Elaine Charnov

Elaine Charnov (NYU Anthropology and Culture & Media MA ’94) has dedicated her career to working at the nexus of art, science, history and public culture. She is currently the Senior Vice President of Exhibits, Education & Programs at the Intrepid Museum in New York City. 

At the New York Public Library, she spearheaded the acclaimed “Lunch Hour NYC” exhibit, which celebrated the library’s world-class menu collection. For nineteen years, Elaine worked at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and directed the Margaret Mead Film Festival, founding their high school program and national and international traveling film festival, traveling the globe to identify films and conduct workshops at universities and cultural centers. 

She also directed the museum’s programs division and introduced the popular “Art/Sci Collision” series featuring such talents as Nam June Paik in collaboration with his physician to explore the “thermography of pain.” In 2007, the New York Times profiled Elaine’s trailblazing work at AMNH. At NYU, Elaine’s master’s thesis explored the “lost” films of pioneering anthropologist, folklorist, performer Zora Neale Hurston, which she published in 1998.

Interviewer Melissa Lefkowitz is a filmmaker, doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology at NYU, and graduate of the Program in Culture & Media.

Melissa Lefkowitz: What brought you to the Culture and Media Program?

Elaine Charnov: In truth, I was a total film culture nerd prior to the program. Even in high school, I was reading about people like Margaret Mead and I was really interested in international photojournalism. A lot of seeds were planted by the time I was a teenager. I ended up going to Barnard [College] and volunteering at the American Museum of Natural History both for the [Margaret Mead Film] Festival, starting in 1982, and also working in their burgeoning film archive. At that point, [the museum] didn't even have a formal archive. There were just lots of historic films that, crazily enough, were stored in the mammalogy freezers. They thought – at the time – keeping them cold was a way of [preventing] 16 and 35 [mm] films from deterioration. It's so not best practices, but in the ‘80s there was still so little knowledge.

My hunger and passion for the intersection of global culture, cinema, and museums were already deep and established by the early ‘80s. [In 1984], I attended the Harvard [University] summer program. They used to offer an ethnographic film intensive. I went to experience the amazing Jean Rouch. That summer he never showed up for the course, because he was deeply immersed in a film project [Dionysos]. Instead, Ricky Leacock and Tim Asch taught the summer course. It set the stage for learning about the history of ethnographic film, and I just got obsessed. That was the basis for wanting to dive even deeper. It was not clear if it would be on an academic pathway or on how to apply the thinking, the tools, in non-academic ways. That’s really what set the stage and planted the seed for my arrival at the Culture and Media Program, which was still in its early years. I started the program in 1988. Back in the day, you applied to get your MA and then after that would apply for the PhD. They were very generous at that time. They offered scholarships and fellowships at the master’s level, so that was another compelling reason why I certainly wanted to attend.

ML: What drove you to the next phase of your career and how did you break into the field?  

EC: It wasn't so much a breaking into the field; there was a kind of parallel track. After the first year, I was very slow earning my master’s because I got full-time employment. I’d already been affiliated as a volunteer with the Mead Festival. A position opened up in 1989, and I applied for it and got the job. I started working as a coordinator at the Mead Festival that year. So, I was working at the museum by day and taking courses [at night] – at the time all of the courses were in the evening – and trying to balance the two.

While I was still committed to the master's program, I was also committed to working. I don't think I received my degree until ’94. I think that's an issue for academic programs where you need to illustrate to deans and institutions that you're perpetuating the field and your students are working at a dynamic pace…I started some coursework beyond the master’s, but then I got very interested in public culture and connecting these themes and concepts in spheres beyond academia.   

“Large-scale, impactful projects across many disciplines motivate me.”

—Elaine Charnov

ML: It sounds really exciting to get a dream job.  

EC: Oh yeah. It's both exciting and complicated at later phases in one's career, because it was the dream job and I loved it for many years. I don't know if it's the falling out of love or just the hunger for new and different, but I don't think subsequent to having that hope and vision that I’ve ever had as much clarity again in my life. And what a weird thing to be in your mid-twenties and realize that dream. By no means am I saying that I haven't had fabulous chapters and amazing experiences, but I haven't had that same sensation of matching my work to the dream. There's a lot to be said for realizing that later in one's life. But listen, I feel lucky! [Laughs]

ML: Can you tell me more about your clarity of vision?  

