Museologist Notes 2

What to do When Disaster Strikes

This title is Hyperbole. ‘Disaster’ normally means fire, flood, and plagues of rats. Not accidents in art class but maybe it should.

Not every museum has dedicated learning spaces due to size and/or funding. This can make messy forms of education, learning, and expression daunting. I have worked in and visited museums that didn’t allow pens in the gallery let alone paint!

Sometimes things do go wrong. Learners bring chaos with them, there is no avoiding it. Pencils snap and roll away, clay get stepped on, and paint gets splattered. Laying down cloths can help but chaos is inevitable.
Today disaster struck: a blue rainfall flooded across white walls very close to frameless paintings. Immediately my blood ran cold.

Was the art work okay?
Can we get it off the wall?
There was a video set to be recorded here today!

My more experienced education leader, however, jumped into action. He grabbed the wet wipes and immediately wiped down the walls. I took over the wipes as he grabbed Magic Erasers.

They worked so well that the took off a few fractions of white paint off as well. I wiped up that with a regular paper towel. (There was also a can of paint wating in the wings if we needed it).

Our gallery is a small one. Two rooms and a shared office space (there are currently 4 people spread over 3 desks and 2 computers). We have no choice but to hold learning experiences in gallery. The planning could have chosen not to use paint but paint works best with the chosen activity.

So we planned

What can go wrong; how can we prevent it; if it can’t be prevented, how do we react?

This disaster planning helps us open out museum to children. As an art museum children often don’t feel welcome. Parents of young children can feel similarly alienated in art museums.
While it is scary to think of paint splatter where you don’t want it, disaster plans make everything easier.

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