View the recording of the More Than One Main Character webinar on YouTube!

Many museums engage their audiences through immersive or interactive experiences. One popular technique is to share contemporary, local stories and community voices.

Join Cultural Connections to hear about how some institutions celebrate lived experience and share authorship by inviting visitors to tell their stories. We will hear from three museum professionals who have explored how these techniques can enrich exhibitions and programs, and then hold time for discussion.

Given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the museum field, we are offering this program free of charge to everyone, and asking participants to pay what they can. Cultural Connections is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit run by an all-volunteer board, and the funds earned through membership and program admission directly support professional development programs and resources for our colleagues throughout the Bay Area. Thank you for supporting Cultural Connections!

Panelists:

Brad Larson has been developing interactive media for family audiences in museums for more than 20 years. He was the Technology Developer at The Children’s Museum in Boston for ten years, and received his EdM in the Interactive Technologies in Education program at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Brad has contributed to the field with presentations at AAM, ASTC, and ACM Interactivity. Installations include projects for Smithsonian’s National Zoo, American Museum of Natural History, Science Museum of Minnesota, Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, and children’s museums across the U.S., where he has focused in particular on technologies that add visitors’ stories and comments to exhibits. His special areas of focus include: community storytelling, popup exhibits, and interactive media that supports behavioral change.

Penny Jennings is the Oakland Museum of California's Associate Director of Experience Development. She has been working in the museum world since the 1980s, first as an American Studies student, then as an educator, project manager and exhibition developer for projects far and wide, mostly in science, history and children's museums, including the Exploratorium and the Bay Area Discovery Museum. Penny is also the President of the National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME) having served on its Board since 2006.

Sarah Seiter is an exhibit developer and curator in Oakland, California, and is a Senior Science Writer at the Exploratorium. Prior to that, she served as the Associate Curator of Natural Sciences at the Oakland Museum of California for nearly six years where she created exhibitions on science and policy, and as a Lead Content Developer for Nobel Prize-winning physicist Saul Permutter at U.C. Berkeley. Her work is grounded in the belief that science can be a fulcrum for change and a way of empowering people.