Haffenreffer Study Center Proposal: Introducing the CultureLab In ...

study centers, visitor learning is a matter of interaction and engagement, rather than the absorption of information. --Harvard Project Zero/Harvard Art Museum Report On Study Center Learning

Introduction The Haffenreffer Study Center, or CultureLab, offers an on-campus space for students from any discipline to learn about, investigate, and interact with objects that relate to their studies. It is part classroom, part seminar room, part laboratory. The Haffenreffer will work with faculty and students across the university to choose objects in the collections that correlate with the semesters classes and create assignments that use the Study Center. The CultureLab is simultaneously visible storage, laboratory and study center. The dense display of objects offers visitors and researchers an inside look at how museums work and provides a glimpse of the breadth and scope of the Haffenreffer Museum's collections, enabling visitors to view a greater variety of objects than appear on display in the galleries and to focus on objects specific to their individual research and interests. The CultureLab is a working museum storage facility as much as the Haffenreffers permanent storage located in Bristol, RI. As in the closed storerooms, the objects held in the museums CultureLab are available for study, and maintained under proper environmental conditions. Large, glass-windowed cabinets contain dozens of objects from the permanent collection. The objects on view will be periodically rotated to provide an ever-changing selection of artifacts from the collection's holdings. Although CultureLab will operate more as a storage facility than a conventional exhibition gallery, increased accessibility to works in the collection will expand the possibilities for close encounters with objects in their full complexity. It will also invite greater interaction with museum staff and other visitors, fostering opportunities for critical thinking and reflection that complement traditional gallery experiences. Selected focus objects, a modern workspace, relevant textbooks offering additional information, and a searchable database are all available in the CultureLab. The CultureLab is also a study and seminar space, available to Brown students and faculty who wish to use objects from the Museums collections in their courses or research projects. The CultureLab offers instructors the opportunity to teach with objects from collections not normally on public view, in a non-classroom, small-group setting. The CultureLab may be scheduled for a single class or multiple sessions depending on individual needs.

Audience The main audience for the CultureLab is Brown students, most of them visiting as part of a classroom assignment. Most visitors will visit to look at artifacts as a part of a class assignment, but the space will be open to anyone with an interest in looking at the artifacts. The museum guard/greeter will be able to open cases and help out visitors during the day. Evening hours, open only for students, will have student docents available, will probably be the time of most intensive use. We might consider special programs aimed at other audiences, for example high school or middle school students. Use Students, under the supervision of a docent, and with some training, will be able to handle most of the artifacts in the CultureLab. A typical assignment might include: -Performance Studies: Playwriting professor requires students to examine a set of objects, either already on display or curated by the professor. These objects are meant to inspire a literary playtext. Students might want or need to handle objects in order to devise their creative work. -Anthropology: In courses focusing on specific cultures or regions, students could view or handle artifacts from those regions and discuss or write about their production and collection histories as parts of both local and global systems. Assignments could also be tailored to more thematically oriented courses, as in STS below. -Science and Technology Studies: Students could create and present exhibit displays or write short papers based on a set of related objects. Themes might include representations of the body, bodily modification paraphernalia, medical technologies, or tools for a specific purpose. This would enable students to explore medical and scientific ideologies materially, cross culturally and through time. -Writing Across the Curriculum: Students in the humanities and social sciences often need to develop the ability to write about abstract concepts in concrete and descriptive ways. Study center assignments would focus on writing about specific objects or groups and how they relate to a broad concept relevant to the course (e.g. trade, globalization, technology, or fashion). Depending on the specific course, this might require reference material. -Visual Arts: Sculpture: Material Investigations could use objects in the culture lab as a prompt for assignments. Microscopes and research books would allow students to identify a material and technique and apply it to their own work. -Africana Studies: The The Afro-Luso-Brazilian Triangle course investigates the outcome of African, European, and Native Brazilian influences in the South Atlantic. The Culture Lab could offer objects from the region through which students could deconstruct the creolization of cultures.

Layout The Study Center will be situated in the southwest quadrant of the Haffenreffers space on the first floor of Manning Hall. There should be cases (perhaps 16 deep) with locking glass fronts and cases with pullout drawers (with locking plexi covers) for museum objects; a counter for education collection objects that can be handled; a central worktable and stools, bookshelf, and a computer with the museums online database. A locked cupboard holds the tools listed below. A magnetic whiteboard allows for interactive arrangements of images and words. Tools available at the CultureLab A microscope (Dino-lite) connected to computer that allows students to send images via email or upload to Flickr. UV light Magnifying glasses Headset magnifier Paper and pencils Clipboards Gloves Artifacts The CultureLab should have room for at least one hundred objects representing the full range of the museums collections. Some of the objects will be chosen by museum staff for their visual interest, their usefulness in showing aspects of material culture study, as a study series, or other reasons. Most will be chosen by faculty, for students in their classes to examine. Others might be chosen by students for their projects, checked out from the museum to the storage of the CultureLab for their use. Objects should rotate occasionally, at least once a semester. A notebook or database contains information on all of the objects Capacity The Study Center should be designed to accommodate six to eight students at a time around a table, possible a rolling table, or one with folding extensions. Most students will come on their own time for individual assignments, though small classes could meet there. Staffing Interns in a GISP will create a handbook for the semesters objects, interactive displays, and work with professors to select objects for the next semester. The Study Center will be available for use during normal hours, with the Museums greeter available to show materials, but it will get its most intense use during hours when these interns staff the center, perhaps during both normal or evening hours.