La Frontera at MAD
Today prompted me to examine what I think a museum will be exhibiting simply by the name. Which I think is something that is probably pretty common. We visited the Museum of Arts and Design which at first I though would be a museum about beautiful and delicate works of art and jewelry. I honestly did not expect to find an exhibition on the issues surrounding the United States- Mexican Border but that is exactly what I found.
Though I have seen a few exhibitions in museums and galleries about the hardships of crossing the U.S — Mexican border I had not seen one quite like this. The artists used metal, wood, leather, glass, and other materials to create piece of work that represented their journey, thoughts, and feelings about the U.S -Mexico Border as well as the Central America-Mexico Border and the train known as La Bestia (the Beast).
The artists where from Mexico, Latin America, the U.S, and Europe all exploring this broad subject and what it meant to them. As this was an topic that hits close to home I tried to take in as much as I could while attempting to listen to the docent who was giving the tour. While she seemed very knowledgable to the facts surrounding the exhibition I felt that she was unsure of how to answer some questions. It made me curious about the training that they receive and whether they were prepared to answer questions that might be uncomfortable or controversial. When I was a docent at the Museum of Tolerance we could not state personal opinions on topics but rather were trained to answer them as neutrally as possible. Is there standard training tools or material for museums and docents with difficult topics? If not, should there be? If so, what should the look like? There have always been difficult topics that are exhibited in museums and a lot of them have done amazing jobs in working with the public to answer questions or issues raised. How did they get to that point? What factors did they have to take into consideration? These are questions that I would like to find the answer to.
By the way, the exhibit was indeed beautiful and delicate.
