MuseumNext Europe 2017 Rotterdam

MuseumNext Europe 2017 is done! This year Rotterdam's hosted 500 'Game Changing' museum professionals, leaders, storytellers, designers, etc. for the conference that asks - just like President Bartlett

The conference has evolved into three evenings and days of social, participative sessions and content. Sometimes edgy, sometimes predictable but I always find takeaways: new ideas, things to research and new friends for Twitter and LinkedIn to keep in touch with. The first evening for early arrivals was drinks at Belasting Douane Museum Rotterdam where we were treated to a demonstration of dog handling and how Indie and Jack smell out drugs. The wee Jack Russell sniffed out 2,500Kg last year!

We went pink this year!

Day 1 - Discovery and Orientation

I reluctantly visited the Maritime Museum and was so impressed another blog will follow with what's there, it was surprising! A relaxed first day with informal workshops, tours and social events allows delegates to settle in, catch up with old friends and meet new delegates - it's a conference I try not to leave anyone standing alone for long. Local venues open to host and their staff also come and mingle and all sorts of new connections are made. Attending fascinating talk at Het Nieuwe Instituut introduced me to someone who is researching physick garden plants of the Dutch during their colonisation and how it impacted their medical remedies. It's also a courageous and confident move to open a venue to a museum conference, how many others would happily welcome the professionals in?

Days 2 & 3 - Talks and Workshops

Content heavy with time to visit the carefully selected sponsors and mingle. My key memories and learning from these two days:

• Honor Harger from ArtScience Museum presented, woweeee!!! Singapore has an awesome exhibition partner in teamLAB. She presented Future World Where Art Meets Science illustrating the challenge of exhibiting in bits versus atoms, using technology the exhibition is able to take drawings and integrate them into the wall displays converting atoms into bits. It was exciting to see different ways of entering the exhibitions, slide in, crawl in, etc.  Another exhibition Into the Wild has the museum partnering with the big technology players Google, Lenovo, etc.  and is challenging their visitors on climate change direct with 21st century technology. Guests learn about the ecological damage in nearby Indonesia and are invited to plant a virtual tree in VR and the institution then plants a real one to offset the thousands of trees burning in fires threatening the habitats of endangered animals and also contributing to the city's smog. Incredible visitor number growth shows the engagement and fun is wanted.
• The Lost Palace is coming back this summer. See my last post gushing about the experience. The project manager honestly explained what went well and what went wrong. Always entertaining Tim Powell shared the painful experience of not getting the marketing right. This year they have revamped it and supplemented with images from last year. A must see if in London July to September. 
• The British Museum has created an engaging and informative sex and relationship education programme for Key Stage 3-5 kids. Working with an artist and using the collection in the gallery they are seeing strong results, positive and negative press coverage from Mary Beard and Daily Mail - a true measure of a programme's impact. Melany Rose and Chloe Cooper gave a great presentation. More info in the blog by Melany.
• Dave Patten from Science Museum shared some of their initiatives in the hackathon and the new maths gallery at Science Museum uses VR to show the mathematics behind flight of the installed biplane. The graphics and effect were captivating and feedback positive, except it seems the five minute experience is too long for the participants' friends and family to wait! 

The city has art everywhere, some inspiring messages like this. 

Some that can't be explained!

• Te Papa museum continues to innovate, even if the farthest museum from Rotterdam. Miri Young shared the new Lab called Hinatore  - Maori for phosphorescent or glimmer - is bringing all ages to the museum to create, learn and participate. 
• Adam Lerner from Museum of Contemporary Art Denver pushed the marmite button with his ending keynote. He took us back to where it started as a regular edgy talk in a shopping mall where two unrelated topics were thrown together with an expert speaker on each like, Andy Warhol and Artificial Lighting. It has ended with him Director and Chief Animator of MCA with the same philosophy but working with a bigger team on the output. He was honest and humorous and the audience seemed jealous/appreciative of his (I think) 70% 18-30 audience, but is it too risky to bet the organisation on such unconventional strategy?
• I learned of new tools to try for improving efficiency and effectiveness from the very engaging O'Banion sisters
• Deborah Cullinan from Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts returned to the MuseumNext stage to share CultureBank. Currently the output of a think tank they are seeking to change the museum and society paradigm to introduce other returns on investment. The mission is to generate culture that moves people, because culture is the essential catalyst for change. Skills exchange, etc. could reduce the power of money and address the growing wealth gap. Cullinan  has significant partners on board and it's an ambitious concept which requires political - local and national - acceptance. If you know me and my healthy scepticism... it is great to try new things.
• Johan Idema presented confidently on The Big Art Show. A theatrical show delivered in The Netherlands with 10 art works loaned from nearby institutions interpreted with drama, storytelling and lighting effects. It's based on his argument that the white cube's time is up and by flipping art into the black cube a greater experience can be delivered. I am fascinated by audience engagement with art and another blog is following about this concept. A question from the floor challenged if galleries are white cubes anymore. Also, a growth in cinemas beaming blockbuster exhibitions and curator tours across the UK is adding visits to the exhibitions at a lower cost than The Big Art Show could imagine. 
• Olga Subiros gave a snapshot of The Big Bang Data travelling exhibition. The examples she included were captivating in illustrating the data that surrounds us. Face masks made from found DNA, artworks simulating the wave flow surrounding a buoy in the Pacific Ocean in realtime and one I found on the website, finding a cat from Instagram using the photo's GPS meta data. 

Not as many screens in the audience as previous years?

Jim, Kala, the team of volunteers and any behind the scenes contributors did an amazing job to create another memorable, inspiring and collegiate conference that has left me with new ideas, thoughts and new contacts to move forward. Inviting representatives from #MuseumDetox allowed many of the presentations to be viewed from multiple approaches. Videos will reach the MuseumNext website soon (probably here) and next year it is returning to London for the 10th birthday. The wedding anniversary gift after 10 years is tin or aluminium, I wonder if the name badges will be reflecting this?