Shared Authority as Pedagogy and Practice
Jessica Fuentes, Executive Director at Kinfolk House, and Alli Rogers Andreen, Manager of Family Programs at The Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Art museums are places where people from a vast array of lived experiences intersect: toddlers, engineers, academics, artists, and neighbors. A porous museum whose leadership structure encourages and values contributions from diverse sources will benefit from their varied expertise, building a firmer foundation for encountering futures unknown. Art museum educators have been calling for shared authority in museums for decades, and though this idea is pervasive in our field, we often find that in our institutions, the same hierarchies and decision-making processes persist (Skramstad, 1999; Duclos-Orsello, 2015).
In Letter to a Future Arts Educator, Pablo Helguera (2021) reconciles concerns about the future of museums as a matter of establishing “as many languages of action and methods as possible, on becoming versatile,” rather than attempting to predict specific futures for museum models that may never come to pass. Helguera asserts that art educators should examine the past and immediate present for lessons in leadership, to aid in establishing equitable ecosystems that adapt to change. In this sense, the future of museums necessitates the expansion of the spheres of influence in and around art museums, from visitors to artists to staff, and the creation of a living, breathing institution capable of adjusting to the future needs of society because it leans on, and compensates appropriately, the collective strengths of its contributors.
As two educators with a combined fifteen years in museums, we agree with Helguera, Maya Jeffries, and Tom Finkelpearl’s assertion that art museum education departments are often the most progressive and diverse areas of an institution (2021). However, it is important to be realistic about what museum educators, specifically those who are not in an official leadership position, can and should accomplish related to leading by example. It is common knowledge among museum workers that educators are one of the lowest-paid positions in museums. In “Gendered Labor: Redesigning Art Museum Education,” Nadine Kalin (2021) outlines how museum education work, historically undertaken by female volunteers or docents, finds itself in this economic inequity. The 2019 AAMD Salary Survey listed the overall median pay for associate educators (mid-level positions) as $55,000, well below the median pay for many other associate-level positions, including conservator ($64,119) and curator ($71,500). In addition to the low pay, educators are often overworked, operating with low budgets, and expected to deliver high attendance numbers. While the work educators do to make museums more inclusive and accessible spaces for all audiences should be seen as an example of how museums can shift, the work of creating those larger changes is rarely within the scope of museum educators’ jobs (AAMD Salary Survey, 2019). Museum leaders and board members should examine how and why educators successfully create spaces of shared authority with audiences and outside collaborators.
AAM’s report Excellence and Equity: Education and the Public Dimension of Museums, cites the importance of collaboration to “invite more participation from outside the museum in shaping ideas and making decisions and to augment the personal experience and professional expertise of a museum’s staff” (2008, p. 21). We observe that museums would also do well to encourage this exchange of expertise among staff by providing resources, developing training, and establishing platforms through which knowledge and ideas might be consistently shared and respected between staff at all hierarchical levels. While Rina Kundu and Kalin (2015) have drawn attention to some of the pitfalls of participatory approaches, namely that, at times, these approaches can be surface-level and in effect lead to appropriation, intentional shared authority can lead to museums that genuinely reflect the communities which they are a part of. A strengths-based approach to a more holistic museum leadership involves embracing a shared authority between individuals, the building blocks of which should be foundational to the structures of our education programs and collaborations. The following case studies will examine instances of shared authority in action and reflect on their applicability beyond the bubble of museum programs.
Co-Creating with Local Artists (written by Jessica Fuentes)
As a practicing artist actively involved in the local Dallas/Fort Worth art scene, a common complaint from my peers was that while they saw museums as a source of inspiration and aspiration, they did not feel valued or supported by these institutions. As a museum educator, I saw a way to engage with artists by co-creating innovative projects and programs to provide them with new opportunities and draw on their unique expertise and knowledge. This way of working disrupts the traditional hierarchy of the museum as an expert and creates a new space in which emerging artists have shared authority in the institution.
The C3 Visiting Artist Project at the Dallas Museum of Art’s Center for Creative Connections (C3), an interactive gallery for visitors of all ages, was a natural outgrowth from earlier initiatives. Inaugural C3 director Susan Diachisin, brought artists into the space to create site-specific installations and lead monthly programs. Looking for ways to expand opportunities for local artists, I worked with the museum’s accounting department, Interim Director of Education Amanda Blake, and C3 Education Coordinator Kerry Butcher, to retool C3 art materials to redistribute portions of the C3 budget to increase funds available to pay artists. In 2017, its inaugural year, the project selected four artists to partner with in various ways. Each artist had a three-month designated time, during which they installed an interactive component for visitors and led programs for various audiences in collaboration with the education team.
