Future Plans

Something new has happened at the Buick Gallery this past week. While I was still assigned to my basic tasks of cataloging artifacts, I was also able to sit in on a meeting between the Collections Department and the Education Department about the design and layout of the new history exhibit that’ll be a part of the museum after its remodel.

For some background, the Sloan Museum has been undergoing extensive renovations since before I started interning there (thus limiting my activities to what can be done at the Buick Gallery). A part of this remodel will be a whole section of the museum dedicated to the history of Flint, from the original Native inhabitants to modern day. Their currant plan is for it to be a sort of “timeline but not a timeline”, meaning that as people move through the section they’ll move from one era of Flint’s history to the next, but there is not clear dates associated with each era.

The main problem the were dealing with was where to put a “community gallery” in the section. This gallery would feature artifacts from the community and would change yearly. Unfortunately, the nature of the gallery means it doesn’t conform to any one era of Flint’s history and thus would break the “flow” of the section if it was just stuck in the middle of it. They debated between either making it the entrance to the section or putting it at the end. Eventually (after much shifting of post-its on a printed-out map) they were able to make the gallery fit at the end.

Other matters were also discussed at the meeting, mainly how to make the section more conducive to educational activities for the many school classes that will sure to be visiting the museum. One particular idea that was discussed heavily was adding a projection of a short film showing Flint’s growth from a small town to a city for the Education Department’s “Build a City” activity.

This meeting was very reminiscent of meetings I attended as a part of Student Government, with people offering up their ideas and potential solutions for issues and of at least a temporary agreement being hashed out. This holds a valuable lesson about how cooperating with others can actually get stuff done, even if it can be tedious at times.