In this episode, host Beth Cougler Blom talks with Jacob McMurray and Jessica Lane from the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) in Seattle, Washington, about how they create engaging learning experiences through exhibits and programs. Jacob, the Chief Collections and Exhibitions Officer, and Jessica, the Director of Education and Programs, share their perspectives on the museum’s unique approach to pop culture.
Beth, Jessica, and Jacob also talk about:
- Using pop culture to build connections and inspire creativity
- Engaging youth and families in interactive and meaningful ways
- The process of exhibit design, from conception to continuous updates
- How MoPOP uses its exhibits as springboards for deeper learning through education programs
- Designing for inclusivity, including sensory-friendly experiences and universal design principles
Engage with Jessica, Jacob, and the Museum of Pop Culture
- MoPOP website: www.mopop.org
- Jacob McMurray on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobmcmurray/
- Jessica Lane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-lane-635719b0/
Connect with the Facilitating on Purpose Podcast
- Follow Facilitating on Purpose on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube
- facilitatingonpurpose.com
Connect with Beth Cougler Blom
- Give feedback or suggest upcoming show topics or guests at hello@bcblearning.com
- Visit bcblearning.com to explore Beth’s company’s services in facilitation and learning design
- Purchase a copy of Beth’s book, Design to Engage
- Follow Beth on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn
Podcast production services by Mary Chan of Organized Sound Productions
Show Transcript
[Upbeat music playing]
[Show intro]
Beth 00:01
Welcome to Facilitating on Purpose, where we explore ideas together about designing and facilitating learning. Join me to get inspired on your journey to becoming and being a great facilitator wherever you work.
Beth 00:17
I’m your host, Beth Cougler Blom.
[Episode intro]
Beth
Hi, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me. This is Beth, your host, and this is another episode of Facilitating on Purpose. I’m pleased to have two guests join me for this episode.
Beth 00:33
I’ve got Jacob McMurray and Jessica Lane from the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, Washington. That’s on the west coast of the United States, if you’re not sure about where that is in the world. Seattle is actually not too far away from where I live on the west coast of Canada.
Beth 00:49
And so earlier this year, I was there. I went to the museum with my family. You’re going to hear me talk about that to Jessica and Jacob in the episode. But when I was there with my family, I thought it was such a great place to be.
Beth 01:00
And I got so excited about how they were, quote, unquote, doing learning in that environment that I knew I had to have them on the podcast. Jacob is the Chief Collections and Exhibitions Officer at MoPOP.
Beth 01:12
And Jessica is the Director of Education and Programs. So in our conversation, it’s really interesting to hear from both of their perspectives, either coordinating exhibits or coordinating the outreach and education programs.
Beth 01:28
So without further ado, here is Jacob McMurray and Jessica Lane from the Museum of Pop Culture. Enjoy the show. Jessica, Jacob, welcome to the show. I’m so pleased to have you with me today.
Jessica 01:42
Thanks for having us.
Beth 01:44
As we get started, I just want to say one of the reasons I reached out to you two. I’m so happy to have this conversation with you is because I was at the Museum of Pop Culture back in February, and I was so excited going through the museum with my family.
Beth 01:59
I thought about learning the whole time I was there, because of course I’m a learning designer and you’re in the business of learning as well. And it was such a great place for us to go through. My daughter was particularly excited to be there.
Beth 02:11
And I thought, oh, I just have to reach out to folks from the museum and ask you more about what you do and how you do it. So thanks for saying yes to coming on the show and having this conversation about how you create learning in the museum environment.
Beth 02:25
I’m excited to have you here. Can we start off by having you tell me what is the museum briefly and why is it so special? Why did I have that kind of experience, do you think, when I was there? What makes it special for the two of you that work there?
Jacob 02:41
Yeah, well, the Museum of Pop Culture is a museum that is dedicated to exploring different aspects of pop culture, also not through a solely American lens, really trying to venture into more of a global dialogue. That pop culture doesn’t happen
Jacob 02:57
in isolation, that it is a constant dialogue that is happening with different cultures, with different people, with different cultural vectors that are happening. So we started out as, the seed really goes back to the early 90s.
Jacob 03:14
Paul Allen, who was the co-founder of Microsoft, was very much a Jimi Hendrix fan. For the first time he heard Are You Experienced when he was a young adult, and that led him on a lifelong appreciation for Jimi Hendrix and the guitar.
Jacob 03:30
And he started collecting memorabilia related to Hendrix, and starting in the early 90s, that sort of developed into an idea around a Jimi Hendrix museum, which evolved into what we opened as, in the year 2000, the Experience Music Project.
Jacob 03:45
So exploring all different aspects of popular music, mostly rooted around rock and roll. I think from there, in 2004, we added on a science fiction museum in our music museum, just to surprise everyone.
Jacob 03:59
And then really from there continued to expand out into these areas of nerdy, passionate pop culture.
Beth 04:06
Why is it so special? And maybe you can explain for people who might be in other parts of the world too, what do we even mean when we say pop culture?
Beth 04:14
Is there an easy way to describe that?
Jacob 04:16
For me, what’s exciting about the museum is that most museums, people don’t necessarily have an intimate connection with the content. They’re either looking at it through a temporal remove, looking at something that’s 200 years old, or it’s something in which they just don’t have any deep connection to potentially.
Jacob 04:38
I think with what we do at the Museum of Pop Culture, it really is just reflecting what’s already important to the audience. So pop culture to me is all of the stuff that surrounds us daily. Everything that we’re kind of ingesting, whether it’s TV or film or radio, or just walking down the street, art forms, interactions, cultural sort of things that are happening around us, all the stuff that makes us us.
Jacob 05:06
And I think that’s where we try to reflect that back to the audience.
