Silvia Filippini Fantoni and Darryl Dwayne Walker share the strategies and techniques that have helped them to dramatically increase the diversity of museum visitors and successfully engage local communities.

The Newark Museum of Art is New Jersey’s largest art museum and features a wide collection of American art as well as arts of Asia, Africa and the Americas. Established in 1909 by John Cotton Dana to promote the appreciation, understanding and enjoyment of the arts and science, it has garnered a reputation for being among the country’s most progressive cultural institutions.

After emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, the team have sought to do more than ever to deliver on the museum’s mission of providing “inclusive experiences that spark curiosity and foster community”.

At the heart of these efforts has been an engagement strategy delivered by a dedicated team of experienced professionals including Darryl Dwayne Walker, Manager of Community Engagement and Silvia Filippini Fantoni, Deputy Director, Learning & Engagement.

Silvia’s remit includes school programmes, public programmes, community engagement, interpretation and more. Having worked in a range of museums across Europe and the US, Silvia says that she feels truly at home in Newark at a museum that reflects her own passion:

“My love for museums doesn’t really stem from objects,” she says. “It stems from people and their experiences. At The Newark Museum of Art community engagement is hugely important to what we do and I love seeing people discover our institution.

“Here we try to ensure that we serve a diverse community. Because that is the community that we are embedded in.”

As a city with a population that is 90% comprised of people of colour, Silvia, Darryl and the broader museum team work hard to ensure that community engagement genuinely spans the full breadth of the Newark community and the surrounding areas.

Modern challenges to community engagement

As a museum professional on the frontline of the museum’s effort to connect with its communities, Darryl has a clear insight into the hurdles that need to be overcome in order to build relationships and, ultimately, drive footfall.

“It all begins with awareness,” he says. “Information is slow to filter through to underserved and underrepresented communities for the most part. In more affluent areas with well-established resources and channels it is much easier to connect with people.”

Darryl continues, “I also think there’s an important hurdle of perception to overcome. In some communities it is hard for people to see art in a way that they can relate. For too long museums have told stories with a narrative that doesn’t include the voices of people of colour. And it is very difficult to change or shift that narrative.

“But part of my role is to help people feel excited who maybe haven’t always felt welcome or represented in a museum environment. I love introducing people to the museum for the first time – particularly those who are born and raised here but had never heard about us before. Getting those people to visit us and see them enjoy what we have to offer is a joy for me.”

He continues, “Of course money is the other big issue. We have a challenge to face in terms of accessing funding to grow our museum’s presence – in the way that some larger, internationally recognised museums and galleries may not. Making a difference on a smaller budget is hard – but not impossible.”

Silvia adds that despite The Newark Museum of Art being founded to serve a largely immigrant population and with a heritage of helping to serve local communities (as a safe space during social unrest in the 1960s, for example) staying front of mind with Newark’s residents can be tricky:

“If people don’t feel represented in the stories we tell, the art we exhibit or by the staff they engage with, they won’t want to spend time here.”

As she explains, turning that around requires cultural institutions to be self-reflective and : “We have had to understand that the way we have worked as a museum in the past isn’t the way community organisations work. So, in order for us to open up our doors and make these important groups feel welcome we must become more nimble, flexible and agile.

“Unlike museums – which are used to programming months in advance – the community groups we need to be engaging with work more reactively and focus on the short term. As a community engagement team, we need to be able to accommodate that.”

Creating a flexible and collaborative strategy for community engagement

At the heart of engagement for The Newark Museum of Art is a commitment to collaboration. Crafting new initiatives now includes a range of community voices as standard. Darryl says, “Normally museums programme internally and then push it out to the audience. Our process is different because we draw on a community advisory board to inform decision making.”

The advisory board is comprised of local artists, businesses, city representatives, cultural institutions and what Darryl refers to as “local tastemakers”. This group meets with the museum four to five times a year to help shape community engagement programming for the period ahead.

“The board’s direct access to the community helps to ensure that what we plan is appealing to a diverse range of groups. It also helps to get the word out about our exhibitions and programmes because these stakeholders go back into the community and tell people about what we are doing.”

The Community Advisory Board also plays a vital role in helping the museum extend its reach beyond its doors, by fostering connections with the wider community. This is achieved through active participation in citywide festivals and events, where the museum offers artist residencies (in local schools), facilitates artmaking activities, and share information about upcoming programmes.

The proof of this activity can be seen clearly in the pudding. Attendance and diversity figures have increased dramatically at the museum since the pandemic, and a growing range of community partners have come forward looking to collaborate with the museum on an ongoing basis.

In the last year alone, the diversity of programme attendees has increased by an incredible 30% – resulting in a total of 80% BIPOC visitors. In addition, the under-45 programme audience has grown by 32% and the number of families has also increased by 19%.

Silvia says, “This community advisory board was really the starting point for us, which we actually created during the pandemic to inform our virtual programming. The format for working with the board has been refined over time but, essentially, they serve to curate our programmes – like our Community Days and our signature Art After Dark events.