EC: At the Mead, I saw that important as the New York festival was –the four-day or the seven-day festival within the museum walls – the real opportunity with that project was packaging titles and getting them to communities that don’t have access. For a lot of places both around the US and the world, [with] these kinds of film, the level of impact is indescribable. As an example, I was once on a jury on the Pärnu Ethnographic Festival in Estonia. Democracy had just been realized after years of Soviet oppression. The audiences were [genuinely] watching these films to think about, “How do we craft our society? How do we live differently?” They had been so limited in the kind of access they had to other stories and ways of living.  

The power of that had never left me. It really inspired the creation of the Margaret Mead Traveling Film Festival, which used to circulate to about 26 or 28 communities from small public libraries in the south, to film centers, to other museums and cultural [institutions] nationally and sometimes internationally. [It was] just recognizing the importance of getting this kind of work beyond the communities of New York, because – let's face it – we are already so privileged in the kind of material we have access to. While people might not have seen those films, we largely watch these kinds of films as a method to think and converse and be inspired.

ML: Could you describe the process of establishing yourself, including the meaningful moments and challenges?  

EC: I’ve established myself comfortably as an outsider to the disciplines I’ve been working in subsequent to my time at the American Museum of Natural History. In going to the New York Public Library at the level I was brought in, most of that senior staff had either been involved with other major urban libraries, had library degrees, and [possessed] a different kind of thinking. It was a challenge to help them understand that they were actually a cultural organization. So, just something as minor as, they never used words like “public programs” in their language - it was always “a library program for a young person.” Nomenclature is meaningful…so many institutions can be very insular. I was really trying to help the library understand that they are a “cultural institution” and there are ways to bring in new audiences.

The Intrepid Museum, [where I currently work], is largely focused around science, technology, history, math, and, to some extent, the arts. I have limited expertise in many of these fields. In fact, I sweet talked my way out of US history when I was in high school because I was so obsessed with global culture that I figured out a way to do an independent study. I am a total outsider to the basics of US history, so it was the challenge of having a voice, having a very large role, but not necessarily having the depth of knowledge about the specific subject matter that a lot of my colleagues and more junior staff held.  

That’s the exciting thing about always taking challenges and using them to create new [opportunities]. It was certainly a way of including more voices and looking to younger and different staff for how to learn and think about this subject matter. I was bringing an eighth grader’s viewpoint to an organization; I brought more of a child’s view to a lot of the content there. And it actually can be beneficial to be that outsider.  Because then you can help your colleagues appreciate how audiences who aren't deeply steeped in this might find new pathways, or different kinds of ways to engage with the collections and the stories of the museum.

ML: What motivates you?  

EC: Large-scale, impactful projects across many disciplines motivate me. Whether it is film-related or exhibit-related – and honestly those two things are very similar – it's all about storytelling and engaging publics.  

[As] I mentioned, the Mead Traveling Festival really motivated me.  

When I was at the [New York Public] Library, we created a major exhibition that was called “Lunch Hour NYC”. What was so cool about that is few people knew that the main branch of the library has one of the most excellent menu collections in the US. That sounds so obscure, but it's such a fascinating way to tell stories about [immigrants and] foodways, and to look at New York City, especially. Whether I brought the threads of the Culture and Media Program or I’ve always been awash in it, I’m always thinking about what's missing, what are the gaps? In the NYPL collections, it was largely “mainstream menus” of the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. But what was absent were immigrant stories, cultural diversity as represented through food. It made me think a lot about getting beyond the collections and inviting in various stories of [lunch hour] food carts in the twenty-first century. As part of the exhibition installation, there were actually a few food carts within the exhibit. We did some oral histories with current food cart vendors, who are largely immigrants from Central America and South Asia. It was a really wonderful way to celebrate the library's collections, but also to celebrate the diversity of New York City.

