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The Neighborhood Museum Collective

How might we imagine a neighborhood museum?

 A Neighborhood Museum should be co-created by members from that particular neighborhood. It might feature:

•  A permanent exhibit focusing on the neighborhood's unqiue history as recounted by members from the community, through photographs and artifacts. 
  
•  A rotating exhibit focusing on photographs and artifacts that represent the current culture of that neighborhood.
  
•  A restaurant that serves that neighborhood's signature dishes, perhaps w/ the menu rotating to feature creations by neighborhood chefs. 
  
•  A gift-shop featuring handmade or DIY items unique to that neighborhood's residents.
  
•  A wall of dreams, continually updated, and demonstrating the hopes of that particular community.
  
•  A performance space to showcase local neighborhood talent.

• They create revenue-generating destinations across a city.  Even "cultural imperialists" are excited to take a city tour of museums, including those in blighted areas.  Trying the "neighborhood cuisine" as defined by that hood and learning about that neighborhood's distinct culture will pull tourists in from across the city and surrounding areas.
  
•  The co-creation of the museum is crucial to instilling a sense of civic pride in residents of each neighborhood.  Each neighborhood will come together to create their museum.
  

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Comments

CJ Adams

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December 27, 2011, 04:02PM

Great idea. It would be cool if some of the exhibits could talk about things that had happened in that exact place, even if they were small personal memories or stories. There was something similar that an artist, Sarah Tooley, did with a set of park benches in DC, where she had people write stories on the park benches about their memories of that park. It created some controversy but sparked lots of good conversations about the area. http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/37862/bench-warfare

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Brad Wolfe's reply to CJ Adams's comment

Brad Wolfe

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January 03, 2012, 06:12PM

that would be awesome. People could also bring in photos of spaces/places/objects, and allow people to do what you described--write about them or shoot video discussing them, so each piece had a surrounding and evolving montage of commentary, which places that object in a meaningful context.

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Shaona

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December 27, 2011, 05:20PM

hey Brad,

Great to see how you've composed and organized discussion from various concepts! The concept name, "Neighborhood Museum" is ace. An annual event of "Neighborhood Museums of (City)" could really help neighbors of the same city appreciate areas they previously would have never thought to explore. A unifying appreciation for a city would be rejuvenating.

This morning I came across Inhabit's post http://goo.gl/m7kGS on ArtUp's (FABnyc) recent project that infuses art into unused city space, originally inspired by 'drab scaffolding and unused lots'. Their Kickstarter campaign "ArtUp: Growing Public Art in the LES" triggered a thought after reading a $3,000+ pledge's incentive is your portrait painted in the 'Artist Alley' mural space. What if there was an area of portraits, similar to a museum, that shouted out community leaders. This would be a nice way to commemorate the history of the neighborhood and inspire future generations locally. Almost like a visual library section of the museum that provides biographies of local stars. Maybe this is a more long-term rotating exhibit, like your second bullet point of photos and artifacts.

Check out this concept I had posted: http://bit.ly/rJn3Bx

Neighborhood Museum is similar, but the Cultural Tourist Center focuses on tourists for financial support and starts to think about how different generations of a community can benefit from each other. Any thoughts on the concept would be great.

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Brad Wolfe's reply to CJ Adams's comment

Brad Wolfe

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January 03, 2012, 06:03PM

I love the local starts idea...but mostly, I think our concepts would be a great combo. Walking tours could leave from the museums!? The question about which comes first is tricky. Walking tours may be easier to coordinate since they don't need a physical hub. However, I think that "hub" may be crucial to creating a destination and driving that "tourism," as you suggest at the end of your post.

 Though I am not religious, there is a a great church called Mosaic that runs "creativity tours" of various regions. I participated in the SF one. http://mosaicbay.org/0515-creativity-tour.

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