Issue 16 Letter from the Editor: Ways of Knowing: Contemplative Practices and Social Justice in Art Museum Education
Shannon Murphy, Guest Editor
Hannah Heller, Ed.D., Daniela Fifi, Ed.D., Editorial Board
While the field has seen an uptick in programs, articles, and conversation about “mindfulness practice” in museums, in my work with museum educators over the past decade, I have experienced varied hesitations towards it. Educators often feel insecure facilitating mindfulness, reckoning with their own spiritual origins, and have questions around how to create a therapeutic space within a museum. What has always surprised me was that, despite these reservations, mindfulness concepts themselves typically didn’t turn people off, and in fact most educators admitted that they were already practicing mindfulness in some shape or form without knowing it or calling it that. So when the Viewfinder staff approached me to contribute to an issue on mindfulness and healing, I was not surprised — it responds to recent issues focusing on racism, institutional reckoning, and the trials of the pandemic within museums — but I thought perhaps a broader theme of contemplative practices might help address some reservations while still exploring the concepts and practices that educators were already using.
During a recent conference about mindfulness in museums at the Getty, keynote speaker Rhonda V. Magee talked about using the term contemplative practices instead of mindfulness. She explained that the field of contemplative pedagogy is young and that there are many types of contemplative practices that can support education, requiring us to keep the door open and create space around our investigations (Magee, 2022). Loosely defined by many, contemplative practices might help people cultivate awareness to the present moment, create communion or connections with oneself and others, and/or favor another way of knowing that isn’t rational or sensory (Bai et al., 2009; Hart, 2004; Waters et al., 2015). Contemplative practices include a range of activities that can help people create meaningful connections to what they care most about.
Similar to mindfulness, contemplative practices have probably always been part of our work in museum education, but again, maybe we haven’t been aware that we were doing it. When I began attending conferences that included social agreements to set the stage for dialogues around social justice, I realized we were all delving into an important form of contemplative practice. We brought awareness to our internal biases, our positionality, our bodies, and the feelings and experiences of others within a group setting. Without giving it a name beyond “community agreement,” I watched colleagues jump right into contemplative practices without the hesitations I saw them previously experience. In fact, in many instances, contemplative practices have become the heart of social justice work. I hope that by sharing the stories, articles, artworks, and lesson plans within this issue, we can honor the histories, hybrids, and new forms of contemplative practices art museum educators have been developing as we continue to heal and take care of each other.
The articles in this issue include communal artmaking and poetry, yoga, body based pedagogies (Christofalou, 2021), trauma-informed principles (Armstrong et al., 2021), and lesson plans about art and activism. Each contribution outlines unique possibilities for incorporating contemplative practices within social justice work and education programming in art museums, and we are so grateful for their thoughtfulness and labor:
Describing the Artful Practices for Well-Being initiative at MoMA, Jackie Armstrong guides us through a poignant article on trauma-informed principles and contemplative practices in her article, “How Explorations of Art, Trauma-Informed Principles and Contemplative Practices Can Come Together to Support Well-Being and Nervous System Regulation.”
In her article “Facilitating Body Based Pedagogies in Museum Spaces: The Significance of Addressing Social Location and Positionality” Filippa Christofalou shares her strategies for using body based pedagogies to support museum educators in critically examining their own practice through an intersectional lens.
Wolfsonian–Florida International University’s Education Manager Luna Goldberg introduces us to the teen-created Zines for Progress (Z4P) in her article “Zines for Progress: Empowering Teens to Become Changemakers,” which highlights the artistic components of contemplative practices.
Alexis Jennings from the National Liberty Museum contributes “How to Create Change… Through Museums,” which focuses on strategies to foster a contemplative space to learn about protesting and becoming an activist inspired by local Philly activist Zoe Sturges.
In her article “Art Out Loud: How Participatory Programming Shapes Museums’ Role in Social Change and Community Dialogue” Nia McAllister, Senior Public Programs Manager at The Museum of the African Diaspora shares the extraordinary program MoAD Open Mic Night, which teaches us about the power of storytelling and contemplative practices.
Noguchi Museum Educator Luned Palmer brings deep breathing, emotional connection, and art making to her article “We belong here: A virtual anti-Racist lesson for Kindergarteners featuring artists Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya and Isamu Noguchi.”
Lauren Argentina Zelaya developed Yoga on the Stoop at the Brooklyn Museum. In this interview with yoga instructor Megan Miles titled “Yoga on the Stoop at the Brooklyn Museum: Responding to Social Unrest Through Contemplative Practice,” she describes expansive modes of engagement and how they transform spaces to make visitors feel welcome.
Please enjoy, and share your feedback with us via comments on the articles and on social media!
Guest Editor: Shannon Murphy (she/her)
Shannon Murphy is an art educator and administrator. She has taught in schools all over New York City, and has held teaching and programming roles at Teachers College, Columbia University, The Noguchi Museum, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. She holds a BFA in Photography from The Rhode Island School of Design, and an MA in Art History from The City College of New York.
Editorial Board
Dr. Daniela Fifi, Ed. D. (she/her)
Daniela is an art educator and curator who has worked in museums and galleries in the Caribbean and The United States. She is a Cultural Research Consultant at the Brooklyn Arts Council. 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 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 (she/her)
Hannah is a Philly based museum researcher, consultant, and educator. She’s worked at several cultural institutions including the 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, Columbia University and an MA in Museum Education from Tufts. Her research focuses on blending object-based and antiracist pedagogies, and exposing impacts of Whiteness in gallery teaching practices. She currently works as a consultant for a museum research firm called Kera Collective, where she focuses on exhibition evaluation and audience and market research. She regularly presents her work at professional conferences and has published her findings in various publications including the Incluseum, Viewfinder, The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, and the Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education. Follow her on Twitter @museum_matters!
References
Armstrong, J., L. Evans, S. Legari, R. Tulgan Ostheimer, A. Palamara, and E. Wiskera. (2021, October 2). Weaving Trauma Awareness into Museum Education. Journal of Museum Education 46, no. 4, pp.: 454–66.
Bai, H., Scott, C., & Donald, B. (2009). Contemplative Pedagogy and Revitalization of Teacher Education. The Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 55(3), 319–334.
Christofalou, F., (2021). Body Based Pedagogy in Museums. Roots & Routes: Research in Visual Arts, https://www.roots-routes.org/body-based-pedagogy-in-museums-by-filippa-christofalou/
Hart, T. (2004). Opening the Contemplative Mind in the Classroom, Journal of Transformative Education, 2(1), 28–46.
Magee, R. V. (2022, August 23). Being Well, Together: Reflections on Mindfulness in the Museum Experience in a Time of Social Distress [Conference Keynote presentation]. Mindfulness in the Museum Convening, Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uzwRlSNyeQ
Waters, L., Barsky, A, Ridd, A., & Allen, K. (2015). Contemplative Education: A Systematic, Evidence-Based Review of the Effect of Meditation Interventions in Schools. Educational Psychology Review, 27, 103–134.
