Viewfinder Issue 15 Call for Abstracts: The New Museum Educator’s Curriculum
Viewfinder, an online publication focused on the intersection of museum education and social justice from the National Art Education Association’s Museum Education Division, is looking for abstracts and proposals for our 15th issue. We encourage museum education professionals and students of all levels to submit by the deadline of December 6, 2021.
Cries for change and ruminations on the future of museums have come and gone. Many museums have not lived up to their promises of transformation. Some have taken important steps towards equity. Many educators have willingly and unwillingly left museums, while many others have recently entered new positions. The context in which we work today is not the same as it was a year, five years, or ten years ago.
This issue asks: What is the new museum education curriculum? How can we rewrite the curriculum for museum studies and museum education studies? How can we make that curriculum accessible outside of academic programs? What is the role of the museum educator today? How should gallery education and programming be done in this current moment? What new models and resources should educators look to?
We are interested in traditional and experimental formats for submissions including:
Academic articles
Personal narratives and reflections
Artworks/poetry
Syllabi/lesson plans
Interviews
Exhibition or book reviews
Audio/video submissions
Lesson plans
Letters to emerging educators
You tell us! We want to support you and your vision.
Please fill out this form by December 6, 2021 to submit your abstract: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd4LzRdYkENuxQ8KFjWNmPF6vwCt3GNzxVA6PhAzXqhR4lZYQ/viewform?usp=sf_link. We look forward to reading your submissions!
Viewfinder Editorial Board
Dr. Daniela Fifi, Ed. D. (she/her/hers)
Daniela is an art educator and curator who has worked in museums and galleries in the Caribbean and The United States. She is the former Chief Curator at The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas and former curatorial specialist at The National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago. She is a doctoral graduate in Art and Art Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute, New York and a Master of Arts in Art Gallery and Museum Studies from the University of Manchester, UK. Her doctoral research focuses on Caribbean art and intercultural programming in museums. Daniela has been awarded several fellowships and awards during her career including the New York State Assembly — Caribbean Life Impact Award, The Museum Education Research Fellowship at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Samuel H. Kress Interpretive Fellowship. She has taught art education, world art history, and human development in the arts at The City College of New York and New Jersey City University. She is currently the Managing Editor of Small Axe Visualities: A Caribbean Platform for Criticism, a project of the Small Axe Journal (Duke University Press) and also serves on the peer-review board of The Art Education Journal, the official journal of the National Art Education Association (USA). In her spare time Daniela enjoys listening to music and being in nature.
Hannah Heller, Ed.D. (she/her/hers)
Hannah Heller is an NYC based art museum educator, and has worked at several cultural institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc., Whitney Museum of American Art, El Museo del Barrio, the American Folk Art Museum, and the Museum of Arts and Design. She has an Ed.D. in Art & Art Education from Teachers College, and holds a MA in Museum Education from Tufts University. Her current research focuses on anti-racist pedagogies and ways to mitigate the effects of Whiteness in gallery teaching practices. Follow her on Twitter @museum_matters!
Hallie Scott, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Currently the Specialist, University Audiences at the Hammer Museum, Hallie is committed to facilitating programs that center young people and generate exchange and learning between educators. Her previous experience includes overseeing teen programs as an Education Specialist at the J. Paul Getty Museum; working as the Education Director at the Wassaic Project, a contemporary art center and residency in Dutchess County, New York; and teaching art history courses as a Teaching Fellow at Brooklyn College. She has a PhD in Modern and Contemporary Art History from City University of New York, Graduate Center, and wrote her dissertation on artists, architects, and dancers who developed experimental education initiatives in the 1960s and 1970s.
Sierra Van Ryck deGroot (she/her/hers)
Sierra is the Assistant Director of Education for Poster House in NYC. She has a BA in Art, Design, and Interactive Media, Fine Art, and Art History from Seton Hall University and an MSEd in Museum Education from Bank Street College of Education. She is also a co-president of the National Emerging Museum Professionals Network, making up one half of the Sierras leadership team. In her free time, Sierra can be found reading, visiting a museum, or at an NYC Dig Inn.
