 250 individuals. These interactions have included many in-depth relationships foundational to RTM, such as those with activist groups, equity consultants, community leaders, museum staff and those who dissent forming RTM’s own accountability partners throughout the country. More than 250 existing books, essays, and other written resources also helped to guide the cohort’s process.
They will also hold sessions with museum leaders and professionals, artists, and art workers to shepherd the implementation of their framework, at each group’s request. The cohort will also continue to update the website as their work expands into their second phase. Institutions interested in engaging with RTM should contact info@readyingthemuseum.com. The RTM cohort is able and eager to partner with museums, funders, unionizing arts workers, staff, artists, and community members to discuss how best to implement this work into their specific institution or organization.
About Readying the Museum: RTM was formed in March 2021 to assess major museological harms and offer frameworks for accountability to museums, their staff, board, and the communities they serve. Driven by a cohort of artists, curators, and museum directors, RTM works to break apart foundations of whiteness, patriarchy, anti-Blackness, and anti-Indigeneity, among many other factors that shape museums today. RTM is a solutions-oriented methodology to create a healthier ecology where harms are not only being addressed but undone over time.
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Note to Editors: Readying the Museum will be launched at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts on September 5, 2024 from 4-8 PM. The news of the launch event is embargoed until September 6.
Media Contact:
Max Kruger-Dull
Blue Medium, Inc.
Tel: +1-212-675-1800
max@bluemedium.com |