Beth 05:09
What about you, Jessica? You obviously chose to work at the museum. What makes it special for you and for the people that come there?
Jessica 05:16
Yeah, I always say one of the things I love about my job beyond just the people and the connections is that I get paid to be a nerd. That was something I used to do in my off hours on my own. And now it’s part of how we talk about education and programming.
Jessica 05:31
And I always come back to, we had a really great comment from a member of our teacher advisory board who was helping us apply for a grant. And he was describing, kind of trying to describe what pop culture means to him and his experience with it.
Jessica 05:45
And one of the questions we always ask in our teacher advisory board is, what pop culture are you watching now? What are you reading or listening to that you’re really excited about? And he put that in the grant letter and he said, you know, that that really sparkly feeling you get talking about that, like how excited you are to tell other people about it, that’s why pop culture is important.
Jessica 06:07
And that’s why the museum really matters is finding those things that just, as Jacob was saying, really make us us and that make us really excited to form connections with each other.
Beth 06:17
So how do you really listen to what’s going on out there in the world with the people that might come there or engage with it online?
Beth 06:23
I know you have online exhibits as well. So it’s not just people that walk in the door, I think. Right? I mean, in the learning design world, we might call it needs analysis or needs assessment. How do you do those kinds of things to figure out what it is that you need to reflect back to people, the things they’re interested in?
Jacob 06:38
Yeah, I mean, I think there’s a number of ways that we do that. I mean, some more passive and some more active. I mean, we do exit interviews, you know, exit surveys for for visitors that come to the museum.
Jacob 06:51
And so we get sort of a weekly report of, you know, a lot of people liked, what they didn’t like, what they felt like could be improved. And believe me, the response is very incredibly wildly across the board.
Jacob 07:02
We also do formative surveys. You know, if there’s an exhibition idea that we’re potentially interested in working on, we’ll do a formative survey with staff, but also with visitors to gauge potential interests and, you know, and what direction we might want to take exhibitions. All sorts of anecdotal sort of comments and evidence as well.
Jacob 07:23
You know, we listen a lot to our frontline staff, our visitor service staff, because I mean, they’re the ones that are, you know, day to day sort of connecting directly with the, you know, with the public.
Jacob 07:35
And, you know, I think that similarly with, you know, your program staff and education staff, there’s a lot of communication that way. But I’m sure you have other examples.
Jessica 07:46
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think a lot of the work within my department, we also add in that whole side of working specifically with youth and sometimes what we’re learning
Jessica 07:56
from them [chuckles] is, you know, they’re obviously a very different generation than most of the staff. So that can inform a lot for us about, you know, kind of the direction that things are going. We just had a great conversation, just at one of the events this weekend, looking at some of the trends we’re seeing with members of our Youth Advisory Board and some of our other teen volunteers who are coming through.
Jessica 08:17
They’re really starting to move away from technology and go back to more, you know, avoiding social media and going back to more kind of analog type interactions with each other. And, you know, I wouldn’t have known that without like having these avenues where we’re connecting with youth kind of where they are.
Jessica 08:34
And we always look at it really as you know, the folks who are coming in and consuming pop culture today with us are the ones who are going to be creating it tomorrow too. So I think there’s this really great interplay between them.
Jessica 08:47
We do all of the surveys and all of that too. But I think one of the big things about pop culture is just the huge scope of it. Even if we were researching every single day, we’re never going to know everything that’s happening in pop culture because it’s so vast and there are so many different smaller groups that are really excited about one thing that may be different than this other group is excited about.
Jessica 09:09
I think we really try to cast a really wide net but also just talk about that idea that pop culture is for everyone. It’s created by everyone too and just try to soak in that information wherever we can get it.
Jacob 09:22
To add on to that too, every single person on our staff is an expert in some aspect of pop culture and we really take that to heart. As a 52-year-old white guy, it’s like I’m only going to have a certain view of things and I feel like we try to be really open to what is percolating up to different members of our staff?
Jacob 09:49
What is important to them? Because not everybody is going to have a whole purview into the whole world of pop culture. Also, that goes into exhibition and program selection too. We acknowledge that we have a finite space and we have a finite number of staff and bandwidth.
Jacob 10:07
Trying to pick and choose what to represent is a whole different aspect of this as well because we’re never going to be able to cover everything.
Beth 10:17
Yeah. And I notice on your website you have a diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility statement and that’s not just the people that walk in the door or engage with your education programs.
Beth 10:28
It’s the content that you put in the museum, isn’t it? That must be extremely challenging to figure out how you’re not only attracting and welcoming everyone but showcasing pop culture from everyone as well. You’re located in Seattle, Washington but you’re looking at the entirety of American culture and a little bit beyond or does it really stay within your borders of the U.S.?
Jacob 10:52
Yeah, I mean, we’re trying to really forefront that global sort of dialogue aspect of pop culture, for sure. I mean, you know, Massive: The Power of Pop Culture definitely does that. Some of the exhibitions that we have coming up, you know, are really kind of focusing on that as well, especially with the advent of the internet and social media.
Jacob 11:13
It’s just so easy for, you know, these cross-cultural narratives to, you know, to happen all the time in a way that, you know, wasn’t necessarily as possible in the past. Certainly, you know, to a big aspect with television and film, but nothing quite as much as what’s happening, you know, with the internet.
Jacob 11:32
So, yeah, it’s an interesting time to be a museum, especially in this space.
Jessica 11:37
I think one of the interesting things too about when you look at that layer of education and public programming, a lot of times what we can do, too, is use what’s physically in the museum as kind of a springboard for talking about other cultures, other places where we may see this.