“In addition, we’ve successfully opened up our museum to host events run by our partners. That’s been a great opportunity for us to showcase our museum spaces to people who may not have been inside before. It’s an important part of our mission of growing the museum as a place for the community in Newark.

“What we have shown is that the museum is a space for them to meet, to get together and to socialise.”

These events can involve business gatherings, film festivals, celebrations, showcases and more.

The advisory board has also helped the museum to establish a space for showcasing work from within the community – a Digital Community Art Gallery. Designed to provide a platform for local artists, this popular showcase (which is presented on a projector in the museum’s welcome center) has helped get contributors’ voices heard and artworks shared.

According to Silvia and Darryl, the key to collaboration is a willingness to be flexible and shape the offering around what our community partners would like to achieve, rather than what the museum thinks they want.  Sometimes, however, we need to be creative and figure out ways to give our partners what they want within the limitations and constraints of our institution . Silvia says,

“For example, we often get our community partners coming forward with ideas for  exhibitions. But as museum professionals know, it can take years to put together full-scale exhibitions. So, we typically look at ways we can pivot to a different format and give them what they want through a different medium, one that we can implement in a short amount of time”

Darryl adds, “What’s important is that sense of ownership and inclusion that we can cultivate by collaborating and ensuring that community voices are feeling heard.”

Bringing external voices into the galleries

In addressing the issue of inclusivity within The Newark Museum of Art, Silvia explains that the museum’s curatorial team have been working hard to find new and innovative ways to incorporate diverse voices and narratives, as well as perspectives form the local community.

The museum is keen to reflect perspectives on some of the historical events and corresponding artworks  that have been previously untold or under represented. Silvia says, “We’ve been on a journey to understand the stories that have been missing from our collections – particularly in our 18^th and 19^th century American galleries. By consulting with focus groups that include local teachers, museum visitors, artists, as well as front line staff, we’ve explored new stories and new ways to tell those stories.”

Of course, being more inclusive is more labour intensive. But as Silvia notes, “We have a commitment to prioritising diverse voices and community engagement and, for us, the additional time and effort is worth it for the awareness it raises and the platform it provides the community and underrepresented groups.”

Another area of focus for the museum in its drive to enhance inclusion and accessibility lies in language. With a growing Latinx community (now 36% of the Newark population) and a fast-growing community of people of Caribbean descent in recent years (many of whom speak Creole as their first language), this is an area the museum knows it must be proactive in.

From labels to marketing materials that go out into the community, Darryl and Sylvia are quick to point to the importance of making diverse groups feel comfortable and accommodated wherever possible.

Silvia notes, “Really, that is the first step in convincing the community that we offer a safe and inclusive space for them. By overlooking their needs we would be almost letting them know that they are not welcome.”

Find out more about The Newark Museum of Art’s engagement strategy here.

ATLANTA, June 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Pye-Barker Fire & Safety – the largest private full-service and fully integrated fire protection, life safety and security services provider in the United States – unveiled its new branding at Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Race at Nashville Superspeedway. The new brand mark – the letters P and B shown suppressing a life safety threat – adorned the No. 20 racecar sponsored by Pye-Barker and driven by John Hunter Nemechek. Pye-Barker collaborated with top students from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) to create the new brand mark that comes on the heels of exponential growth for the company, which now operates more than 160 branches across 37 states.

Pye-Barker’s new brand mark reflects the company’s full-service capabilities and unites its service lines – fire extinguishers and suppression systems, fire alarms and security systems, and fire sprinklers – under one brand. It replaces a flame and extinguisher mark which became outdated as the company significantly expanded its capabilities through an aggressive growth strategy that’s resulted in over 100 acquisitions since 2016.

Twenty SCAD students, juniors through graduate level, teamed with Pye-Barker through the college’s SCADpro program, which connects high-achieving students with influential businesses for marketing and design contract projects.

“We knew we wanted to redefine our logo in a way that would unite all of our services under one brand, reflect our values and honor our legacy,” said Bart Proctor, Pye-Barker CEO. “SCAD and its students embrace an entrepreneurial spirit that is complementary to who we are. They’ve created a brand mark that will become synonymous with the nation’s fastest growing and most respected full-service fire, life safety and security company.”

The new logo modernizes the traditional and recognizable Pye-Barker blue and green that symbolize both the trust the company instills with customers and team members and its innovative approach to life safety protection.

“This was an exciting project for our students. They interacted closely with Pye-Barker’s executives who are genuine, authentic, salt-of-the-earth people. Together, they crafted a design that stands for safety, protection and belonging,” said Chris Peterson, who oversees industry partnerships at SCADpro. “I’m thrilled for the students to see their idea come to life in the real world.”

A list of participating students can be found on Pye-Barker’s website at pyebarkerfs.com/brand.

