Diary of an NUS Museum Intern: Michelle Zhang
Note: Diary of an NUS Museum Intern is a series of blog posts written by our interns about their experiences during the course of their internships. Working alongside their mentors, our interns have waded through tons of historical research, assisted in curatorial work, pitched in during exhibition installations and organised outreach events! If you would like to become our next intern, visit our internship page for more information!
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Michelle Zhang is a year 1 Business Administration student at the NUS Business School. As our Resource Library Intern, Michelle has assisted primarily in the cataloging of the NUS Museum Resource Library Chinese Book collection.
It's pretty surreal to be now writing this blogpost when just 3 months ago, I was nervously reading about others' experiences as an NUS Museum intern.
Not all of us had worked with a museum before, and I personally wasn't sure what to expect.
What were my tasks? To be honest, it was all rather flexible. I was given a goal - transcribing a professor's lectures, or organising the Chinese section of the Resource Library - and I would plan my course of action. Instead of being told to do something a certain way, we were asked for input and progress reports. E.g. suggesting how to deal with the English books in the Chinese section.
It was very self paced too, we were able to complete our main task of restructuring the Chinese books while also attending to other matters like logging new donations and checking older boxes of books.
I came into the internship apprehensive about how much I could contribute, but I quickly realised this experience was meant to help us grow too. Our internship activity was to discuss the current and proposed museum definition (I'll link some of the readings I used + we were also provided with selected readings for each week's museum visit)
The prompts used in our discussions were entirely self generated and I could feel our discourse evolving over the course of this internship. Our first discussion, at the NUS Baba House, was relatively terse. Subsequent conversations flowed more easily, especially as we could draw upon the experiences of previous weeks when evaluating the definition as a whole.
Learning about the different types of museums, or rather, discussing what even constitutes one in the first place, helped me become more flexible in visualising a museum. After some consideration, I would personally consider a science center to fall under that umbrella, but the structure of the overall experience is slightly different, with almost all exhibits being able to be manipulated, or even minigames/VR. Museums do have events or workshops with a more interactive spin, but the preservation aspect outlined in both definitions generally brings to mind a pristine, untouched collection, walled off behind safety lines or glass containers.
Some of the other interns brought up an interesting point during our discussion, whether science centers are selling themselves short or even dumbing themselves down to project a child-friendly image. Adults generally have more patience for the explanatory texts (which the SG Science Center did have much of) or contemplation of ideas that accompany exhibition artifacts. Other museums also have children's events too, though. If the science center marketed itself better, and more accurately, it could be perceived by the public as more than a playground.
Furthermore, do some places even want to take up the mantle of a museum? The Golden Mile Complex was one of our field trip locations. Some of us raised concerns about its authenticity possibly being compromised and its local community alienated should it be designated as an Official Heritage Site. Break out the plaques, glass boxes and everything.
A place doesn't have to fit neatly into a label for its cultural significance to be recognized.
Also, being able to discuss our perspectives with each other was a blessing. You can't really... talk to authors of readings that may have been written 30 years ago. One thing we more or less all agreed upon was that funding is a major concern for museums, but it was interesting hearing about the different solutions people proposed to this problem, such as diversifying revenue streams or actually, adhering more to the ICOM definition (whatever it may turn out to be) to acquire more funding from the government on the basis of being a real, official museum.
Actually, one of the major takeaways I had was that the furore over the definition is, to an extent, senseless posturing. Singapore already isn't closely affiliated with ICOM, and by extension, their carefully revised and crafted definition. Does the definition have meaning if one can so easily claim it for their own ends? The whole debacle, from a Singaporean perspective, just feels far off, whereas our own funding struggles are much more urgent.
To be honest, how many people outside of ICOM and the general periphery of museum personnel (curators etc) know or care that this definition (someone might say guideline) existed? Of course, people's ignorance of something doesn't devalue its significance but frankly, how much impact does it have on museum operations aside from the logistical issues of funding and legislation? The amount of scrutiny is intense but I question how productive it is.
Well, as I mentioned in our final workshop, I'm interested to see where we're headed with this more politically charged definition. The issue of whether museums should become more ideological could be a whole separate conversation in itself - maybe something for future interns to discuss.
