Week 11: Labor

Source

The Field Museum in Chicago 

Museums have an aura of timelessness; museums seem to have been around since the dawn of time. The stature of the building that are designed to impress but also to impose a sense of betterment. This has allowed museums impose their own will. So how can an establishment that seems genuinely wise be naive to the world around them? The problem is museums is that they are sticking to their old ways and not inviting change that would benefit the art world. It has put a chokehold in the progression of museums ultimately leading to the decay of the establishment since it has turned itself into an irrelevant subject.  Museum have neglected audiences outside of their normal goer making them complacent. They also have failed to offer outside arrangements to encourage people to further their art careers. Museums are ultimately leaving out different perspectives and not allowing the revival of the art culture.

    Data collected proves that museums are failing to offer people something different. In a research report, “Interrogating Institutional Practices in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion” by Liam Sweeny and Roger C. Schonfeld it conveys one problem with museum which is its demographic of staff. Most of staff in museum are white. For a museum to achieve equality they will need to have a diverse staff, meaning that races and ethnicities need to be seen in the boardroom and into the educator position and teaching the audience about the artwork. However, the research paper was not meant to point out all the wrongs in the museum world but mean to offer a way out of the systemic issues. For museums to get out of the habit of only hiring whites they can hire people with a nontraditional background. With nontraditional backgrounds there is more is an invitation for museum to hire people that are different form their hiring pool. This would open more opportunities for people but give the opportunity to museums to add inclusiveness and diversity to their organization.

     But the best way for museum to add to their career opportunities is to pay their interns. Non Paying internships have lessened the opportunity for people who cannot afford to work without pay. With this it is usually whites applicants that have the finical withstanding to take internship without pay making them more qualified for a position in the art field once more furthering the gap of diversity and inclusion on museums half. And free labor makes the museums look bad. If museum by themselves are not willing to make this change. It will take an effort form interns and past interns to let it be known that free labor is never acceptable. When interns collect data of their internship pay or lack of pay then their career income will prove the inequality and vast difference of pay within the industry.
 

 

 

Bibliography

 Fisher, Michelle Millar. “Culture Workers, Just Say No to All Unpaid Internships,” November 18, 2019. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/unpaid-interhips-art-museums-transparency-oped-12974/. 

Sweeney, Liam and Roger Schonfeld. "Interrogating Institutional Practices in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: Lessons and Recommendations from Case Studies in Eight Art Museums ." Ithaka S+R. Last Modified 20 September 2018. https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.309173.