Contact:
Alycia Volpe
Senior Marketing Director, Pye-Barker Fire & Safety
678.801.6547
[email protected]

SOURCE Pye-Barker Fire & Safety

Shanghai Curators Lab (SCL) is a platform for in-depth research and redefinition of the implications for today’s explosively expanded knowledge, information, and technology in order to nurture young cultural producers in an era of complex crisis. Curators here are not only visual arts exhibition makers in the narrow sense of the past, but also comprehensive researchers for discourses such as architecture, design, big data, writing, ideas, as well as climate justice, food, and health that play important roles in the quality of human life.

Shanghai Curators Lab 3 (SCL3) is organized by the College of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP) at Tongji University, co-organized by Tongji Architectural Design (Group), and supported by Shanghai Horizon Art Foundation, with the duration from September 21 to October 19, 2023.

Theme: Urban Regeneration through Art and Architecture

Shanghai Curators Lab was founded in 2018 and held two editions before a suspension due to the pandemic. Resuming in 2023, Shanghai Curators Lab 3 will be dedicated to discussing and presenting how art, architecture, and design nourish and regenerate the city, and bring qualitative change to the lives of citizens. This lab, which studies and reconstructs the aesthetic amalgam of the city and its residents, is open to early-career practitioners and researchers with various backgrounds who are interested in visual culture and urban regeneration.

As an intensive residency program, SCL3 conducts informative lectures, discursive forums and interactive site visits by involving 25 experts from multi-disciplinary fields. These include artists, architects, designers, poets, philosophers, urban planners, curators, gallery management and auction experts, marketing and PR specialists, big data innovators, AI coordinators, ecologists, NGO operators, cultural foundation managers, and citizens of Shanghai. During SCL3, participating curators are expected to submit and present their project proposals in groups with the theme of ‘Urban Regeneration through Art and Architecture’. And the selected proposal will be realized with support in the following year. SCL3’s research partners include Rockbund Art Museum and Shanghai Urban Space Art Season (SUSAS).

The lead professors for 2023 Shanghai Curator Lab 3 are internationally renowned scholars and curators, Prof. Yongwoo Lee from Tongji University, China, joined by Professor Ute Meta Bauer from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Previous lead professors of SCL include Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (Director, Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Turin) in 2018, and Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath (curator duo Art Reoriented, now Directors of Hamburger Bahnhof) in 2019.

Yongwoo Lee founded the Shanghai Project, a platform of ideas and practices to prepare alternatives to challenges and crises that are rapidly approaching humans, such as the climate crisis, the Anthropocene, human extinction, and artificial intelligence, and served as artistic director in 2016 and 2017. He was the founding artistic director of the Gwangju Biennale and the president of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation. He served as the director of the Shanghai Himalayas Museum and president of the International Biennial Association. He was a professor at the Shanghai University, Korea University, a distinguished professor at the Tokyo University of Arts, and is now a professor at the Tongji University.

Ute Meta Bauer was the co-curator for the Documenta11 in 2002, co-curator for the US Pavilion in 2015 and the Singapore Pavilion in 2022 at the Venice Biennale. She co-curated the 17th Istanbul Biennale with Amar Kanwar and David Teh and she is currently the Artistic Director of the 2024 Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale. Prior she served as founding director of the MIT Programme in Art, Culture and Technology, as Dean of the Royal College of Art. She is the Founding Director of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art and a professor at the School of Art, Design and Media at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Curators under the age of 30 who are interested in participating SCL3 should submit their self-introduction letter, motivation for participation, and resume by e-mail before July 31. The finalists will be notified by August 20. SCL provides accommodation for participating curators and grants tuition. Flights from home countries to Shanghai, meals, other living costs, and visa applications are to be borne by participating curators.

For application and enquiry: =(c=c.charCodeAt(0)+13)?c:c-26);});return false”>shanghaicuratorslab [​at​] gmail.com

About College of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP), Tongji University
Being one of China’s most influential educational institutions with the most extensive programs among its peers, and the largest body of postgraduate students in the world, CAUP is recognized as an international academic center of global impact. CAUP is one of the first colleges in China to initiate programs of architecture, urban planning, historic building preservation, landscape studies, and industrial design, and still keeps its leading role in multi-disciplines.

MERIDIAN, Miss. (WTOK) – Children from age five to ten are welcome to enter Camp Creative. The camp specializes in artistic expression and refining each and every camper’s knowledge of art history. As they take a look at some of the greatest artists from the past in order to influence artists of the future.

Rebecca Parker, Assistant Director of marketing and public relations, says that Camp Creative is an opportunity for children to unleash their creative side. The children don’t just do arts and crafts up here either. They learn about the history behind the art, learning about world renowned artists like Picasso and Matisse. “It plays to our initiatives which is STEAM, literacy, art, and Mississippi history. So we kind of weave those into our camps that we have going on each week”, said Parker.

The camp lasts until June 30th. Look out for these campers because one day you might be seeing their art in the museums. For more information about camp creative and other summer camps at the Mississippi children’s museum visit mschildrensmuseum.org/jackson/book-reserve/camps/summer-camps/.

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