My Day In NYC: Day 1 B.H.S./DUMBO

Looking from the outside, its hard to see the thought process of how a museum executes a project when the thought process is often out of reach of the public. Today we heard from representatives of the Brooklyn Historical Society who gave a great insights by explaining their needs and limitations and how they’ve adapted to changes in audience expectations.

I was particularly taken with something our first speaker talked about. She spoke a lot about the need that the public has to process that they are living through history right now, and that in this day and age defining truth and history has been has never been more important.

When we reached the DUMBO site and toured the “Waterfront” exhibit I saw the “truth” of the Brooklyn water front through some engaging interactive displays. My personal favorite was an audio/visual installation titled “Rising Waters” which dealt with the waterfronts history from multiple angles including environmentalists, religious figures and academics. I enjoyed the fact that they included different perspectives to give a single story more nuance, and thus include more of the public with divergent backgrounds. It shows that there really is a progressive movement in the way museums engage the public.

NY Times Revisits Dumbo Brooklyn. 2013. Dumbo NYC. Retrieved from http://dumbonyc.com/blog/2013/08/29/ny-times-revisits-dumbo-brooklyn/

Untitled. 2017. Brooklyn Historical Society. Retrieved from http://brooklynhistory.org/exhibitions/current.html