Jessica 11:52
A lot of what we have in our fantasy gallery is dragons and props from perhaps mostly American or US films or TV shows. But then in the programs, we can take that and say, okay, let’s also talk about the other places where you find dragons.
Jessica 12:07
Why do you think you find them so consistently in this way across all these different cultures? And like, here, let’s look at an example from China, or let’s look at an example from another country and talk about, you know, why do we see these similarities?
Jessica 12:19
What’s different about them? How does that culture kind of play into those conversations too? So it’s really that chance to see the museum as a starting point for a deeper dialogue and a deeper exploration too.
Beth 12:31
I like that you said that because, yeah, you think, well, it’s just what you’ve got in the museum. No, you’re broadening it and you’re making it more relevant to all who are sitting in that classroom or in that online space or wherever you’re doing that education program.
Jacob 12:42
I think that’s where exhibitions and programs in education are good compliments to each other. And that, you know, with exhibitions, you know, we’ve got usually a two-year timeline to develop, you know, what’s going to be on display.
Jacob 12:56
And, you know, a lot of what we try to focus on is what does feel like it’s bubbling to the top? What feels like it’s vital at the time, you know, but given kind of the nature of developing exhibitions, it’s like, we can’t be up to the minute. We can’t be, you know, kind of what’s happening right now.
Jacob 13:14
Whereas I think education and public programs can be more nimble like that. And, you know, you can use the content of the exhibition, like Jessica is saying, as a jumping off point for, you know, for further exploration.
Jacob 13:25
So I think they very much sort of, you know, work in tandem.
Beth 13:29
Do you change anything about the exhibit, Jacob, as it’s out there running with the people as well? Like you’ve got the planning process, you put it out there, but do you kind of tweak as you go so you can maintain a little bit of that to-the-minuteness?
Jacob 13:42
Definitely. As we’re developing an exhibition, you know, we are paying attention to what’s happening and, you know, we have the ability to sort of, you know, kind of meander our way towards, you know, what makes ultimate sense.
Jacob 13:53
For when we open an opening day. But I think beyond that, we try to build in mechanisms in exhibitions, whether it just be the simple fact of changing out artifacts. You know, we know we’re going to change 10 to 15% of the artifacts per year based on loan length or based on conservation needs.
Jacob 14:09
So that will get in newer material or, you know, different material than we had originally planned for. Also, increasingly in exhibitions we build in a mechanism where we know we’re going to change out X number of sections per year.
Jacob 14:26
Like our Indie Game Revolution exhibit is a good example of that. Like that was designed with the fact that we’re going to change at one to two games every couple months. So that it’s not a static thing.
Jacob 14:35
It’s always changing. And then I think the third thing is having the ability to program in interactives where the visitor can essentially be the curator. In the Massive exhibition, you can decide what you think is next on the pop culture, you know, landscape and those opportunities to provide the visitors with the keys to the kingdom, I think are really exciting as well and,
Jacob 15:00
you know, allow for that to things to get a little bit more current.
Beth 15:04
I like how you put in the fantasy reference there, “keys to the kingdom”, kind of just alluding to one of your exhibits. [chuckles] Is that fantasy area still there?
Jacob 15:12
It is.
Beth 15:13
Yeah, because that’s one where we, I can take myself back to be in that moment where we walked up to that big wooden door and we’re, you know, this huge door and we’re going, okay, what’s behind this door?
Beth 15:25
And you have to pull at it and it comes slowly. And even just to start to enter the exhibit was exciting. And we had that anticipation of what was going to be inside. And it was just a door, you know, that was…things like that really stood out to me.
Beth 15:41
It seems to me there’s challenges about both of your roles, both in the exhibit side and the education program side. And they’re maybe different because you’re working with different groups of people and so on too.
Beth 15:51
Jacob, maybe I can ask you, so when you’re designing for families, all age groups, you know, I can think of myself going through with my husband and our teenage daughter, there were certain things she was drawn to versus what my husband and I were drawn to.
Beth 16:05
I think there was a Nirvana exhibit there at the time and my husband and I, you know, we remember those days we knew who the people were and we were reminiscing and we were kind of drawing in our daughter to kind of try to heighten her interest a little bit, particularly because she doesn’t know who that is in a sense, right?
Beth 16:23
How do you design for all age groups? I mean, there’s people a lot older than me that would be in there too, a lot younger. How do you cater to all age groups basically that are going to be walking through that space?
Jacob 16:35
Yeah, and that’s a great question. And I first off would say that I don’t think that all exhibits are for everybody. You know, I think that that is one thing that, you know, I feel like often gets misinterpreted about the idea of a pop culture museum that everything should be for everybody.
Jacob 16:51
And I do want to provide hooks for as many different populations of people and age groups as possible. But I think there are some topics that we’re gonna cover that will definitely be more adult in nature potentially.
Jacob 17:05
So, and I don’t wanna be able to have to dilute that. And not to say that it’d be making it for kids as well is diluting it, but it’s like, a good example is like, say the Indie Game Revolution exhibit. Where, you know, video games have this aura to them that, you know, in this reputation of just being frivolous, you know, things that are just for kids.
Jacob 17:24
And there are a lot of visitors that view that gallery as like a place to send their kids off to play. And there’s plenty of awesome games in there for kids. But there often are games in there that are definitely not for kids.
Jacob 17:36
And, you know, and the framing in the exhibition is one that is exploring video games as a valid form of art that can sort of reflect any type of, you know, any aspect of the human condition. And so, you know, I want to be able to kind of, you know, maintain that where, you know, there might be some things that maybe, you know, aren’t appropriate for certain age groups.
Jacob 17:58
But that being said, one thing that we do really well is that, you know, well, one pop culture, you know, it’s, again, it doesn’t happen in isolation, everything is sort of interconnected, and it’s all about creativity, too.
