This pedagogy incorporates lifelong learning centered in the arts, mindfulness, and ongoing reflection in a peer group based on trust and accountability to build capacity for minimizing microaggressions (4) and normalizing discussions of race in museums.
#Rafa esparza staring at the sun professional#
In grappling with these challenges personally and with the cohort of Gallery Teachers whom I manage, my colleagues in the Education Department and I have instituted a pedagogy for ongoing professional development. As an educator, I place great importance in acting from a place of openness and humility with students this is all the more important when crossing racial, class, or other social divides. For myself, a white woman from an upper-middle class background who is a transplant to North Adams, this presents a number of challenges to “getting it right” in my teaching, as I continually work to navigate my own privileges. Exhibitions regularly feature artists of marginalized backgrounds who address issues of power and privilege in their work, particularly through the lens of race - but the museum’s staff is 95% white, much like the surrounding area (93% white). MASS MoCA is located in North Adams, a post-industrial city in Western Massachusetts with a population of roughly 14,000, 22% of whom live below the poverty line. This article examines an experimental training model that supports museum guides (3) in critical self-reflection to better lead culturally responsive tours.
What does it mean to “get it right” when displaying and teaching works about race by artists of color? How do white museum workers hold ourselves accountable to artists of color and their goals for their work, particularly when museum audiences are still predominantly white (“Active Visitors,” 2019)?
Gaignard, whose photography practice centers around her mixed racial identity and the complexities of passing (2), looked at the group assembled and said, “I’m seeing a group of people who is pretty white, and I need you to get this right” (personal communication, 6/13/19). Before the opening, we invited our Gallery Teachers - paid, part-time tour guides - to meet some of the artists for an informal conversation. The exhibition examines the misrepresentation of women of color in art history and offers counternarratives (1) through contemporary work by Gustave Blache III, E2 - Kleinveld and Julien, Genevieve Gaignard, Tim Okamura, and Deborah Roberts. In June 2019, MASS MoCA’s Kidspace gallery opened Still I Rise. When the Staff is All White: Building an Anti-Racist Curriculum for Part-Time Gallery EducatorsĪmanda Tobin, Associate Director of School + Community Engagement, MASS MoCA
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