I am always nervous when I ‘put something new out there’ or complete a project. I know that some people will hate the work that I have done, some will love the work and most will fall somewhere between the extremes (of loving and hating the new work). This is my current ‘test’ for how ‘good’ something I have done is—I ask myself “Am I proud of and happy with this?” If the answer is “Why, yes, yes I am!” then it does not matter what anyone else thinks. I have done what was necessary, I have created what needed to be created . . . mission accomplished, project done . . . NEXT! ^_^/♡

 

 

Back on 23 Sep 2005 I wrote:

"I was recently told by a friend that my dreams are divorced from reality. I told them that I didn't think it was as serious as all that. At this point, as far as I knew, my dreams and reality were only separated. Unfortunately I do have reason to believe that my dreams have started seeing other realities, so you never know . . ."

Six years ago, I was convinced that my dreams and reality would never come to reconciliation. I am happy to report that I quite recently had a lovely long luncheon with my dreams and reality. Though their relationship continues to be tumultuous, they seem to have finally patched things up. They have renewed their vows and routinely schedule quality time together. My dreams and reality are working diligently on a daily basis to be more constructive in their communication and to be more attentive to each other's needs; so far, so good. :)

Chapter two from Dr. Golding’s book, Learning at the Museum Frontiers discusses long-term collaborative research with the Caribbean Women Writer’s Alliance (CWWA) at the frontiers of the Horniman Museum in London. They aim in cooperations with museums and the Black Body research network to ‘break the museum silence’. Deals with issues of ownership and cultural heritage. Deals with differing interpretations of African social history and with feminist-hermeneutic perspectives of literary and cultural heritage studies.

 

Things I most enjoyed about the article included its inspiring and cogent quotes, the blending of poetic language and traditional academic writing conventions (I was reminded that there are some truly impressive and wonderful writers in the world), the use of first-person for self-revelation, the observation of Gardner’s eight intelligences, the detailed examples of how the ‘history’ changed depending upon the docent . . . the repeated grounding of the project’s academic and social diversity into museum praxis.

 

Question . . . are any of us that have been raised within European educational scaffolding completely free from hierarchal and colonialist paradigms of thought and behaviour? Implicit in the article is an answer of ‘no’ to this question, with exciting opportunity and provision for change.

 

I observe within myself and the expressions of the artists/scholars in the article that we are all in a sense at war with our own cultural identity and beliefs--or rather, what we believe to be ‘the truth’ about our own culture and identity! There is a profound internalisation of what is often termed the ‘Western’ perspective teamed with a tendency toward an exclusionary, bifurcated social mentality. Good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, true vs. false . . . there seems to be a strange and very powerful social dictum that there be ‘one’ good-right-truth, one way of being and/or perceiving . . . perhaps based in religious or competitive commercial socialisation patterns? Where is the mutual trust? Where is the mutual expression of respect?

 

The exciting thing about this project and the article, is that this kind of cross-disciplinary discussion fosters the recognition of this deeply entrenched, inadequate interpretation and proposes avenues for how to move on from it, while supporting the use of collections in an active and participatory way. In fact, activity is the the prescribed avenue. :) Simply observing the objects isn’t necessarily transformative. This of course presents challenges for the role of curator as conservationist/guardian . . . but perhaps invites the question, what is it exactly that we are guarding these objects against and preserving them for? It would seem that in order to fully research and understand the meaning of objects we need to actively use and employ objects in creative community. 

 

I've read nothing but good about Steve Jobs on the occasion of his passing. His work fostered such creative possiblity and meant so much to the world. At the Apple page they have the following:

If you would like to share your thoughts, memories, and condolences, please email rememberingsteve@apple.com

 

I suppose it is natural to reflect on previous experiences when starting new ones. I found this journal entry from 2007 about my time in Bellingham. It seems a lifetime ago!

 

23 Feb 2007

Heading: Jordan Rain.

Current mood:sleepy

The band broke up, the bulldozers moved in and condos were scheduled to be built where the flop used to be. But I remember staring up at a bedroom ceiling. He'd painted it blue, with sponged on clouds and starry, glow-in-the-dark constellations—just like the real night sky, so that he could point them out to me in the small hours . . . Draconis and Orian, Big Bear and Little Bear . . . before I moved out into a place of my own he painted a star on the ceiling and gave it my name. "See now, I'll always know where to look for you." 