In my next role as Manager of School and Community Programs for the Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter), I was tasked with revamping the museum’s community outreach initiatives. Along with deepening the museum’s relationships with and developing new community partners, in fall 2018, I established the structure of the Carter Community Artist (CCA) initiative. Though the CCA program was similar to the C3 Visiting Artist Project, in that it brought together a group of artists to partner with the museum, it was developed to reflect the Carter’s specific goals of engaging with the community. Because of this focus on community building, rather than working with artists at different times of the year, the Carter committed to working with four artists simultaneously each year.
In her book, The Participatory Museum, Nina Simon (2010) distinguishes different ways museums work with visitors, including contributory, collaborative, co-creative, and hosted projects. These categories can help describe how the DMA and the Carter engaged with local artists. The C3 Visiting Artist Project is a collaborative project in which visitors serve as active partners but the project is still mostly controlled by the institution. The CCA initiative leans more toward co-created projects in which community members and museum staff work together from the beginning to develop the project with a shared sense of authority.
While the DMA set the overall theme of the project that C3 Visiting Artists would undertake, the artists’ proposals could take many shapes. In March 2017 artist and activist Janeil Engelstad developed a self-guided tour that connected a photograph in C3 to other works throughout the museum while discussing important and relevant social issues like housing and migration. That summer, artist Christopher Blay created a multi-piece installation providing various opportunities for visitors to draft and send messages “into the void.”
Through the C3 Visiting Artist Project, more often than not, local artists created installations in response to works on view. This made it challenging to share authority more liberally because museum installations have many requirements, from ADA specifications to visitor safety issues, particularly in a space like the C3, which saw as many as 40,000 visitors a month. Over time, we addressed these issues through better and more consistent communication, clearer contracts, and sharing examples of past collaborations. Overall, working with artists in this capacity was invaluable. Though many museum workers are practicing artists, having an outside perspective that is not bound by the limitations we learn and set upon ourselves after working in these institutions for many years pushed us to work in ways we might not have otherwise considered.
Because the CCA initiative was strictly centered on programming, it was easier to bring the artists in at the beginning stages of program development to be a part of conversations about goals, audiences, and general brainstorming. This level of co-creation decentralizes ownership of programs and events. Not only did they understand the institutional goals early on, but they helped shape the program with their goals and perspectives. Just as our field has moved away from cookie-cutter art-making activities that focus on product over process, working with the CCAs from brainstorming to implementation refocused their role as not just an artist who is valued for their skill to lead a program but a creative who is valued for their critical thinking and who helps shape all aspects of the program.
For 2020 CCA and muralist Sarah Ayala, working with teenagers who have struggled in the traditional classroom setting was an important personal goal. Ayala struggled in high school and took a non-traditional path; she now makes her living as a full-time artist. Ayala, administrators at Texans Can Academy (a local public charter alternative high school), and museum staff collaboratively developed a multi-session mural project for students. Over several weeks, Ayala met with students, both at the museum and in their classrooms, to talk about the process of mural work and to collaborate on a design. She then brought together sketches created by students into a cohesive plan. Ultimately, the students, Ayala, and museum staff painted the mural on a large wall at the school.
As administrators, as educators, and often even just as adults, it can be scary to cede control. In these roles, we often feel a sense of responsibility for the outcome that, when left unchecked, poses the threat of undermining larger intentions about cultivating a sense of belonging and creating relevant and impactful programs. But, it is through sharing authority that we broaden the possibilities of who can access museums and whose voices and perspectives are valued by these institutions.
Control, Library Books, and Families (written by Alli Rogers Andreen)
It would be impossible to undertake an honest conversation about shared authority and leadership and not broach the issue of control. Children are a worrisome bunch, after all. Their developing executive functioning skills, blossoming expressions of independence, and excitement in new spaces and with new people create stressful behaviors in a no-touch gallery setting. As Manager of Family Programs at the Carter, I work collaboratively to develop, facilitate, and market programs and resources for families with children of all ages. In this case study, I will discuss two facets of this work: outlining monthly family program goals and developing a Family Collection in the research Library.
