Between Fences Opens in Minnesota

I'm a bit behind the times with this blog entry, but last week, we had a wonderful installation workshop and training program for Between Fences in Hanley Falls, Minnesota at Minnesota's Machinery Museum. Each of the hosts for the Minnesota tour of the exhibition gathered for two days of exhibition building and discussion. David Grabitske from the Minnesota Historical Society provided docent training for the participants. Genevieve Simermeyer from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian also joined the group to talk about how to create educational programs for visitors from a variety of cultural backgrounds. And, the Minnesota Humanities Center debuted its companion video for the statewide tour of Between Fences. The beautiful video features Native American perspectives on fences and land use and ownership. Each host site in Minnesota will feature the video along with the exhibition. Check it out.

The museum is housed in the former Hanley Falls High School and the exhibition is on the basketball court in the old gymnasium/auditorium. It's a fun space with a great mural of local farming scenes. Be sure to catch Between Fences in Minnesota. Here's a short video from the workshop and the ribbon cutting.

Special thanks go to Tom Fitzpatrick and the Minnesota Humanities Center for their sponsorship of the tour and amazing coordination of programs and efforts. And, I would like to personally thank David Grabitske (a great friend to me and Museum on Main Street) for showing me around Minnesota as we drove to Hanley Falls. It's always a pleasure.

After the workshop, David and I traveled back to the Twin Cities, where we joined the Minnesota Association of Museums at the Hennepin History Museum for its "Uber Sampler" -- monthly meetings where museum staff gather to talk about various aspects of the field. We had a fun evening chatting and talking about some of the interesting exhibitions and programs past Museum on Main Street hosts have created and about my interests in social media and museums. Hopefully, we'll get a couple of new Twitter and Facebook users from the participants! Thanks to Jada Hansen from the Hennepin Museum for a great visit.

-- Robbie Davis, MoMS/SITES, Washington, DC

Comments

[Jean Wortman]

Would love to hear more about Genevieve Simermeyer's presentation.