At the Intrepid [Museum] what has been a very exciting project is, surprisingly, a major exhibition we did about three years ago on drones. On the one hand, people associate that museum as a military site and, yes, that is an aspect of it. When we think of drones largely, we think of the next generation of horrific military equipment. But in truth, it's so much more complicated than that. We tried to create a framework illustrating a technology, frankly like the Internet born out of the military, but [one] that moves into all of these other disciplines. [We were] telling stories about how drones have been used in medical emergency blood drops to help communities where it would take too long to drive through deserts and mountains, providing instant medical attention for some. Or how they are used to help facilitate agricultural opportunities for farmers to recognize which fields might be better used. Drones are now used in art. We were able to get Lady Gaga’s drone dress that she used for the opening of a major album she staged several years ago. We were thinking about these concepts that are sometimes deemed monolithic [and] evil, but within that, recognizing that there are other pathways that these sorts of technologies can take, thanks to human creativity. That was a very successful exhibit. We partnered with an Australian firm and now it’s an exhibit traveling internationally. That was an unexpected but wonderful outcome from all the work that we invested.

“I’m always thinking about what's missing, what are the gaps?”

—Elaine Charnov

ML: What advice would you give Culture and Media students hoping to pursue a career outside of academia?  

EC: [The Culture and Media Program] gives you tools to achieve anything in the arts, culture, humanities, [and] media fields, as I'm sure you're learning by talking with a lot of other graduates, who are full-fledged amazing filmmakers [or working in] other disciplines. I never really thought about graduate school as a pathway to academia. That said, as I’ve gotten older, I sometimes do have regrets that I didn't pursue my PhD, not to be in academia, but that degree can open doors in non-academic environments. As an example, [in] a lot of grant writing we do, I’ll often put my colleague who has a PhD as the principal investigator [project lead]. I don't think I fully understood the power of the degree when I was in earlier stages of my career at cultural institutions. So, it does have value but, as you well know, it's a very, very big and long-term commitment.  

For me, I was just very hungry to be more connected to the public cultural sphere than the academic sphere. I can write grants, but academic writing I found very lonely, and I don't like to feel lonely. I'm a very social and connected person. I think it [academic writing] wasn't my strongest skill set. I never found my voice as an academic writer.

ML: What can we look forward to in the future?   

EC: We have three really big projects on the burner right now, thanks to funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).   

One of the projects is about creating what’s called “Sensory Tools For Interpretation at Historic Sites.” It's essentially bringing together historic site museums and disability advocates to identify what have been the barriers to excellent interpretive experiences. We've collectively been in discussions, hearing about what the challenges have been. And with an NYU division called the Ability Project [part of the network created by NYU’s Center for Disability Studies] have been working with students to prototype visions of how we – historic site museums – can create better tools to engage the public around our content. We're about halfway through that project and that's been super exciting.  

We just got a major grant, also around accessibility, to 3D scan the entire museum, which is a decommissioned aircraft carrier that served during World War II. It's a very, very big space. From those scans, [we can] develop AR [augmented reality] and VR [virtual reality], other kinds of digital journeys through these physical spaces. This project is to help train some of our colleagues, [for instance] how to use point clouds and develop them into visualizations that have meaning for a student, teacher, or general visitor.  

The next project that we just got funded, which is super exciting, also gets back to [the earlier discussion about gaps and] absences. The vessel Intrepid served from World War II through the Vietnam era. We solicit former crew members to donate objects [and] ephemera during their time of service to build out our stories. In contrast to a place like AMNH [American Museum of Natural History], where someone would donate a mineral or gem that might have museum value, [the museum itself is] a former lived experience. There were thousands of crew members who served on that aircraft carrier from 1942 to 1974. We get in touch with them or their extended families to seek artifacts. Well, so much is absent in terms of the stories of the Black crew members and the LGBTQ crew members. Often if crew members had bad experiences, they don't want to share their stories. With NEH support we will be the lead and partner with other historic ships to research, discover, and tell these underrepresented stories focusing on diversity.  

This interview has been edited for length.