Museums for the New Millennium:Museums for the New Millennium:The following is an edited transcript of the proceedings of "Museums for the New Millennium." Do not quote or copy any of this text without the written permission of the authors.
REX ELLIS: If you would cease and desist your mingling for just a minute, so that I can give you some information and introduce some important people to you, I would appreciate it. You have no idea how good it is to see you all here. Good evening. I'll say it again...Good evening!
RESPONSE: Good Evening.
My name is Rex Ellis and I welcome you to the Smithsonian. I direct the Center for Museum Studies, which is hosting this event, and we are excited about you being here and we are excited about what we have planned for the next two days. If I or my staff can do anything to make your stay a pleasant one all you have to do is simply let us know. We all have these little yellow badges, so if you see a yellow badge then you know that is someone you can point to and say, "Look, here, why did this happen?" or "Why did that happen?" In particular, let me point out Nancy Fuller. Nancy raise your hand wherever you are. Where are you Nancy? There she is over there. She is the one who has coordinated this event, let's give her a hand right now. (applause). Now if Nancy doesn't have the answer to a question that you have, then it is probably a question for God
(laughter).
When you register tomorrow morning, you will receive a blue packet - I see some of you have blue packets already - and that will have all of the information that you will need for the symposium. Also, be sure to keep the badges that we gave you this evening and wear those badges at all times.
As you entered the building this evening and you received your name tag, you should have also seen an easel to your left explaining the roundtable sessions that will take place tomorrow and the various topics that are going to be discussed at each roundtable session. Do some thinking, go back and peruse it if you haven't seen it, and do some thinking about which session you might be interested in, so tomorrow you can sign up for the session of your choice before those sessions fill up.
Again, remember that my staff and I are here to do anything to help, so don't hesitate to pull us aside if there is something that we can do for you.
It is my pleasure now to introduce the Smithsonian's Provost, J. Dennis O'Connor. Dr. O'Connor joined us some eight months ago. As Chief of Smithsonian programs, he is responsible for planning, integration, and oversight of research, exhibitions, and education. Dr. O'Connor is a biologist by training, and comes to us from the University of Pittsburgh where he served as Chancellor. He is a native of Chicago, and earned a bachelor's from Loyola, a master's from DePaul, and a Ph.d from Northwestern. He's served as Dean of Life Sciences at the University of California in Los Angeles, and Vice-Chancellor of Research and Graduate Studies at the University of North Carolina. Please, help me welcome Dr. Dennis O'Connor.
(applause)
J. DENNIS O'CONNOR: Thank you Rex. It is really a delight to welcome all of you to this conference on museums for the next millennium. At the Smithsonian we are worried about getting through the next decade, but it is important to have a long view and look into the future.
In particular it is a delight to welcome you to the conference in this particular building, the centennial 1876 building of Arts and Industries. It is a delight because in a sense as you look at the east and west halls you see at least an indication of what we were, and as you look at the south and north halls you can see an indication of what we are becoming. In particular it is a delight because both Rick West, the Director of the National Museum of the American Indian, that has the exhibition in the north hall will be saying a few words in a moment, and Steve Newsome, who is the Director of the Anacostia Museum and Center for African American Culture, has the exhibit in the south hall. The development of the new Museum of the American Indian on the mall and the metamorphosis of Anacostia are two very, very important activities that will occur over the next several years at the Smithsonian.
And so, it is really a delight to say "welcome" to you amidst this visualization of change at the Smithsonian. Your program looks very, very energetic, but I also have to indicate that I think Rex and his colleagues put it together by simply asking, "what's going on at the Smithsonian?" Because all of those issues that you are addressing are issues that we are looking to on almost a daily basis. So, welcome..I wish you well..and I do hope that the conference is a success, and I also hope that you get to see a bit of the activities on the mall and in Washington.
(applause)
REX: Thanks Dennis. Well, he almost did my job for me.
You have probably already seen the two fine exhibitions. One is called, "Stories of the People," which represents the efforts of Rick West, Jr. who is the Director of the National Museum of the American Indian, and also, "Visual Journal," which is about Harlem and D.C. in the 30s and 40s, and is the work of The Center for African American History and Culture, led by Steven C. Newsome, who also directs the Anacostia Museum. And they both, in turn, will also bring you greetings. Steve, I see you first, why don't you come on up.
