Mummies and Daddies

For Fathers Day this year, I took my dad to the Detroit Science Center to see The Accidental Mummies of Guanajuato.
Sure, he drove… and paid… but it was my idea, so I’m still saying that I “took” him there.

The Accidental Mummies of Guanajuato is a traveling exhibition by The Detroit Science Center and The Accidental Mummies Touring Company LLC, along with Manuel Hernandez/Firma Culturato. The exhibition will begin touring nationally after its initial stint in Detroit. It features 36 accidental mummies from the Museo de las Momias de Guanajuato. While there is an entire museum in Mexico that is dedicated to their care, this is the first time that any of the mummies have ever been seen outside of Mexico. The exhibition opened in Detroit in October of 2009 and will begin touring before the end of 2010 until 2012.

The Detroit Science Center is directly across the street from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Every day, as I am leaving work and driving up John R, I am taunted by the creepy yet exciting posters and flags that hang around the science center. I have wanted to see this exhibition since I came back to Detroit in May!

After all of that hype, I was not disappointed.

I love mummies. I have loved mummies for as long as I can remember. As I kid, I had giant (taller than me, at the time) cardboard books about Egyptian mummies, books about the bog mummies, sarcophagus pencil cases, mummy activity books, King Tut masks, huge inflatable mummies, and I even made a canopic jar in art class (I was a weird kid but my parents supported my interests). So when the Guanajuato mummies came to town, I was ready!

I was told not to take pictures inside the exhibition, so being the respectful museum professional that I am, I urge you to go to http://accidentalmummies.com/photo-gallery.php and see the exhibition photos.  They're better than what I would get with my camera anyway.

My dad has been to lots of museums with me and has seen the great and the not-so-great exhibitions, but we were both floored by the first gallery and found the rest of the exhibition equally as impressive and enjoyable.

I was impressed by several things:

1.) The respect with which the mummies were displayed.  It's a tough thing to display deceased human beings.  It even sounds weird as I'm typing it... "display".  But the Science Center did a nice job with it.  They weren't on rotating platforms or set up to look like they were playing poker with each other.  The displays were simple, informational, and still engrossing.

2.) The design of the exhibition.  The first room, made to look like the cemetery in which they were found, was simply fantastic.  Being the nerd that I am, I thought to myself, "I bet the exhibits department had a ball fabricating this!"  The second room was the more simple, respectful display, and the third was made to look like a research lab-- complete with CT scanner and video of research methods and forensic facial reconstruction.  That was my dad's favorite part. 

3.) The interpretive texts.  Each panel was in English and Spanish and they were all well written.  They provided information that was easy to understand, and served as a valuable reference while we were in the exhibition.  Dad and I even went back to a few text panels in previous galleries to double check our facts.  It is unusual for me read every text panel in an exhibition, but it's also unusual for every text panel to be informative and useful.

I was also less-than-impressed with some others:

1.) Inventive histories.  This was a tricky one for me, and I'm still trying to decide what I think.  While the text panels about how accidental mummification occurs, Mexican history, etc., were very well done, I had an issue with some of the "stories" inside the cases with the mummies.  Many of the stories seemed to be fabricated with the intent of tying these mummies in with some middle school social studies.  A lame attempt to comply with the GLCEs and HSCEs.  I saw right through it.  These stories said things like, "This is a mummy of a woman who died in 1850.  Women often played music for Spanish settlers around that time.  This woman many have played music for Spanish settlers."  Really?  I mean... really?  This poor woman may have been the most talented chef in town and lived her entire life without touching a musical instrument... but because she is a woman, and the Science Center is desperate to hit those Social Studies GLCEs, suddenly she played guitar for Spanish settlers.  That irked me a little bit.

2.) Dumb parents.  This is not the Science Center's fault, but when Dad and I were reaching the end of the exhibition, I suddenly heard a blood curdling scream from the entrance.  It was clearly a terrified child, discovering a mummy.  These accidental mummies became mummified because the cement of the mausoleum wicked the moisture out of their bodies.  When bodies dry out like this, the mouth often opens.  Thus, almost every mummy looked like it was screaming.  To a kid, that could be pretty intense.  I've already touched on my lifelong affection for mummies... but I'm not sure how I would have reacted to a "screaming" mummy when I was young.  It's tough to say.  I mean, I really liked mummies.  Anyway, perhaps the visitor services rep should have advised this parent that this exhibition is not for children, but I think it's really the parent's decision-- and this parent made the wrong one.

