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Paul Bowers in Museum Musings

Mar 19, 2020

Exhibition development — culture and roles

And for my last Museum Musings post, I’m sharing a section of Museums Victoria’s Exhibition Development Guide. All work is done by people; methodologies get nothing done alone, they must be enacted. So this is the section of the Guide that’s about…

Paul Bowers in Museum Musings

Nov 23, 2017

They’re not ‘labels’ & they’re not ‘didactics’

The word ‘label’ to refer to ‘text in an exhibition’ is a hang-up of ivory tower snobbery and needs to stop. And ‘didactic’ to mean ‘a panel on the wall with lots of words on it’ is even worse. Ready to argue? OK.

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Paul Bowers in Museum Musings

Jul 2, 2018

Audience first experience-making for museums and heritage — a practical guide

@BethHise and I co-presented at the 2018 MGA Conference in Melbourne — a fascinating experience as we didn’t always agree on some things we each saw as basics. So here’s my take, illuminated by…

Paul Bowers in Museum Musings

Jan 30, 2020

Opening your big new museum thing? Hints and tips for a ‘Readiness Project’

Paul Bowers in Museum Musings

Aug 24, 2017

Bureaucratic radicals

This is a work-out-my-thinking post, inspired by a remarkable twitter convo on radical ideas started by Abhay Adhikari earlier this week, then specifically by suse cairns ‘s reply and the many other back and forths that led me to flippantly write ‘bureacratic radicals’ Credit and thanks to…

Paul Bowers in Museum Musings

Sep 20, 2017

Exhibition development approvals — how to get higher quality and happier people

How do we get exhibitions right? They’re expensive, complex and risky, and balance competing and overlapping issues to serve our audiences well, deliver our mission and satisfy funder…

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Paul Bowers in Museum Musings

Mar 31, 2019

The tedious rigour of making playful experiences

Paul Bowers in Museum Musings

Nov 10, 2017

Museums: let go of authoritative exhibitions

Provocative title? Maybe. And this is a bit of a haphazard post. But I’m essentially proposing that museum exhibitions should stop trying to be the sources of authoritative information to the public. Maybe they aren’t best placed to do this anymore?

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Paul Bowers in Museum Musings

Sep 4, 2017

Recruiting Unicorns

I’m hiring to three vacancies at work at the moment, and I hear through my networks that some people are hesitant to apply. One reason I hear is totally bogus: ‘I might not have everything you’re looking for’. Tl;dr: no-one does. Bogus reason, never hold back because of this fear. Here’s what…

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Paul Bowers in Museum Musings

Oct 25, 2018

A day with Nicholas Serota

What does the UK’s Tate art museum group have in common with my last thursday? Nick Serota, Director of Tate from 1988–2014 spent the day with the Museum Leadership 2018 Cohort in Sydney.

These were the top 10 stories published by Museum Musings; you can also dive into yearly archives: 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.

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Museum Musings

Thoughts on museum experiences and leadership

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