Jacob 18:12
So to me, it’s like, if we can sort of boil down an exhibition, not into the celebration of celebrity, or, you know, something like that, but into that idea of, like, how do we inspire people, whether they’re, you know, adults or kids or whatever.
Jacob 18:27
In your example of the Nirvana exhibition, you know, when we first opened that exhibition, we had another room that was part of that exhibition, and we had this interactive called the Nirvana Confessional, or at least that’s what we called it internally.
Jacob 18:41
And basically, it would sort of, you know, ask you questions like, what’s your favorite Nirvana song? Like, you know, when’s the first time you saw them? Or, you know, just to kind of seed some, you know, get some responses from folks.
Jacob 18:51
And then people could just really, you know, give whatever response that they wanted, and then whatever response that they had filmed that would be projected on a wall and be interleaved with other Nirvana live footage.
Jacob 19:03
So kind of reinforcing that connection between the fans and the band. And what was interesting is, like, amidst all of the, you know, middle school boys mooning the camera and like people doing stupid shit, there was, you know, really two camps. You know, it was like folks that saw Nirvana, and that was really impactful for them, you know, so people probably at the time, because we opened in 2011,
Jacob 19:27
it was like, you know, 35 and up. And then kids that were in middle school that never would have saw Nirvana, you know, but were still connecting to the band and Kurt Cobain and, you know, the enigmatic lyrics and the songwriting, etc.
Jacob 19:42
And, you know, to me, it it was like really fascinating to see those two poles where it’s very different audiences that are coming from very different directions, but both being kind of connecting to that power of creativity, of inspiration, that idea like maybe I could do something too.
Beth 20:00
Thanks for that. And so I want to ask you, Jessica, about inspiration on your side of things with the education programs. You’re intentionally designing something, aren’t you? Some sort of experience, either that people are facilitating, I think with the groups, you know, someone working with teacher and groups, correct me if I’m wrong, but you also have kits that people can take and take off site and do things with,
Beth 20:22
right? Like how do you design for both of those types of things? What are you doing intentionally around that?
Jessica 20:28
Yeah, so within the department, we have a couple of different avenues. I kind of always refer to it as like spokes on a wheel. that we’re all working towards the same thing, just kind of taking a slightly different path to get there.
Jessica 20:39
So we of course have all of our public programming. What we’re doing, you know, whether that’s a daytime activation at the museum, where we’re exploring something related to an exhibit, or like our Fashionably Undead Horror Bash that we have coming up, and you know, those paths.
Jessica 20:53
Then we also have our education side, and that is both in museum, outreach into classrooms, and then teacher programming as well. So in the museum we have, you know, field trips, groups can come in as the self-guided experience, and we have some resources for them that can help, you know, help them explore either, you know, maybe it’s a music class, we want to make sure they know the film content that’s playing on one of the screens in the museum,
Jessica 21:19
so they know to engage with that, or it’s a fashion, you know, a group studying fashion, we want to make sure we direct them to a gallery that’s got a lot of really cool costumes in it. And then we also have an outreach program where we take programs out into the schools, and that’s where that kit is.
Jessica 21:35
So the outreach programs, we have two workshops that we facilitate in classrooms, and then we also take, we have an outreach kit that’s based on tabletop gaming, that we can drop off at schools, and then the teachers facilitate that themselves in the classroom.
Jessica 21:49
And then we do teacher professional development trainings and open houses for them as well, and then our volunteer department is also kind of forming that great big wheel. And the great thing about all of that is that they are all interconnected and, you know, reaching different parts of the museum and functioning as a whole, but they can all do that in really different ways.
Jessica 22:10
Like, we’re going to talk about, you know, fantasy very differently with a second grader than we are with an adult. And there are different things we can explore, different avenues we can take with that.
Jessica 22:21
And so all of those pieces kind of working together let us really explore a wide range of how folks are interacting with things. To Jacob’s point about some of the exhibits, like not all of the exhibits are for everyone, but we can look at those too and think, how do we build those bridges for a youth?
Jessica 22:39
Like, we’ve had some fashion exhibits in the past. One of the challenges we sometimes run into is we have a gallery that’s like, touch everything here and then walk across the hall and touch nothing here. [Laughs] And for a kid, you know, for a youth who’s exploring or someone who’s here with their family, that can be a hard bridge to make, especially when it’s something that looks like, oh, I want to touch that really badly. [Laughs]
Jessica 22:59
And so we can explore things like we’ve created, like we call them touch boards, like, you know, tactile boards linked to an exhibit that families could take through with them. And it’s like, okay, you can’t touch this, but touch this that you can carry with you.
Jessica 23:14
And then here are some questions that you all can talk through as a group. And so we kind of build that path of like, if they were just walking through the gallery, maybe they’d just walk past that and not think about it.
Jessica 23:25
But we can provide those experiences of, you know, making it touchable when you can’t touch it or providing those discussion questions or just exploring it in a different way, in a different approach, that does make it more applicable, I guess, to a wide range of people.
Jessica 23:42
One of the exhibits that I personally always loved was we had a Minecraft exhibit, which was very much a youth-centred exhibit. And one of my favourite things about watching people in that space, is a lot of times in museums you see the adults leading the kids through and helping them engage.
Jessica 23:58
But what we saw with Minecraft was the kids taking the lead, and it was them running like, mom, mom, mom, come look at this, come look at this. [laughs] Them really getting to step into the lead going through that space and introduce their parents to something, which was something just really cool and special to see too.
Jacob 24:15
That was lovely.
Jessica 24:16
Yeah.
Beth 24:17
That sounds amazing. As you say it, I can picture it and I know I’ve been that parent, being dragged to something to come and take a look at it. Sometimes the kids know more about it than we do.