STEVEN C. NEWSOME: Good Evening. Thank you Rex, and thank you, for giving us the opportunity to welcome all of our visitors and participants in this conference to this special space and to the two exhibitions. I am particularly pleased about "Visual Journal," but there is a connection between "Visual Journal" and "Stories of the People," because both are just that...stories of people. Told by, or captured by, the people themselves. And I think that is the thrust of what we want to talk about for museums in the new millennium:
What is the relationship of people and their museums?
| What is the connection between community and museums?
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I think over the course of the next two days that is what we are going to focus on, and we are going to have a good time trying to figure out what we're all are going to be doing with our professional lives in the next century. Thank you.
(applause)
RICK WEST: Hi, I am Rick West and I am the Director of the National Museum of the American Indian. I guess what I would like to do, however briefly, is just describe to you for a few moments the way I think the exhibit, "Stories of the People," reflects the National Museum of the American Indian.
For those of you not familiar with the institution, it was authorized by Congress about six years ago - it seems like an eternity in some ways, but it was really only a half decade or so. [The legislation] authorizes three facilities, one in New York, and two here in Washington, D.C.
I have always felt that from the very beginning of this project it was certainly about proud edifices in both New York and Washington, D.C. But far beyond the edifices, it was about the spirit that sort of informs the project and how we have gone about doing it. This is fundamentally a project whose design, whether we are talking about buildings or the programs at the institution, has been from the bottom up, rather than the top down, which is normally the case in museums, and from the outside in, rather than the inside out, which also is normally the case with most museums. That has meant a unique and very productive relationship with native communities and native people throughout the planning process for the National Museum for the American Indian.
Now what you see in "Stories of the People," I would hope, after you have gone through it more carefully, is a reflection of some of the values I think form the National Museum of the American Indian. It is very much about a cultural continuum. A culture that has a very deep past in this hemisphere, but which has a present, and in my view, will insist on some kind of cultural future. And that, I think, is reflected in that exhibition. It is a museum that, I think, will enlist the voice, and the authority, the cultural authority, of the people whose culture we are interpreting. We have really tried to embed the native voice in all that which we put on the exhibition floor and I think that you will see that reflected. In doing that, we hope that for once and forever, we are able to fuse the magnificent objects which are in our one million object collection, one of the greatest collections of native material in the world, with the people and the culture that produced those objects, in a way, that perhaps, has not been done before. And for that reason we feel that enlisting the native voice in that process is absolutely key. So those are two of the values that I think you will see reflected in "Stories of the People" and which are certainly reflected in the National Museum of the American Indian.
I think that in other respects we probably also predict the future for institutions like the Smithsonian Institution. Congress asked us to raise fully one-third of the cost of our facility on the mall privately, and we have done so. I am happy to say that by the end of this month, which is our due date, that we will have raised some 36.7 million private dollars (applause) to match the money which I just know Congress is going to hand over to the Smithsonian (laughter). So we are delighted with that.
I am very supportive of the symposium which will be going on and what I think it will say about the future of all of us who have committed our professional lives to that wonderful community we call the museum community and I thank you very much for your time this evening.
(applause).
REX: Well, as you can see we have already begun to discuss some of the issues that are important to us all. Thanks Rick and thanks Steve, and thanks Dennis for those remarks.
This is not going to be a monologue, this is going to be a dialogue. We are very, very interested in what you have to say, and we are going to give you an opportunity to say it in many, many different ways. We want to learn from you, we want to provide a venue for discussion and we don't always expect that that discussion will be friendly and happy, and will be something that is very nice. Sometimes we have to discuss harsh issues in harsh ways. And so we are going to, hopefully, compel you to think and we are going to be asking for answers that obviously are not easy answers to give or easy suggestions to give. And so, we challenge you to not only look and listen, but to also give us the best of your knowledge and the best of your interactions so that we might learn as much as we can from you as well. Please continue to mix, continue to mingle, get to know each other. There are no strangers, just friends we have yet to meet.
The bus to the hotel is scheduled to leave at 8 pm. You will have to get used to me giving logistical information like this because that is part of my task. I will let you know when the bus arrives; it will pick you up in the front of the building, the same place that it dropped you off. Registration, tomorrow, begins at 8:30 am in the S. Dillon Ripley Center. The entrance to that is on the west end of the Castle building which is right next to us. One of our staff members will be there in the morning to greet you and a sign will be out in front of the entrance as well. Refreshments will be served between 8:30 and 9:00 and we will begin promptly, Nancy tells me, at 9:00 am. I thank you so much for coming, continue to mix and mingle and eat up all of this food, and drink all of this liquid, and enjoy yourselves. Thank you a lot.
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