Museum Talk

The role of the museum--specifically the AMNH--in the lives of young children was a theme that appeared in both Haraway and class conversations. Not only have natural history museums gained an equally natural place is the standard field-trip canon of childhood, this museum is highly identitfied with what it means to be a New York child. As Harlan mentioned, this museum shows up all the time in popular culture.

Why do we take children to the museum? To learn of course. Yet stripping back the layers of mediation, as Haraway does, we see that the museum funtions as a technology to expose participants to a certain normalizing ideology. Youth, Nature, Manhood, and The State aside, what do we really learn in museums? What does the child's mind, actually take away from the day spent with nose to the glass? What do adults learn, for that matter?

I became very interested in checking in with kids at the museum; to see if a certain knowledge was produced, and by who. I had a sneaking suspicion that parents know little beyond what's written on the trite little placard, and this "knowledge" is what they pass on to their irksome and trying children, hopped up on Juicy Juice, trying to make sense out of the real/fake stuffed giraffe standing next to their McClaren stroller.

At first, I wanted to take photos of the children. But as I soon realized, parents get creeped out when you try and take close-ups that capture pre-k enchantment. Here are the distant shots I was able to gather. But it wasn't close enough. So I decided to record. More later.