Beth 24:27
Actually, I played Minecraft for a long time with my daughter, so I would have known, but a lot of parents might not know, and they might be grandparents who really might not know, or I guess I’m sort of stereotyping there.
Beth 24:37
But yeah, I love that, that the kid can be the one that draws people in. It makes me want to ask you both, how do you sneak into the exhibits and watch that happening? You’ve got your eyes on to observe and see what’s going on and watch these things.
Beth 24:53
Do you do that formally at the museum, where you almost secret shop the museum and figure out what’s happening? How do you figure out what is happening when the exhibit’s out there, and as education programs are going through, or…what are you noticing and how do you do that?
Jessica 25:10
I mean, I end up in the galleries a lot just with groups or planning for programs, or just working through spaces, and so you just kind of just get a knack for picking up on those little points of conversation that you overhear.
Jessica 25:25
So there’s definitely that kind of informal aspect of it where you’re just kind of in the space. It’s really easy to take your nametag off and put your badge in your pocket, and then because our museum is for everyone, like, you’re a guest in that space—as long as you’re not wearing something that identifies you as a staff member.
Jessica 25:43
And so it’s really easy to kind of blend in and just get that kind of informal experience. But then we’re also always doing surveys. And we have volunteers who are out on the floor all the time running activities and things.
Jessica 25:55
And they’re filling out reports about visitor comments and things that are made to them during the day. And so we’re getting kind of a lot of different avenues, whether that’s a formal evaluation or just folks being in the space and hearing things.
Jacob 26:10
And we can do a type of survey where we do have a person observing how long people are staying at certain parts of the exhibition. We don’t do that super often because it is pretty time intensive, but I think that is pretty illuminating.
Jacob 26:27
You know, I love watching, like just thinking of this last Friday when we were at the opening and just watching how people are interacting with the Haring Gallery. You know, it’s with any exhibition you’ve got,
Jacob 26:41
you have your desire for how people are going to navigate the space and you know where they’re going to stop and look at things. And almost always it never goes the way you entirely think it will because people could go the other way or you know whatever it is.
Jacob 26:52
But to me it’s super illuminating just to see how people navigate a narrative space like that. Because you know exhibitions are a strange beast. You know they aren’t a documentary. It’s not a novel. It’s a distilled narrative within a finite space and a lot of it is like how do we engineer this so that we can guide folks through in the way that we want them to go through and they’re seeing enough hierarchy and repetition across the space that that’s reinforcing the you know the the goals that we want to get across with that with that exhibition
Jacob 27:31
And you know and it’s like kind of there’s a little bit of science, there’s a lot of art in that and it’s a fun process for sure.
Beth 27:38
Exhibition design is its own field right? I mean you go to school for that, you learn about how to do that intentionally? What are some of the things that are tenets in the field that you absolutely need to think about? It makes me think about kind of cognitive versus affective you know psychomotor, I don’t know even spiritual comes from our Indigenous colleagues right.
Beth 28:02
Do you kind of run the gamut of of learning in terms of those domains and are there some big ones there that you’re really trying to to meet?
Jacob 28:11
Yeah like i was mentioning i mean i think hierarchy and repetition are big things. To me when people navigate through an exhibition I don’t want them to ever be like truly like…I want there to be surprised and awe but i don’t want people to be like Why is this here? I mean there should be, even at an unconscious level, of like okay this makes sense as we’re going through. And so I think it’s really thinking about you know people are learning in different ways so some people are going to read our beautiful text, other people, most people, are going to completely ignore it,
Jacob 28:43
You know? Like how do we, how do you use the text, the graphic design, the, you know, the ambient audio in the space, the scenic elements, interactives, films…all sort of overlap and reinforce the narratives that you want to get across.
Jacob 29:00
And I think that’s the big thing is like, you know, with exhibitions, because it, it’s like you’re trying to give this sense of nuance and comprehensivity when you literally do not have the space or bandwidths to do that.
Jacob 29:14
And so, you know, it’s like, how do we pack as much information and nuance into a small section, but with a clarity that doesn’t obfuscate, you know, everything? Given just the nature of who we are, where we have decided that we’re gonna take topics and we’re gonna dive in deep on topics typically, And we’re also not going to have a house style. Like every exhibit is going to be its own look and feel its own immersive space.
Jacob 29:43
That’s pretty different than a lot of museums. So I think the exhibition design parameters are kind of more complex in what we do. And, you know, I think this goes along with how we’ve dealt with exhibition design and that we don’t currently have an in house designer. That’s been a conscious choice in the past. Just because there’s so many different kind of ways that an exhibition could look. It’s kind of nice to bring in people with different ideas into that.
Jacob 30:12
But what we have found is that very seldomly are we hiring folks that have worked in exhibition design and museums, typically. Because it’s more like you know scenic designers for theatre, or, you know, people that you know really, you know, look at 3D space.
Jacob 30:30
It’s an interesting process for sure. But I do think that it’s like, you know, with exhibitions just in general, you know, you have your idea in your head but that idea is so coupled with the physical space that you kind of have to work on both sides toward the centre, and you know continually course correct until you find a narrative that works with the artifacts that you have, with the experiences that you’re able to plan, with the space that it’s in.
Beth 30:56
Sounds amazing. I mean, you’re not recreating the wheel just saying, Okay, this is our style, you said house style, you’re not doing that. You’re not saying okay these are the top three things that we do in every exhibit. Like I love that you’re just going right back to square one and going, what does this particular exhibit need and want for the folks we want to attract and really creating it from the ground up. So exciting.
