MASS Action was held on October 10th-12th, 2018.
MASS Action welcomed the following participating institutions:
Abbe Museum
Albright-Knox Art Gallery
Ashmolean Museum (UK)
Baltimore Museum of Industry
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center
Boston Athenæum
Brooklyn Museum
Brown University
Chicago Children's Museum
Columbus Museum of Art
Corning Museum of Glass
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Delaware Art Museum
Denver Art Museum
Detroit Institute of Arts
di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art
Dia Art Foundation
Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site
ExposeYourMuseum
Flaten Art Museum, St. Olaf College
Ford's Theatre Society
Fractured Atlas
HistoryMiami Museum
Homewood Museum, Johns Hopkins University
Institute for Contemporary Art, VCU
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Look at Art. Get Paid.
Lower East Side Tenement Museum
McLean County Museum of History
Mead Art Museum, Amherst College
Michigan History Center
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Minnesota Historical Society
Minnesota Museum of American Art
Morgan State University
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Naper Settlement/Naperville Heritage Society
National Museum of Mexican Art
Newark Museum
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry
Peabody Essex Museum
Phoenix Art Museum
Portland Art Museum
San Diego Museum of Man
Science Museum of Minnesota
SITE Santa Fe
Speed Art Museum
Spencer Museum of Art
State Historical Society of Iowa
Tacoma Art Museum
The Art Institute of Chicago
The Bronx Museum of the Arts
The Gardiner Museum (Canada)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Phillips Collection
The Smithsonian National Museum of American History
The Studio Museum in Harlem
The Walters Art Museum
University of the Arts
Utah Museum of Fine Arts
Victoria and Albert Museum (UK)
Walker Art Center
West Chicago City Museum
Participating museums at the 2017 Convening included: Adler Planetarium, Better World Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Denver Art Museum, Detroit Institute of Art, Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, High Museum of Art, HistoryMiami Museum, Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Michigan History Center, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota Museum of American Art, Museum of the City of New York, Newark Museum, Portland Art Museum, Science Museum of Minnesota, Smith College Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Spencer Museum of Art at University of Kansas, Spurlock Museum at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, Tacoma Art Museum, The Andy Warhol Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Phillips Collection, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Walters Art Museum, West Chicago City Museum, and Whitney Plantation.
Why attend MASS Action?
There are numerous reasons why preparing your museum to become “a site for social action” is important. For some, it may be the shifting demographic landscape they see around them. How can museums remain relevant if we are not meeting the needs of all of our constituents? For others, the “business case” for diversity is particularly compelling. How can museums remain financially solvent if we are no longer relevant? For the stakeholders in MASS Action, these arguments certainly underline the importance and urgency of the work we need to do as a field. Additionally, we are also unified in our belief that it is the right thing to do because it makes our institutions more socially equitable and sets high standard for conduct in our field. We are radical optimists, and as such, we approach this work with radical hope. We invite you to join us in making this vision a reality.
Who should attend MASS Action?
Museum practitioners from around the country are invited to come together to discuss how we can build our capacity to create more equity in our institutions, and to respond to issues affecting our global and local communities. For this work to take root and be effective, it is important that it be embedded across the institution in every department, and at all levels of staff. It must also move beyond discussion towards an actionable practice. We are therefore suggesting the following criteria to maximize your time at the 2018 convening:
1. Send a cross-departmental team of two (or more) staff, with at least one of the team members representing your museum's senior leadership.
2. Come with a specific project or challenge in mind (related to inclusion, equity, etc.) as well as topic(s) you are interested in exploring further.
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