Camille-Mary Sharp has recently published an article in Museums & Society entitled 'Shell is Proud to Present… The Spirit Sings’: Museum Sponsorship and Public Relations in Oil Country. 

In addition, Camille-Mary has an upcoming workshop talk titled "Resisting the Extractive Museum" for Archives of the Planetary Mine: Culture, Nature Extraction, and Energy Across the Americas (November 15, 2022) and a conference presentation titled "Museum Funding as Critical Practice" for the Ontario Museum Association's upcoming conference on November 21, 2022. 

Join us in congratulating Clare Bell on her recent title change to Senior Director of Global Exhibitions at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Haena Chu ('24)

Haena Chu is a first-year master’s student in museum studies focusing on contemporary art. Her goal is to push beyond her academic research to develop implementable projects that can help museums incubate cultural movements. This objective is informed by memorable moments at NYU such as her work with Professor Rosanna Flouty in her Museums & Interactive Technology class, where Haena learned Figma (an interface design tool) and designed her own museum app prototype. On her experiences moving from South Korea to New York to study art history, Haena writes, “I am so lucky that the city brought to the surface that little inkling feeling that I couldn't quite put into words but that attracted me to museums in the first place: there are many injustices and negative experiences in the world, but sharing them in a meaningful way can turn them into fuel to make something new happen.”

Welcome to our fall newsletter! 

What a year it was for the field: after an extra two years of deliberation, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) has finally released a revised definition of a museum after collecting hundreds of submissions. You can read the full report on how and why the committee arrived at their definition here. Arguably, the process was at least more balanced this time around - even if the outcome resulted in a somewhat conservative definition. The new definition now reads as follows:

"A museum is a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing."

Source: https://icom.museum/en/resources/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/

You can read various interpretations of the new definition here on Hyperallergic. Even more importantly for our current students actively seeking work, the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) has finally agreed to require the inclusion of salary ranges in their listed job postings mere weeks before the requirement becomes New York State law on November 15th. This means that it is not only illegal for potential employers to ask about prior salary history when interviewing candidates, but the salary range must be posted for jobs in the state of New York. And now that at long last, AAM will require salary ranges to be included on their Jobs HQ homepage: 

https://aam-us-jobs.careerwebsite.com/

"Effective November 15, 2022, the salary field on job postings shared on AAM’s JobHQ will be required. We know that salary transparency practices can’t thoughtfully take place overnight or in isolation. It requires a critical look at current practices and, for many, the collaboration and approval of parent organizations, boards, and other entities. With this advanced notice, we urge museums to begin making the policy reviews and changes, benchmarking, and compensation studies required to holistically implement these important practices."
Source: https://aam-us-jobs.careerwebsite.com/

Meanwhile, as many of you are seeking museum internships, be sure to subscribe  to our Program’s job listings that will hit your inbox every Friday afternoon, as well as set reminders to check out New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) for art-based internship and job postings around the city and beyond, too.  

- Rosanna

Camille-Mary Sharp completed her PhD at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information, where she wrote her dissertation on the sponsorship of Canadian museums by the oil industry. She also holds a Master of Museum Studies from the University of Toronto. 

Camille-Mary enjoys teaching about museums and activism and she frequently speaks on the topics of museums, funding, and environmental sustainability. She recently co-led a counter-tour of the Royal Ontario Museum's mineral gallery with the scholar-activist collective Beyond Extraction. You can find out more about Camille-Mary's projects and more on her website: cmsharp.ca

Ilk Yasha is an educator, arts administrator, and multidisciplinary facilitator at The Studio Museum in Harlem. He has worked with arts and cultural organizations such as Pioneer Works, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Museum of the City of New York, and Brooklyn Historical Society.

He currently manages the Studio Museum Institute, a suite of programs that trains and mentors art world leaders from historically marginalized backgrounds including scholars, curators, and educators. He has a PhD in history with a focus on Middle Eastern & Mediterranean studies, an MA in policy studies and political science, and a BS in biology. Ilk Yasha is teaching “Museums and Communities” this fall.

Dr. Rosanna Flouty will become Director of the Program in Museum Studies this Fall 2022. Her appointment comes after a vigorous international search, during which she was leading the Program in Museum Studies as the Interim Director for the 2021-2022 academic year. 

Dr. Flouty received her PhD from CUNY Graduate Center following a Master's from Rhode Island School of Design and a BA from Emory University.  Rosanna is in and of the Museum Studies program, having taught in the program as a guest lecturer starting in 2004, and as an adjunct instructor for "Museums and Interactive Technologies" in 2010.  She has been a full-time faculty member in Museum Studies since 2016.  And she has been a revered teacher and colleague throughout.  Rosanna is an accomplished museum practitioner and scholar, teaching about museum and arts education, especially around new forms of technology, accessibility, museum education and experience design.

Dr. Flouty began working in the area of museum education and digital media, developing innovative projects when museums were beginning to incorporate technology in their programs. Her museum career started in 1993 at the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta. In 2000, she began working at the Guggenheim Museum, then at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, and Art 21. She has also acted as an ongoing consultant and project manager for numerous museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, American Museum of Natural History in New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Jewish Museum, and the New-York Historical Society to design projects related to museum education, digital media, archiving, audience perceptions, and community engagement.

Those of us here in Museum Studies who have had the pleasure of working with Rosanna know that she is not only immensely accomplished, but dedicated to the future of Museum Studies. We're so excited to see where she takes our department next.Please join us in thanking and congratulating Rosanna on this momentous occasion. 