Beth 31:17
I love that. It makes me think to ask you about neurodiversity. I don’t know, Jessica, if you want to weigh in on this. I mean the museum can be full of sights, full of sounds, there’s a lot going on there. You have a goal around inclusivity. What do you do for our neurodiverse friends and colleagues
Beth 31:36
and give them experiences that work for them too, either inside your physical space of the museum or when you go out to do those outreach events as well?
Jessica 31:44
Yeah, we certainly in all of our educational programs, we approach all of that with universal design.
Jessica 31:50
We’ve actually worked with some local organizations to address specifically accessibility within our programs. We kind of have a style guide as it were to writing those programs to ensure that we’re applying those universal design practices to everything. Because we all know that providing accessibility does not just help the folks who need accessibility, but it also helps connect with everyone.
Jessica 32:14
And beyond those steps, we also have a number of accessibility elements that are live continuously in the museum. We do offer about four or five times a year we offer a sensory -riendly program, and that’s a specific day that’s free
Jessica 32:29
with an RSVP to anyone of any age who appreciates a lower sensory experience in the museum. Those are often before the museum opens to the public when there’s a smaller RSVP list. So we’re really reducing the number of people and kind of reducing that stimulation.
Jessica 32:45
They are lowered light and sound levels throughout the museum. We provide social story cards to let everybody know what to expect as they’re coming in. And then we have sensory maps and cards for all of the exhibitions as well that can help a family or an individual navigate.
Jessica 33:03
These are areas that are very high sensory areas and then these are areas if I need to take a break. So anytime we’re doing a public program or anything we’re also usually thinking about a low sensory space there.
Jessica 33:14
If anybody needs to take a break that might just be a gallery that has a lower light sound level that folks can retreat into or a lot of times we’ll use our theatre space is a low sensory area where folks can come if they need to.
Jessica 33:27
We have a lot of sensory tools: noise canceling headphones and stim kits, and sensory sunflower lanyards that folks can pick up from the ticketing desk at any time. So we really have a lot of elements, both specific programs and then those elements that we’re folding into the way we approach education and public programs and then just those physical things and supports we’re providing as well.
Jessica 33:54
We have a standard that any videos that we’re showing in the museum or films are all captioned. We do a lot of ASL interpretation for things like panels and you know always trying to make sure we’re providing plenty of avenues for folks
Jessica 34:08
so nobody has to ask for that. That’s one of our big goals as well is that it’s just these are things we’re as a standard going to provide to all guests. Have that available to anyone however they need it and they don’t have to call us and ask for a specific accommodation or anything.
Beth 34:23
Yeah that’s and that’s what universal design is isn’t it? That you want that to happen they can just you know use and engage with the museum in the way that works for them. Can you tell me more about a social story card?
Beth 34:32
I’m trying to think of if I know what that means. Can you explain more about that?
Jessica 34:36
Yeah, yeah. So that’s basically something that our team puts together that really just explains to guests as they’re coming in, exactly what to expect for the day.
Jessica 34:46
So it’s kind of as you enter, this is what the door looks like. Here’s where you’re going to come in. Here’s where you’re going to check in. Here’s what that looks like. It’s a lot of sort of a visual and descriptive sort of narrative of what your day is going to be like as part of the program.
Jessica 35:03
And that’s something right now we just have that for our sensory-friendly programs because that has a very kind of specific way that we’re bringing folks into the building. Our goal ultimately is to have full day sensory days where it’s just this is available to anybody who’s in the museum and we’ll be able to extend some of those tools to a full day experience in the museum as well.
Jessica 35:26
But it’s really just kind of a kit that can be used. It’s just a PDF that we send out to attendees so they really know what to expect. They can share that with the other folks in their group who are coming just to help prepare them so nothing is overwhelming as they’re coming in.
Jessica 35:42
And all of those materials are usually available on our website at any time, so someone can always download those, too.
Beth 35:48
You know, you mentioned surprises, Jacob. I mean, you’re trying not to surprise people in the ways that are hurtful or harmful or traumatic surprises.
Beth 35:56
But you do want to create surprising moments, I think. You know, there’s a difference there big time, isn’t there?
Jacob 36:03
Yeah, no, for sure. And, you know, we are in an age where, you know, people want an Instagram mobile moment.
Jacob 36:09
They want to be, you know, they want to see something they totally, you know, would not have expected. I do feel like that’s where, you know, we’ve been really intentional about staffing up in areas that a lot of museums don’t have staff in.
Jacob 36:23
Like we have a dedicated interactive staff. You know, we have a dedicated video team that, you know, works on all video aspects of of exhibition. So, you know, it’s like we can kind of really dig into some of these fun, creative, you know, areas and just really, you know, kind of nerd out on stuff.
Jacob 36:41
And I feel like, you know, often, I talk to the team a lot about it’s often a case where it’s trying to reign back the team’s natural desire to like go down a rabbit hole of, you know, because it’s like there’s so many cool things we could do.
Jacob 36:58
And, you know, and it’s like you end up in some ways having to do this value judgment of like, you know, how much is the visitor really going to, you know, like see all of the little details that we’re putting into this? Or, you know, how much time is this going to take, you know, compared to like when the exhibit opens, et cetera.
Jacob 37:15
So, I mean, this is what I love about this this museum is like everybody that is here is really psyched to, you know, to the possibilities are really limitless of what we could do. That’s kind of atypical compared to a lot of museums where it’s like, you know, there’s a formula for how you do things and, you know, or there’s more parameters around it. Where it’s like, you know, as long as we can stick within budget,
Jacob 37:39
you know, and the amount of, you know, time that we have, we can do a lot of really fun, amazing things.
Jessica 37:45
And I think one of the challenges we run into with education is when you’re designing exhibits, you can design a space that someone can spend three hours in or someone can walk through in 10 minutes.
Jessica 37:55
And when we’re designing like education and public programs, it’s, we have an hour. [laughs]
Jacob 38:00
Right, right.