There were five people, plus Tim-the-poet-in-residence, officially renting the flop/flat. In actuality, there were always more--even on the nights when the band wasn't shilling an impromtu, in-house gig, rousting for the rent. Some months the coffee can was more full than others but there was always soup on the stove, toast and tea.

There was an old pipe running the span of the doorway between the kitchen and living room which I habitually used to swing across the threshold for luck. Tim laughed at me and said, "You really don't care what anyone thinks of you, do you?" Jordan threw his drumsticks in the air trying to catch and toss them like hacky-sacks from his feet to his elbows, to his knees and back to his hands again, intoning in a strange sing-song voice,"Should she? Should she be like you? Should she be like me?" He missed his footing and fell. 

Years later Jordan and I stood in the street together, waiting for the bus headed towards a new university, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his tousled hair hanging in his eyes. Jordan had been the first person I had met when I first arrived in town; we had been on the same bus together. In his case, he had been "travelling" in order to avoid some socio-political situation and was now returning after what was presumably an acceptable cooling-off period. As we walked up the hill he observed that the street clock had stopped. We had walked for hours through trees and past sculpture gardens in the soft grey northwestern stillness. He might have been a serial killer, but I trusted him and we ate wild blackberries and sang songs about spiders and waterspouts, churches and steeples, Jacks and Jills.  

During the subsequent days, turned to months, turned to two years, I had variously been considered important and unimportant, sweet, cruel, witty, dull . . . I had played may parts in the ongoing community drama. I had seen so many others appear, deliver their lines and exit but had thought all along that I was different than all of those . . . guest appearances. I thought I belonged. I'd been wrong. I was not one of the constants. I was just another variable in the equation of Bellingham.

Jordan gave me my first place to stay and then later on, as I repeatedly found and lost my own way, we weren't always together. Yet now he was here again, as if we had never been apart. He stood waiting with me for the bus that would take me away. "When you go," he said, "--everyone else here will forget you, because that's what they do . . . but I won't. I remember everyone--I'll remember you." He turned and walked away; I was left to wait on my own. As the bus pulled out of town, I noticed that someone had finally fixed the clock.

 

I was very grateful for the presentation by Reiji Takayasu of Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science today. I had a couple of questions but wasn't sure if they were appropriate. I was very interested in impact of the earthquake (and subsequent events) upon the people of Japan; if that event has changed the visitor demographics and expectations of the visitors to the museum? It seems like it must have done . . . and I'm wondering how this impact may have presented the museum with an opportunity to help the people of Japan deal with the terror that they went through. How are families in Japan handling the uncertainty of global climate change and what those changes might mean for the future? I wasn't sure however if it would have been a welcome topic. The earthquake was devastating and it must still be very difficult for Japan. 

I also wasn't certain if I should ask about the arguments for and against the employment of abductive reasoning in experiential education because, well, it is a contentious debate, isn't it? It seems like much of what human beings do in the meaningful development of knowledge is based upon association and inference but some of the traditionalists will go running down the halls, shouting: "Oh no! It's a potential causal fallacy! Post hoc ergo propter hoc! Run away! Run away!"

 And yet . . . to me, it's in those moments when we deeply and viscerally experience the environment and say to ourselves "Oh, I see the connection now," --then in turn share that awareness with others--it's in those moments that knowledge becomes life affirming. But if I understood the presentation it seemed to me that there was a wonderful balance of classical inductive and deductive reasoning to form a checks-and-balances relationship with the inclusion of the abductive approach.

Some of what I found most interesting about Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science is the social reciprocity of their 'Science Communicator' programme. The museum's educational facilitation is developmentally co-productive! Eventually, the participating visitors are leading the seminar sessions themselves.

 I was grateful for the presentation as well as the gifting of a sample of the sort of family oriented merchandise that the museum has available. In other words, Reiji Takayasu brought us toys! They were miniature models representative of some exhibition regions of the museum itself. Some of us received dinosaurs, some contemporary wildlife or models of cultural artefacts . . . I received a fisherman/huntsman and his dog:

 

 

 

 

I don't think I'll ever quite get used to travelling past the stacks. 

This line from an article in Scientific American from 2009 still makes me smile:

NASA wanting to establish a permanent research facility on the moon too farfetched?

"The attack on the Moon is not a declaration of war or act of wanton vandalism. Space scientists want to see if any water ice or vapour is revealed in the cloud of debris."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nasas-mission-to-bomb-the-mo...