Thinking Through the Museum
By Emily Putnam
Confronting difficult histories in museums requires more than just presenting facts—it demands collaboration, innovation, and inclusivity.
While the development of “new museology” approaches have reframed visitors as active participants in meaning-making rather than passive consumers, a gap remains between this ideal and actual practice.
The Thinking Through the Museum (TTTM) project positions itself within this gap, creating concrete networks and resources to help museums, scholars, and communities engage with histories that challenge traditional narratives.
Led by a team of curators, scholars, and museum professionals, TTTM seeks to build research capacity through international and local partnerships, collaboration, and innovative technological tools.
With its most recent gathering held in Ottawa in October 2024, the 4-day workshop hosted 50 participants and brought together museum practitioners, academics, and students from around the world to explore best practices for presenting difficult knowledge in public spaces like museums, memorial sites, and cultural heritage tours.
Dr. Monica Eileen Patterson, a founding member of TTTM, Assistant Director of Curatorial Studies and Associate Professor in the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies at Carleton, played a key role in organizing this year’s workshop called Intersections in Critical Curating.
“For this workshop, my goal was to create dialogue and have first-hand experiences. We had a lot of site visits, met with different leaders in the museum and arts scene, and most exciting for me—we included young people in the program!”
The gathering provided an opportunity for participants to tour exhibitions at the Canadian Museum of History, the Ottawa Art Gallery, and Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG).
“Being able to meet in person on a yearly basis is a crucial part of collaboration, learning, and innovation,” saya Patterson.
Patterson is particularly invested in what she calls “Children’s Museology”— an emerging field that advocates for children to be active contributors to museum exhibitions rather than just learners or spectators.
She and Rebecca Friend, a Curatorial Studies (CURA) alum, PhD candidate in Public History, and co-organizer, speaker, and facilitator of the workshop and TTTM Emerging Scholar and Practitioner Representative, co-taught a mini-course at Carleton where young participants curated their own exhibitions, showcasing how children can bring unique and innovative perspectives to museum spaces.
“Museums have tended to see children mainly as learners in need of education, entertainment, and containment, rather than as valuable contributors and collaborators,” Patterson notes. “I want to change that,” says Patterson.
Decolonization and Representation
As a Curator (Indigenous Histories and Contemporary Cultures, North) at the Canadian Museum of History, Sonya Gray used the workshop to introduce an Indigenous methodology that “quiets down colonial logics that threaten to objectify or disassociate narratives of Indigenous survivance, histories, and knowledges.”
Gray’s workshop, called Creating Listeners through Conflict: Stanley Hunt’s Residential School Memorial Monument, explored how “creating listeners goes beyond giving and receiving messages.”
Instead of passively absorbing history, participants were encouraged to reflect on their roles, memories, and learned histories, ultimately fostering the possibility of collaborative futures.
She says the workshop helped participants develop “listening skills that foster relationality, a way of hearing what they see and using their emotional response to promote behavioral changes.”
Gray emphasized the importance of storytelling as a practice that institutions must engage in alongside the public.
“Storytelling as ceremony is an encounter of bringing people together in collective participation, of practicing reciprocal responsibility, of imagining and thus, creating emergent futures – together.”
The workshop also featured a panel discussion led by Inuk-Newfoundlander and Nunatsiavut Beneficiary Dr. Heather Igloliorte on the topic of decolonizing museums in comparative contexts.
CURA and Canadian Studies MA student Keisha Cuffie, who acted as a participant and presenter at the workshop, reflected on the importance of systemic change in museums, particularly regarding Indigenous representation.
“One of my favourite experiences during the Thinking Through the Museum workshop was participating in the downtown Ottawa Indigenous Walking Tour with Jamie Morse,” she shares.
The tour provided valuable insights into Algonquin Anishinaabe culture and highlighted artworks like Chickadee Calls in Confederation Park by artists Mairi and Claire Brascoupé.
Cuffie also noted the importance of including youth insight, recalling insights from members of a group of Grade 8–10 students who presented a mini-exhibition on climate change during a Carleton University summer camp.
“The students’ perspectives emphasized the need for museums to listen more to young people. Their ideas are not only important but enlightening, reflecting their strong vested interest in the planet we all call home.”
Community and Collaboration
The TTTM workshop was not just about research and theory – it was also a space for building meaningful connections.
Rebecca Friend, a core member of the organizing committee alongside project coordinator Alex Robichaud, emphasized the significance of informal moments.
“Gathering at the end of a long day to share a meal while we reflected on the panels and activities was a great way to strengthen our relationships and shared commitments,” says Friend.
One of the key takeaways from the event was the need to integrate children and youth more meaningfully into museum work.
“Young people are often overlooked when it comes to the inclusion of their diverse experiences in museum displays,” Friend explains. “Our cluster tries to call attention to what Dr. Monica Eileen Patterson has dubbed a new, critical children’s museology—a museology that’s not just for and about children, but created with them too.”
Looking Forward
With the success of the Ottawa workshop, TTTM is now preparing for its next stop: Cape Town, South Africa. Patterson is eager to continue working with grassroots NGOs to elevate young voices in curatorial practices, particularly in relation to the legacies of colonialism.
“This work helps forge a new critical field of Children’s Museology,” she says. “It’s about shifting the interactions from top-down approaches to more lateral collaborations with children as contributors.”
The Ottawa gathering also reinforced Carleton University’s role as a hub for critical curating.
“Carleton and Ottawa, more broadly, are incredibly rich sites for critical curating,” Patterson notes.
“I have had the pleasure of engaging with and helping to build this network in my role as Assistant Director of Curatorial Studies, where I work to deepen relationships with museum practitioners and cultural institutions in the National Capital Region and beyond.”
The TTTM workshop was made possible through the generous support of principal investigator (Concordia) Professor Erica Lehrer, a SSHRC Connections Grant and a SSHRC Partnership Grant , along with funding from Carleton University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), the Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG), the Canadian Museum of History, and the Ottawa Art Gallery.