Jessica 38:00
And so it’s like, you have to have everything fit in there. And like, each time I’m writing a lesson plan, or so they always laugh, but I think the first version is about a four hour class.
Jessica 38:08
And then it’s like, I have to figure out like, how do I condense it? And like, what’s the most important stuff? Because it’s the same thing on our team. Like, everybody gets so excited to talk about all of these things.
Jessica 38:18
And it’s like, here are the 17 things we could talk about. We only have an hour. [laughs] How do you condense it and figure out what are the real important nuggets to zero in on?
Beth 38:28
Yeah, and you said talk about, but I have a sense that in your workshops, Jessica, you’re not just talking about stuff to the youth or whoever’s in there.
Beth 38:37
You are making an interactive experience, I think, right? And that’s even harder to do in an hour, because as all of us know who start to design learning, we go, oh, an hour is not very much time when you’re interactive.
Beth 38:48
And that’s what we really want. We want participation, don’t we? Are there things that you think about most often just to get the most participation you can in that short time period you’ve got?
Jessica 38:58
Yeah, we try to always start our workshops with some kind of get kids up and excited about it.
Jessica 39:05
And one of my personal favourites in a class, we know that we aren’t teaching at the moment, but we had a sci-fi class where one of the goals was we wanted kids to understand that if you’re talking about sci-fi story structures, it doesn’t have to mean aliens species.
Jessica 39:21
And you don’t necessarily have to start from inventing a whole new species on a new planet. So we would always have the kids get up and create a main character today in the world that we’re in today.
Jessica 39:34
Who do you think would be opposed to this character? Who might they be fighting against? Getting that sense of like, who’s the hero? Who’s the potential villain of your story? Where are they? If it’s a scientist, and there’s other scientists working on the project, and they’re in a lab or something, it’s like, great, okay, everybody can imagine that.
Jessica 39:49
That’s a story that could happen today, you’re imagining this big conflict between them. And then I would ask them say, okay, change one thing in this setting to something that’s sci-fi. Maybe that means the lab is on an alien planet, or the villain character is actually an alien.
Jessica 40:05
These really small, tiny changes that then all of a sudden turn it into a sci-fi story. And kids would get so excited about that, and they’re giggling, and they’re standing up and striking poses of like, you know, I have a beer in the lab! [laughs]
Jessica 40:20
You know? But then they would really kind of get excited about that idea and start realizing like this is how they could build stories and really empower themselves. And we have another great workshop that’s kind of based on Minecraft.
Jessica 40:32
That’s like a tabletop version where kids are learning kind of how to meet basic survival needs. And then they really explore building community together. They’re like, you know, learning how to refine resources and trade with each other and doing that all in real time with these sort of biomes on their tables.
Jessica 40:52
And without fail, the things that I hear about coming out of that class, they form religions sometimes, [laughs] they’ll do raids on each other’s tables. And it’s wild to sort of see the things that people go with. And I love that class because it is so different each time and driven just by the kids who are there.
Jessica 41:13
Like it’s never going to be the same class each time because each group is totally different. And we built that class intentionally to allow for that space. So it’s not just, here’s the path they have to follow.
Jessica 41:24
It’s like, here’s what you’re doing at this stage, but you can do that however you want. It’s going to look totally different. You’re going to build a house that’s totally different than what everybody else is building.
Jessica 41:34
You’re going to choose to trade different things than any other group is going to trade, and you’re going to explore all of these different ways to get to the end goal of building a community. And how you do that is up to you based on the choices you make yourselves and your group.
Jessica 41:49
And it’s just a really cool thing to watch happen to you.
Beth 41:52
I love that so much. And Jacob, I think exhibits are the same, where there’s usually some sort of element in there that people can craft the way they want to or do something, write a note, or I don’t know, you know all the possibilities.
Beth 42:04
I’ve just seen from the participant side of going through museums. But do you think about that intentionally as well, where people can make it their own a little bit while going through?
Jacob 42:13
Yeah, absolutely.
Jacob 42:14
I mean, I think it’s really important to provide experiences where folks really can dig into the content like that. I think maybe one of the bigger differences between how we do that in exhibits versus in programs in education is that programs in education, some of that is mediated.
Jacob 42:32
Whereas with exhibitions, it’s because of how the structure of our museum is set up, where we don’t have attendance in the galleries to facilitate things. So it kind of has to run itself. And so there’s some kind of design challenges around that of how is it going to run itself?
Jacob 42:51
And then content-wise, how are you going to mediate content when there’s poor behaviour, which there always is. And so some of that, honestly, has been a little bit easier with AI because we can go beyond just putting in a dictionary of bad words or something like that.
Jacob 43:10
It’s like there are ways to kind of use some of those tools to help us out. But I think that’s a big part of it. I love that idea of both on the digital interactive side, but even the mechanical interactive side of giving visitors something to do, some way to imbue their interests and their decisions into the gallery in order to emphasize the goals that we want to get out of the exhibition.
Beth 43:39
What’s next for you two and for the museum in general? I mean, you mentioned, I think both of you touched on just wanting to and being able to nerd out on your jobs and the things that you do with your discussions with your teams and so on.
Beth 43:53
What’s coming up? What do you wish that you can do in the next year, the next two years? Is there something on the horizon for each of you?
Jessica 44:01
Next year, we’re going to be launching a new program that’s a series of themed dinners.
Jessica 44:07
So really looking at opportunities to kind of build community and connect different fandoms. So I’m not gonna spoil what the themes are right now [laughs], but we’ll be doing three of them during the year that will have, you know, what I’m really excited about with that is food is such a world-building piece of so much pop culture.
