Open Forum

Would anyone like to team up for an AAM 2017 proposal about mindfulness with museum visitors, staff, and program participants?

Together, let's deepen and extend the current conversation about mindfulness (cultivating awareness) in the field to include qualities of heart like gratitude, generosity, self-compassion. Complimenting mindfulness with "heartfulness" can help us transform the way we experience and relate to ourselves and the world around us. In museums, this might look like a family program about gratitude, a meditation on self-compassion, a space for visitors to give back, or a staff self-care initiative.  Broadly, this session would explore overlaps between a range of mindful/heartful practices and the work of museums in the world. 

Do your programs share an intention to help participants resource qualities of heart that will help them flourish outside of the walls of your institution? Do you offer staff opportunities to rest, reconnect, and cultivate gratitude for one another?

If so, I would love to connect!  Alternatively, if you are already thinking in this direction and are looking for additional panelists, I would love to participate! Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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Zoe Silverman
Associate Educator, Family Programs
Skirball Cultural Center
Los Angeles CA
(310) 440-4653
zsilverman@skirball.org
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Hi Zoe,

At last year's AAM Conference, Stephanie Stassi and I held an "unconference" about Mental Health in the Museum Environment. I don't know whether I can be there, but perhaps Stephanie will? You can reach her at stassistephanie@gmail.com. I'd also love to hear more about your proposal, and am willing to give input and review from afar!

Best, Andy

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Andrew Stephens
Research Aide, NPS Museum Resource Center
Masters Student in Museum Studies, the George Washington University
Alexandria, VA
a.w.stephens@gmail.com

Hi Zoe,

We started a small pilot program for our staff on mindfulness two years ago that has since expanded both within our museum and San Francisco International Airport, our parent institution. The Airport has a robust wellness program for its employees and wanted to try out mindfulness with a focus group; for a number of reasons, the Museum volunteered to be the guinea pig. We began with bi-weekly, voluntary hour-long mindful meditation sessions over our lunch break.  The core group was (and still is) fairly small, but the program has grown in a couple of ways: the daily morning meetings held by our preparators begins with 3-5 minutes of silent meditation, as do our monthly-ish all-staff meetings. Additionally, the hour-long sessions have expanded to any interested Airport employees and are offered four times a month.

I'd be happy to connect with you regarding our program and could volunteer to serve as a panelist, if you'd like.

Thanks,

Megan

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Megan Callan
Curator in Charge of Museum Affairs
SFO Museum
San Francisco CA
megan.callan@flysfo.com

Hi there,

I'd be interested in talking to you more about the staff-centered aspect of this.  I'll shoot you an email.

Stacia

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Stacia Kuceyeski
Outreach Director
Ohio History Center - Ohio History Connection
Columbus OH

Good Afternoon - I am the Manger of the Yogi Bhajan Museum Project in Espanola, NM - just outside of Santa Fe.  I would be interested in hearing more about your panel of how to offer mindfulness, contemplation, meditation etc. at museums.  I am a teacher of Kundalini Yoga and Meditation.  We incorporate mindfulness and meditation in our tours in a non-denominational manner.  I hope I can be of service.

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Gurufateh Kaur Khalsa
Manager
The Yogi Bhajan Museum Project
Espanola, NM

Hi Zoe,

I appreciate your interest in mindfulness!  I'm not sure how much this relates to what you're thinking about, but I created a "Mindful Meditation in the Gallery" program as a public program -- last summer as a one-time class and this summer as a 4-session class.  It incorporated a beginning lesson in mindful meditation (vipassana) and meditative looking at art in different areas of the museum.  Happy to tell you more, and good luck with the work you are doing!

Erin

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Erin Dorn
Adult Education Coordinator
Crocker Art Museum
Sacramento CA
edorn@crockerartmuseum.org

Zoe,

Two points: Wonderful that the AAM is in St Louis, where the Pulitzer Arts Foundation has one of the best meditation at the museum programs I've seen. The man who organized it just left, but I'll see if he's still in St Louis (I think not). Even if he isn't, someone else there might be a good participant, and in any case, who doesn't want to go to a Tado Ando building with a reflecting pool and look at art/architecture with attention.

And, I would be interested in joining you IF I get approval for the expenses within the next 24 hours--I've been invited to be on another panel--and if the scheduling (same day) could be worked out. Tho we don't have a med. in gallery program per se, we at the Menil Collection talk about how "Every day is Slow Art Day at the Menil," and I've led meditations in the Rothko Chapel, one of which included looking at the paintings before and after meditating to see how one's attention differed.

I'm also going to use this platform (hobby horse alert) to suggest that "meditation in the museum" NOT be restricted to mindfulness, even tho that's a form of meditation often in the public eye in the US. Visualization practices and practices with light, for example, are among  meditative techniques with "applicability" to artful concentration, I've found.

here's hoping we'll meet in Saint Louie,

joseph

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Joseph Newland
Director of Publishing
Menil Collection

Houston TX
There's wind and dust come right on in
this little grass hut.
There's a raggedy rug on the bed.
If somebody comes, I'll invite him on in.
I can scrape up some dirt for us to sit on.
-Wang Fanzhi, 7th century, trans. JP Seaton