The natural exploratory behaviors of childhood (wiggling, grasping, questioning, touching, tasting) are an asset, rather than a liability, to forming a firm foundation for learning (Lewis, C. & Murphy, L, 2022). Knowing and appreciating this, I reconsider the structure and purpose of family programs, letting go of the reins that serve to stifle children’s ability to navigate the world independently in favor of expansive and deeply personal learning opportunities. To this end, I scaffold the learning goals for my monthly family programs to prioritize learning across the domains of child development through family collaboration while decentralizing authoritative roles (NAEYC, 2022, p. xxxii). This flexible scaffold shifts from family to family, allowing learners to find their relevance within the structure of each program.
The family experience at the Carter is not an isolated one. With that in mind, I collaborate interdepartmentally to develop resources and practices informed by the needs of families beyond the bubble of family programs. Recently, in an ongoing collaboration with our research Library, we rolled out the Carter’s Family Collection. This growing collection of books ranges from board books to Young Adult chapter books, mirroring the content of the rest of the research Library in a mix of American history, botany, art history, artist biography, and cultural identity.
The Family Collection books are available in the research Library, in the same space where academic researchers come from around the country to access materials, and, most importantly, the Family Collection is cataloged alongside the rest of the materials in the research Library. It is not deemed lesser or separate. The board books about color and texture are in the same inter-library catalog as the historical tomes from the 19th century. A particularly intricate pop-up book provides the perfect stand-in for one of our rare books in our special collections, allowing children to practice the dexterity skills needed to handle fragile research materials with the guidance of the librarian on duty.
What’s important to know about this process is that it was an opportunity for the librarian and myself to share authority to create something that not only enhances family learning experiences but also values those experiences as highly as those of university professors and curators. It began with an innocent question from the Technical Services Librarian: “We have a lot of families come into the Library because they are fascinated by the space, but we don’t have any books that are age-appropriate for the children — do you think we could have a small selection from your children’s books to have available for them?” Her question sparked a question from me: What does research look like for a 4-year-old? And do you think we could explore that together?
Though I love children’s books and use them frequently in my programs, I am not a librarian. I do not know the science of information technologies, of cataloging books, or how to make them relevant and available to visitors. And our Technical Services Librarian knew all the ins and outs of academic art research libraries, but she did not have a strong background in early childhood development and children’s literature. Over the next several months and years, we worked together and learned from one another to build something new and special.
Conclusions
Though our roles in museums and the audiences we serve differ, we value and center intentional shared authority in our work. Some key takeaways for undertaking this work include the need to: set clear boundaries by establishing roles, expectations, and limitations upfront; acknowledge and step back from a traditional authoritative role; and use clear and direct modes of communication. As we integrate these values into our practices, it is only natural that we learn from experience and rethink our relationships with colleagues, developing strengths-based collaborative strategies that make room for healthy collective leadership.
Further reflection on our institutional relationships requires educators to ask questions of themselves in the context of daily communications, meetings, and shared projects: How and when am I seeking and reciprocating authentic feedback and support in my spheres of influence? How am I creating porous, expansive learning opportunities for my colleagues and community members? Where can I build community by sharing authority instead of seizing control? In engaging with these reflections and behaviors consistently and advocating for compensation in line with such contributions, we nurture a more holistic and equitable museum leadership model. Though, it is not simply enough to ask these questions of ourselves and to undertake this work on our own; it is equally important to be transparent and communicate clearly about how and why we are approaching external and internal community members with an eye toward shared authority.
Jessica Fuentes is an artist, educator, author, and arts administrator with over fifteen years of experience working in public schools, higher education, and museums. She holds a BA in Art & Performance from the University of Texas at Dallas (2004) and an MA in Art Education with a Museum Certification from the University of North Texas (2013). @jessicafuentes83 (Instagram)
Alli Rogers Andreen is an artist and museum educator specializing in early childhood and multigenerational (family) education. She earned a BFA in Studio Art with emphasis in Painting from Texas State University (2011) and an MA in Art Education with a Museum Education Certificate from the University of North Texas (2015). Rogers Andreen collaborates closely with Prickles the Jackalope, a friendly ambassador for early childhood audiences and lover of carrots. @alliexplosion (Instagram)
References
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