Sunday 17 May 2020

Reading list, 17 May 2020

Covid-related

Pitt River Museum curator Dan Hicks ponders the future of museums for Artnet. More interesting though is the piece he links to by Meta Knol, director of the Museum De LakenhaI in the Netherlands, reflecting on last year's celebration of the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt's birth and the fact that the blockbuster exhibitions of the kind organised for the event are simply not sustainable.

At the moment, I meet online fortnightly with the National Librarian, National Archivist and CE of Ngā Taonga; meet fortnightly with the directors of the eight metro museums and galleries; meet every few weeks with other CEs of organisations monitored by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage; meet weekly or fortnightly with the board of Arts Wellington, the pan-artform membership organisation;  and listen in on a weekly call with directors of galleries of all sizes all over the country. It's more concentrated and open sector engagement than I've ever had, and it makes me interested in this article about the 200 New York arts leaders who are tuning in for a daily call.

It's interesting to see how festivals are adapting to reach audiences online. Here's a reflection from Now Play This, a festival of experimental game design, who just moved their event online and tried to maintain the sense of participation and interaction while doing so. Meanwhile, the Hay Festival is moving online (much of the programme is streaming for free, just ... on BST).

Tangentially Covid-related

Jill Lepore's history of Sesame Street for The New Yorker echoes the rapid establishment of the MOE's two educational tv channels: "Educational shows for kids responded to two conditions: the scarcity of preschools and the abundance of televisions".

Not Covid-related at all

A terrific interview with writer N.K. Jemesin

Fine art director: meet Fanny Pereire, who sources and organises art collections for tv shows and movies (fantasy job, after naming nail polish colours).

This week Te Papa launched Kōrero takatāpui ki Aotearoa: LGBTQI+ histories of Aotearoa New Zealand, a new section of our website, dedicated to queer objects, artworks, and stories in Te Papa’s collections and  the rich histories of Aotearoa New Zealand’s LGBTQI+ communities and icons.


Catch-up therapy

This two-parter between Harriet Lerner and Brené Brown on how and why to apologise, despite all its Americanisms, taught me a lot this week.



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