However, those two minor issues did not noticeably detract from my overall enjoyment of the exhibition.

When I was taking my first undergrad course in museum studies (Introduction to Museum Work), my advisor (and professor), Lynn Fauver told us, "Taking this course will ruin any museum visit you have from now on."  He seemed to think that knowing about museums would suck the enjoyment out of the visit.  I have now come to disagree.  I really liked Lynn.  He was a great and fair advisor, an enthralling lecturer and he was incredibly knowledgeable about the museum field.  But in this respect, I think he's full of it.

The more I learn about museum work, the more I am able to enjoy a museum visit on multiple levels.  I am excited to see the exhibition itself, but I am also excited to see how it was produced and what choices the museum staff made.  It's gotten to the point where I just want to know everything I can about how and why museums do what they do.  I am able to walk into an exhibition like The Accidental Mummies of Guanajuato and be awestruck by the mummies-- imagining their stories, thinking about the science of mummification, looking at their clothing, etc.-- while also checking the temperature and RH inside the cases, looking at the mounting hardware, lighting, layout, interpretive texts, and so on. 

I am honestly and truly interested in all aspects of an exhibition like that.  I may be alone on this, but knowing there is 44% RH inside of the mummy's case does not ruin the magic for me.  (Sidebar: Some mummies were displayed laying on their backs, while others were mounted upright.  Those laying down had 23-26 RH in the case, while the upright ones had 44-46 RH in their cases.  My theory is that those who were laying down were so fragile that not only could they not be mounted in an upright position, but that they also needed drier conditions.  Thoughts?)

So, if you like sausage and you respect the law, you shouldn't watch either one being made.  Instead, spend your day at a museum.  You'll like that better, I promise.

New Projects

Today I met the curator of Islamic art. I complimented her on the excellence of the newly-opened permanent Islamic art exhibit. Two days ago, I would have had nothing to say to this woman, I was happy that I'd had a chance to wander through that part of the museum.

Things on the third floor were pretty slow today. I send out a handful of emails, and was pretty much done for the day.

Around noon, I told Sondra that I was going down to the cafe to grab a quick bite and that I'd be back soon. She told me to grab a "slow bite" and to take my time and maybe check out a gallery or two.

So I took a long lunch and toured the new special exhibition: Through African Eyes. It was fantastic! One of the pieces reminded me of something I saw at the Harn not too long ago. It was a kente cloth made out of bottle caps and wine foils. The rest of the exhibition was great, as well. It was a little different from what I expected (truthfully, I don't know what I was expecting) but it was really interesting and very well put together. There were a few school groups with docents and I eavesdropped on their tours for a little bit, but I think I was making one of the docents nervous, so I left her alone after that. I don't know enough about African art or colonialism to dissect the exhibition much more, but I thought it was interpreted well, and provided a lot of contextual information. It was an interesting divergence from the VTS tour I observed yesterday.

Later this afternoon, I was offered two additional projects, which I promptly accepted.  One came from Sondra.  She has asked that in addition to my list of partners to be submitted to the AAMD, I create a synopsis of each program that could eventually be used in millage campaigns and grant applications.  For this, I will need to attend as many programs as possible, take some snapshots, and talk to some of the participants.  By combining my words and thoughts with those of the participants, the idea is that I will communicate the value of the program to the museum and the community.  I'm especially excited about this project because it means I get to GO to all of the programs that I'll be profiling.  I'm stoked!

 

The second project came from Larry, who is the head of Public Programs.  I was just headed out the door-- almost outside-- when he called my name and told me about this gem.  This year is the DIA's 125th anniversary!  To celebrate, they will be doing some guerrilla outreach that sounds pretty wild.  They're making reproductions of the most famous paintings in the DIA, framing them up in elaborate faux-gold frames and installing them all around the greater Detroit area.  I'm told there will be more than 40, total.  Once they've been installed, someone (read: an intern) then needs to GO to all of these locations to talk to people about  the art and why it's there.  The first painting to be installed will be Watson and the Shark, which I'm told is very popular with visitors.