Jessica 44:28
It’s, you know, this real way of kind of connecting to a world. It may be a food that you’ve never heard of, but the way it’s described, you can imagine that. And it’s very much part of how so many creators establish that world.
Jessica 44:42
And because it’s usually fictional, there’s a lot of [chuckles] creative license there in terms of like how you can create that. So we’re going to be working with our food service vendor to create some sort of customized creations of some different pop culture food and creating just really interactive experiences, potentially with some artifact spotlights that things aren’t currently on display.
Jacob 45:08
Away from the food.
Jessica 45:09
Yes, away from the food and the drink. [laughs] But really just looking at it as a chance of like exploring food as that world-building and community building part of pop culture and really just creating a space where we can build community.
Jessica 45:23
It’s the first time we’ve ever done anything like this and we’ll be launching three of them in the coming year. So I’m pretty excited about that. And I hope folks enjoy it.
Beth 45:32
That sounds fun. What about you, Jacob?
Jacob 45:34
We have three exciting new exhibits that are launching next year that I think will all kind of together continue the sort of narrative of who MoPOP is and how we’re evolving through time. So I’m super excited about that.
Jacob 45:48
I can’t really talk about any of them yet. But the things that I’m really excited about is that we’re working really hard on defining what we’re doing up to three years in advance. That’s not something we’ve ever had the luxury of having.
Jacob 46:02
And just being able to work that far into the future and having the staff to do that means that we have more opportunity to apply for grants that can go towards exhibitions. We can work on things like catalogues and publications. You know, we can really sort of, and just, I don’t know, just, you know, do a better job with the exhibitions, you know. Not feeling like we’re having to sprint in between everything else.
Jacob 46:22
So I’m super excited about that. But yeah, I think that’s a big one for me, for sure.
Jessica 46:28
I will also note that I’m excited the next year is MoPOP’s 25th birthday, which I think is just a really great celebration of how far we’ve come since those early days, and all of the different kind of different versions of ourselves that MoPOP has been through over the last 25 years.
Jessica 46:46
So we, we have a lot of programs that are also celebrating their 25th with one program that’s celebrating its 25th anniversary as well, our SoundOff Youth Music Showcase. And I think it’s just going to be a really exciting year, kind of honouring the past for us, and also looking ahead to the future and being really excited about where we are at the same time, too.
Jessica 47:06
So I think there’s going to be a lot of really exciting stuff as we get into the summer months celebrating our birthday.
Beth 47:11
I think you have a lot to celebrate. I maybe will try to come back to Seattle next year and check that out.
Beth 47:18
I would love to return. And now that I’ve had this conversation with you two I think I’m going to look at it even with more in-depth eyes than I did before. But of course, I really enjoyed my experience and you’ve got a wonderful place.
Beth 47:29
I’ve been to a lot of museums, a lot of spaces, you know, that are doing something like that, but not like that. I mean, you’ve got a really unique, wonderful thing going on there and I encourage everyone that’s in your neighbourhood or visiting to go check it out.
Beth 47:43
I want to thank you both for spending this time with me today. And I feel like I’ve had that little time nerding out on Museum of Pop Culture-type things too. So thanks for sharing a little bit about what you do.
Jacob 47:53
Yeah, thank you.
Jessica 47:55
Thank you.
[Episode outro]
Beth 47:58
It was fantastic to have this conversation with Jessica and Jacob and I thank them for coming and sharing information about both sides of the museum that they work in, both the exhibit side and the education and outreach program side.
Beth 48:12
It was fascinating to hear how long it takes them to put together an exhibit. I think Jacob said it was almost two years that they can spend doing that and hopeful to think that they don’t leave it there.
Beth 48:24
That’s just a starting point, that sometimes they have things that they’re swapping in and out and changing as the exhibit is out there with the public. But then it was so interesting to hear that on Jessica’s side, with the education and outreach programs, that they use the exhibits as a starting point. That they can jump off from that and deepen things for their learners when they come and they work with them in the group’s programs.
Beth 48:49
I really liked, too, how they talked about looking at all the different aspects of a space. They talked about text that can go into a space. They talked about graphic design. They talked about audio and additionally they talked about scenic elements.
Beth 49:03
And it makes me think you know, even though we don’t work in a museum, we can also do that when we’re thinking about crafting the workshop spaces that we have, whether they’re in person or online. That there are all kinds of textual and graphic and visual and audio and other types of elements that we can bring into learning spaces, whether we’re in just a regular course in a workshop room that a lot of us do and work in and around.
Beth 49:30
So I hope this conversation inspired you and maybe will make you look differently at the next space that you go into, whether it’s an art gallery, a museum, or a historical home, or anything like that, where you can look creatively and critically at the environment around you and say, OK, how are they doing learning here?
Beth 49:50
And what does that mean for what I can take back to the type of learning that I design, that I facilitate? I tend to do that naturally. I’m not sure if you do. I hope you do. But maybe this episode will inspire you further in that direction.
Beth 50:05
I hope you enjoyed this episode. And I want to thank Jessica and Jacob again for being with me on the show.
Beth 50:12
On the next episode of the podcast, I talk with Theresa Destrebecq. Theresa and I talk about book learning communities.
Beth 50:20
And if you’re thinking, well, what is that? Is that just a book club that we have at work to read a learning-related book together? No, it’s so much more. Find out more on the next episode. Until then.
[Show outro]
Beth 50:31
Thank you for listening to Facilitating on Purpose. If you were inspired by something in this episode, please share it with a friend or a colleague to help them expand their facilitation practice to define the show notes.
Beth 50:44
Give me feedback or submit ideas for future episodes. Visit FacilitatingOnPurpose.com. Special thanks to Mary Chan at Organized Sound Productions for producing this episode. Happy facilitating!