If you're at all curious or interested in this programme, please go for it. You'll definitely learn something and grow as a person - I know I did.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/experts-are-divided-over-proposed-redefinition-museum-180972943/
https://time.com/5670807/museums-definition-debate/
It's pretty surreal to be now writing this blogpost when just 3 months ago, I was nervously reading about others' experiences as an NUS Museum intern.
Not all of us had worked with a museum before, and I personally wasn't sure what to expect.
What were my tasks? To be honest, it was all rather flexible. I was given a goal - transcribing a professor's lectures, or organising the Chinese section of the Resource Library - and I would plan my course of action. Instead of being told to do something a certain way, we were asked for input and progress reports. E.g. suggesting how to deal with the English books in the Chinese section.
It was very self paced too, we were able to complete our main task of restructuring the Chinese books while also attending to other matters like logging new donations and checking older boxes of books.
I came into the internship apprehensive about how much I could contribute, but I quickly realised this experience was meant to help us grow too. Our internship activity was to discuss the current and proposed museum definition (I'll link some of the readings I used + we were also provided with selected readings for each week's museum visit)
The prompts used in our discussions were entirely self generated and I could feel our discourse evolving over the course of this internship. Our first discussion, at the NUS Baba House, was relatively terse. Subsequent conversations flowed more easily, especially as we could draw upon the experiences of previous weeks when evaluating the definition as a whole.
Learning about the different types of museums, or rather, discussing what even constitutes one in the first place, helped me become more flexible in visualising a museum. After some consideration, I would personally consider a science center to fall under that umbrella, but the structure of the overall experience is slightly different, with almost all exhibits being able to be manipulated, or even minigames/VR. Museums do have events or workshops with a more interactive spin, but the preservation aspect outlined in both definitions generally brings to mind a pristine, untouched collection, walled off behind safety lines or glass containers.
Some of the other interns brought up an interesting point during our discussion, whether science centers are selling themselves short or even dumbing themselves down to project a child-friendly image. Adults generally have more patience for the explanatory texts (which the SG Science Center did have much of) or contemplation of ideas that accompany exhibition artifacts. Other museums also have children's events too, though. If the science center marketed itself better, and more accurately, it could be perceived by the public as more than a playground.
Furthermore, do some places even want to take up the mantle of a museum? The Golden Mile Complex was one of our field trip locations. Some of us raised concerns about its authenticity possibly being compromised and its local community alienated should it be designated as an Official Heritage Site. Break out the plaques, glass boxes and everything.
A place doesn't have to fit neatly into a label for its cultural significance to be recognized.
Also, being able to discuss our perspectives with each other was a blessing. You can't really... talk to authors of readings that may have been written 30 years ago. One thing we more or less all agreed upon was that funding is a major concern for museums, but it was interesting hearing about the different solutions people proposed to this problem, such as diversifying revenue streams or actually, adhering more to the ICOM definition (whatever it may turn out to be) to acquire more funding from the government on the basis of being a real, official museum.
Actually, one of the major takeaways I had was that the furore over the definition is, to an extent, senseless posturing. Singapore already isn't closely affiliated with ICOM, and by extension, their carefully revised and crafted definition. Does the definition have meaning if one can so easily claim it for their own ends? The whole debacle, from a Singaporean perspective, just feels far off, whereas our own funding struggles are much more urgent.
To be honest, how many people outside of ICOM and the general periphery of museum personnel (curators etc) know or care that this definition (someone might say guideline) existed? Of course, people's ignorance of something doesn't devalue its significance but frankly, how much impact does it have on museum operations aside from the logistical issues of funding and legislation? The amount of scrutiny is intense but I question how productive it is.
Well, as I mentioned in our final workshop, I'm interested to see where we're headed with this more politically charged definition. The issue of whether museums should become more ideological could be a whole separate conversation in itself - maybe something for future interns to discuss.
If you're at all curious or interested in this programme, please go for it. You'll definitely learn something and grow as a person - I know I did.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/experts-are-divided-over-proposed-redefinition-museum-180972943/
https://time.com/5670807/museums-definition-debate/
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