Download our ASK team training manual.

Over the course of a very exciting and whirlwind span of about eight months, our ASK team—at the time lead by Monica Marino—searched for answers to that very question. Through experimentation, conversation, a lot of trial-and-error with test groups, and continued examination now that the app is live, we have been able to codify this previously nebulous idea in the form of a training manual (authored by Monica) and through this process better define what ASK is all about. For example, we are able to define the main functions of ASK:

• A tool for engaging with Brooklyn Museum visitors: The primary purpose of the app is to engage visitors with the artwork that they encounter on their visit.
• An on-going experiment and driver of data: Because ASK is the first project of its kind it means that all who are involved will be part of shaping and defining what it is, and how it will be used.  Data collection and analysis is inherent in this process.
• A tool for collection research: Creating easily accessible research tools and resources are essential to the ASK project.

We have also determined four engagement goals for the app. We aim to hit at least two with every conversation, and if we hit all four, it feels like we won the lottery (hopefully visitors feel the same way and based on reviews, we think they do!):

• closer looking
  • Visitor notices details
  • Spends time looking at the object
• deeper exchange with the art object
  • Visitor leaves with information they did not have
  • Visitor makes their own interpretations about the object
• personal connection with the art object
  • Visitor connects with prior knowledge/memory
  • Visitor remembers the object (we can’t, of course, measure this! but we can hope for it…)
• making connections to other works in the collection
  • Visitor relates the object to another work in collection either on their own, or through our recommendation

Although we have these goals set down, we’re not content to just hum along. As our manual says, ASK is an on-going experiment and we’re always looking for ways to grow and improve. As part of this process, we’ve begun workshops with our Education staff in order to get feedback on ways to improve and ensure that ASK aligns with our overall engagements goals as a Museum.

As part of our first workshop, members of the education staff spent time in the galleries using the app.

The first workshop included having Education staff use the app in the galleries and also answer questions via the dashboard so that have they some context for providing feedback. Our next workshop will delve into the nitty-gritty of engagement, reviewing goals and best practices for engagement that may or may not translate from in-person gallery teaching to the app.

Equally important was time spent on the dashboard where members of the education staff answered questions coming in via the app with help from ASK team members.

As I hinted at at the beginning of this post, Monica is no longer our team lead (though we’re happy she’s still with BKM, just in a different role) and are delighted that Jessica Murphy, previous team member, has taken over that role. You’ll hear from Jessica in our next post about how the ASK team spends their time.

The True Body Project. Photograph courtesy True Body Project. Copyright Esther Freeman, True Body class of 2005.

This Mother’s Day program has grown out of a yearlong collaboration between the Brooklyn Museum and the True Body Project. Originally based in Cincinnati, the organization began conducting workshops with various New York-based community organizations in 2008 including Women of Storahtelling, We Got Issues, and the Arab American Association of New York to gather stories about women’s relationships with their bodies. The organization’s goal is to utilize art and performance as a means to facilitate promoting positive body image in young girls and women. During April’s Target First Saturday, representatives from the True Body Project shared their art-making process with Museum visitors by placing journals containing workshop participants’ reflections on each chair. The visitors were encouraged to leaf through the journals and read aloud entries that they personally connected with. The audience’s response was amazing with participants ranging in age from 10 to 65 reading to the group. Innovative and inspirational, the activity created a sense of connection across age, background, and experience. The Museum is thrilled to promote art projects which have grown directly out of collective voices and community collaboration. And, in a time of limited resources, this is a wonderful model for organizing quality and meaningful public programs on a shoestring.

The True Body Project captures workshop participants’ reflections on specific prompts in these shared journals. Photograph courtesy of the True Body Project.

This Sunday, May 10, the True Body Project will premiere their site-specific performance Body Language: Brooklyn Museum throughout the galleries. The performers will be responding to different installations in the Museum – including Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, the Museum’s well-known female figurine (known by most as the ‘Bird Lady’) in the Ancient Egyptian Art Galleries, and the Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Pavilion – with their own interpretive dance, new video, original song, and homemade replica sistra . Each piece combines Brooklyn women’s reflections on their bodies and lived experience with responses to the Museum’s artwork.

Take a sneak peak of the brilliant intergenerational theatrical work that will be in the Glass Pavilion. Here, the performers work out their spacing in advance of the program. Photograph by Cameron Anderson.

Many thanks to Lyndsey Beutin in Education for the following, and for her efforts to promote and co-organize the program. The True Body Project performs Body Language: Brookyn Museum throughout the Museum this Sunday, May 10th. For further details about the program please click here.

The latest exhibition in the Herstory Gallery, The Fertile Goddess, just opened on December 19, 2008. Imagine how delighted Sarah Giovanniello, Research Assistant, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, and I were to see this decoration, which Museum art class students kindly made for the Museum’s Holiday Party for staff! We immediately recognized many of the figurines from the exhibition.

The art instructor for the class, Reynolds, is an artist who has always been interested in goddesses and has even made some of her own goddess figurines. We are planning to visit her studio to see them after Elinor Gadon‘s talk tomorrow.

One fascinating aspect of working on this exhibition for me, as a scholar who studies ancient art, has been exposure to contemporary feminist art inspired by ancient female images. While scholars who study these ancient figurines often question their identification as goddesses, the reclamation of ancient female images and the concept of goddesses by feminist scholars and artists, beginning in the 1960s, is a rich field in itself. It is one that I have greatly enjoyed learning about from my co-curator, Maura Reilly, founding curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, and from Sarah.

It is also a pleasure to see young artists making their own versions of these image and we hope to see more in the coming months. For more education related activities, visit the link to the Teacher’s Packet for the exhibition found here.