conference-ness, day two (original) (raw)

So as to stave off impending intellectual burnout (haha, too late), I went to museums today instead of morning and early afternoon sessions. Specifically, the Penn Museum of archaeology and anthropology, and the Mutter Museum--there will come a day when I cannot use a student discount again, but today is not that day!

The Penn Museum is clearly On The Ball with regards to making changes and visitor studies. I started with the North American hall, which looks to have been redone fairly recently, with great use of touchscreens to allow visitors to learn more about objects and their creators. The mix of objects in the displays was really cool, too; instead of by American Indian tribe, culture or time period, it was based around a theme, like celebrations, or sacred spaces. Thus, there were archaeological, historic, and contemporary art objects in each case. Really cool.

From that hall, I went into the Mesoamerican gallery, which focused heavily on Maya and other Mesoamerican cultures that predated Maya. I have NEVER been that close to stelae before (I could put my face right on them if I didn't, y'know, know not to do that.) It definitely made me once again regretful that I dropped the Aztec, Maya, and Inca class in undergrad...

The next hall, "Imagine Africa," was definitely geared towards obtaining visitor feedback and prompting reflection. They provided dry-erase markers to write on the walls in response to various questions about content and themes; I wrote a long response on one that probably took up all the space--fortunately it seemed difficult to erase my writing without the proper tools, so at least I know it'll be read by someone and not simply get wiped off by a visitor who wants to write something too XD

And then I went downstairs to the Sphinx.

I was BLOWN AWAY by the space. There is the sphinx, seated in front of several columns, all softly lit from below--the columns are AMAZING, and again I was really surprised at just how close I could really get. My museum and archaeologist identities are both strong enough to overcome the child "OMG I COULD TOUCH THIS" identity, but it was...really hard to resist wanting to touch the hieroglyphs...but seeing that one of the columns had PAINT on it definitely curbed my "want to touch" feelings.

Also...yeah. I am BLOWN AWAY by the fact that there are parts of an Egyptian temple in this museum. I mean, how likely is it that I'm going to go to Egypt and get to see these places for real? So that is really, really amazing--but, on the other hand, WHY DO WE HAVE PARTS OF AN EGYPTIAN PALACE IN THIS COUNTRY WTFFFFFFFF (You can see where the columns were cut so they could be transported. Sigh.) It's a seriously amazing Egyptian collection, but my anti-colonial sentiments had me going >_< a lot.

Cruised around the rest of the museum quickly so I could get to the Mutter Museum next with my friend Mike. Which was just wonderful--I think they negotiated the tension between "this is the history of medical teaching and learning, here are the very prosaic facts" and "ewwwww" really well. The coolest (recent) exhibit was on Grimm's fairy tales and the body. (I do, however, feel like it does sidestep questions of how oppressed and marginalized groups tended to get exploited for medical purposes--there were several skulls on the wall labeled "gypsy", for example, and a couple of suicides that were related to abject poverty...so...yeah...)

Mike took me out to lunch since we haven't spent much time together this semester, and then I went to the session on digital badging. I'm now charging my phone (took a TON of photos at the Penn Museum) and then going to head over to the reception my school is having tonight. On the agenda tomorrow...some more sessions and I have GOT to get some more work done. I keep doing little bits here and there but I feel like I'm going to be behind when I get home. :P