 

Watson and the Shark, John Singleton Copley (1777)

On the whole, I'm really excited about these two additional projects.  Everything seems to be in line with my interests (which isn't hard to do, as I love pretty much everything about museums) and I'm thrilled to be involved with projects that will have a measurable impact on my community.

Road Rage

I haven't started my internship yet.  I'm not in Detroit... or even the Midwest yet.  But I have something that needs to be discussed.

While driving up I-75 this afternoon, somewhere between Chattanooga and Knoxville, TN, I saw a billboard.  Now, I had been looking at billboards non-stop for about 7 hours at this point but one still managed to catch my eye.  It was for a Titanic "exhibition" in Pigeon Forge, TN. 

Now, I have been to Pigeon Forge.  In Pigeon Forge, there are no less than 20 go-kart tracks, with miniature golf courses and "old-timey" photo booths interspersed between them.  Pigeon Forge is also home to the infamous Dollywood.  Nowhere in Pigeon Forge did I ever see anything that resembled a museum.

I was unable to snap a photo of the billboard because I was driving, but I managed to find a similar image on their website-- now that I am safely at my hotel in Knoxville.

The billboard I saw on I-75 featured this same woman.  However, she was gesturing toward an image of the ship as if to say, "Welcome aboard!" with a big, toothy grin... something similar to this:

There are so many things I find appalling about this (both the billboard and the "exhibition") that I think it would be best to just make a list.

1. Who is Steve Casuco?  I too saw the Titanic exhibition in Chicago, and much like the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., it combined educational tactics that can engage visitors of all ages and education levels with a general sense of reverence and respect for the massive loss of life that the exhibition commemorates.  I can certainly acknowledge that there are other aspects to a Titanic exhibition than tragedy alone.  There are great feats of engineering, environmental issues, social stratigraphy, and marine science that all warrant discussion within the context of such an exhibition.  However, these things must be approached with a certain amount of sensitivity, and the exhibition that I visited in Chicago achieved this with resounding success.  As a child, I was engaged (as was my father, who was with me) by holding on to a "boarding pass" throughout the exhibit, which allowed me to become invested in the life of an actual Titanic passenger.  This boarding pass is the only thing I could possibly cite as a "gimmick"
2. Why is the woman on the billboard smiling?  She is dead.  This woman is dressed as a maid of some kind, and thus most likely did not survive the sinking of the Titanic.  Although I am fairly certain that this was not the intent of the designers behind it, this ad strikes me as a kind of mockery.  Imagine a theme-park modeled after a Katrina-stricken New Orleans, in which you would be greeted by a woman standing on a rooftop, smiling and waving towel to greet you.  I find this kind of characterization-- turning a shipwreck victim into a mascot-- to be completely tasteless and lacking in any kind of educational value.
3. Some of the "activities" that accompany this "exhibition" seem highly inappropriate.  Weddings?  Really?  If that's not enough, you can also "Send an SOS signal from the ship's wireless communications room".  I could even get behind a hands-on component that deals with Morse code and early wireless communication... but does it have to be an SOS?  Something about that strikes me as being a mockery of real events.

After all of that, I found the website to have one redeeming quality: their "Education" section was very comprehensive.  They claim to have activities for math, science, geography, and language arts / social studies lessons.  While the math and geography activities were a bit fluffy, the science activities weren't bad, and the language arts / social studies activities left some room for critical thinking and discussion, which is great.

I see this as being a "lowest common denominator" issue.  When groups of kids are visiting the "exhibition" with teacher guidance, they are presented with opportunities for reflection, critical thinking, discussion, and sensory engagement.  Yet, when the same "exhibition" is marketed to the general public, it is portrayed as a kitchy, fun, day trip that has no connection to the catastrophic event on which it is based.

I would like my peers' input on this.  Am I being overly critical of a simple roadside attraction?  Or is the Pigeon Forge Titanic a prime example of what can go horribly wrong with "blockbuster" museum exhibitions?  Also-- thoughts on this?