Dr. Marisa Karyl Franz is newly appointed as Clinical Assistant Professor of Museum Studies. She holds degrees in religious studies from the University of Toronto (2019), the University of Chicago (2013), and Bryn Mawr College (2010).

Marisa’s research explores the intersections of religion, magic, and science as theoretical and discursive categories. Working with theory, museum collections and the intellectual history of ethnography, she considers how these categories are entangled with modernity, colonialism, and affective experience. Her manuscript, Near and Desired Things: Local Siberian Museums and the Documentation of Shamanism, 1880-1910, is an intellectual history of late imperial Siberian museums. Here, she addresses the collection and classification of shamanic materials as part of a larger history of the development of ethnography and ethnographic museums. 

Connecting this research closer to home, she contributed a chapter to The Life Cycle of Russian Things: From Fish Guts to Faberge, 1600–present entitled “‘Rather Poor and Threadbare’: Scratching-Woman, Bogoras, and the Intimacy of Material,” which traces the affective relationship history of a Chukchi shaman’s coat held at the American Museum of Natural History. Recently, she published an article on ghosts and everyday museum objects titled “Haunted Intimacy: Spectral and Vital Space within a Historic House Museum,” which appeared in the journal Museum & Society.

Previously, Marisa was a Faculty Fellow in Museums Studies at NYU.

We are pleased to announce that Lauraberth Lima has rejoined the Program in Museum Studies as a Faculty Fellow. 

Lauraberth is an established cultural consultant with over 12 years of experience in education and community engagement in cultural institutions. Lauraberth brings a social justice lens to consulting through interdisciplinary expertise in intergenerational engagement, BIPOC representation in the arts, health equity, museum and art education, youth development, early childhood education, as well as programming for LGBTQ2SIA+/gender expansive communities.

Lauraberth has worked with the Wellcome Trust, Art21, Visual AIDS, MoMA PS1, Columbia University Teachers College, Vassar University, Little Sun, and more. Prior to consulting Lauraberth served as the Director of Education for No Longer Empty and managed Family and Community Engagement Programs and the Internship in Museum Education Program at the Museum of the City of New York. Lauraberth has also served as an Advisor on health and gender for Creative Time Summit X, as the Family Programs Coordinator at the Brooklyn Museum, the Education Director at the Boys and Girls Club of Boston, a Teaching Artist, and more.

Lauraberth was previously a Visiting Assistant Professor of Museum Studies at New York University from 2021-2022 and an Adjunct Professor at the Bard Prison Initiative. 

Welcome everyone! To all of our first-year students, we hope that you enjoy NYU’s wonderful campus and all that our program has to offer, and to the second-year students, we hope that you all had a great summer and are ready to begin a new semester! As members of the MSSO Board, we remain committed to fostering a welcoming community within the Museum Studies Department, and that is why we are planning so many activities and programs for the upcoming semester. We would love to use these events to get to know all of the incoming students and create exciting new experiences for everyone in the department. 

As the semester goes on, remember that MSSO is always here to help, and we are always looking for input! Below, please find a Google Form link where you can submit ideas for activities throughout the year. Definitely reach out to us at msso.nyu@gmail.com if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. Also, feel free to follow us on Instagram @nyumuseumstudies for all details on upcoming events, opportunities, and more! Looking forward to a great year with you all! 

Molly Ford, Administrative Chair

Image Description: Bold black text on a white background that reads “Grey Art Gallery” with additional purple text that reads “NYU”

NYU’s Grey Art Gallery is back with some fantastic Fall 2022 Public Programming:
 

Saturday, September 24, 12–5 pm SATURDAY OPEN HOURS

Grey Art Gallery, NYU, 100 Washington Square East Visit the Grey’s current exhibition Mostly New: Selections from the NYU Art Collection during special Saturday hours, 12–5 pm.

Wednesday, September 28, 5:30 pm CURATOR TOUR OF MOSTLY NEW: SELECTIONS FROM THE NYU ART COLLECTION 

Grey Art Gallery, NYU, 100 Washington Square East With Lynn Gumpert, Director and Michèle Wong, Associate Director | Head of Collections and Exhibitions, Grey Art Gallery, NY

Thursday, October 6, 6–8:30 pm Celebratory Reception PERFORMING WITH THE SEA: REFLECTIONS AND CELEBRATIONS

 NYU Campus, Location TBD Hosted by Dean for the Humanities Una Chaudhuri, this reception will honor artist Sarah Cameron Sunde and her performance 36.5 / NEW YORK ESTUARY with discussions by NYU faculty and 36.5 collaborators.

Wednesday, October 12, 6 pm Virtual Conversation ART AND FRIENDSHIP IN DOWNTOWN NYC: A CONVERSATION WITH JAMES COTTRELL, JOSEPH LOVETT, AND DEBORAH KASS 

Longtime art patrons, social activists, and downtown Manhattan residents James Cottrell and Joseph Lovett grew their art collection based on their personal vision and vital friendships with artists—including Deborah Kass, whose paintings are currently on view at the Grey Art Gallery in Mostly New: Selections from the NYU Art Collection. Mostly New includes several works donated to the Grey by Cottrell and Lovett, who gifted over 200 artworks from their extensive collection of downtown New York artists. 

Join Cottrell, Lovett, and Kass as they discuss their shared passion for art as an instrument of social change, the social experience of the dynamic downtown art scene in the 1980s, and their transformational gift in a lively virtual conversation hosted by the Grey’s director, Lynn Gumpert.

To register for this live event on Zoom, please sign up at greyartgallery.nyu.edu
Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at NYU.