Museums have long been viewed as exclusive, excluding, and as antiseptic to intimacy. In the past few decades, however, humanized experiences—cultivated by curators, educators, artists, activists, and marketers alike—have emerged as the reason for being for these cornerstones of community. Such experiences are often possible only in museum settings, where cultural exploration, probing conversation, and safe risk-taking can occur in spaces now becoming sacred through inclusiveness.

This book brings together an interdisciplinary collection of essays examining the kinds of human experiences and interactions that have converted the once-sterile museum into a space of enlivenment and enrichment, as well as physical and emotional well-being. The essays focus for the first time on the uniquely human and humanizing experiences to be found in the collections, programs, exhibitions, and spaces of today’s museums.

Susan Shifrin, Ph.D., is the founding director of ARTZ Philadelphia. She is an art historian and arts accessibility advocate, has held curatorial and education posts at large and small museums in the United States, and has taught students in the arts and health professions for the past twenty-five years.

Editor’s Introduction
Part I. Experiencing Education in the Museum
1. Experience to Encounter: The Museum as Performative Space—Garreth Heidt
2. Teaching and Learning in a University Art Museum: Experiential Education and Communal Spaces—Klare Scarborough and Miranda Clark-Binder
3. Finding Empathy in Art: Healthcare Professionals and the Museum Experience—Florence Gelo
Part II. The Museum as Experiential Space
4. Know Thyself: Identifying with the Museum of Science and Industry's YOU! The Experience—Megan Bayles
5. Museum Constellations: How Dementia-Friendly Programs Build and Strengthen Relationships—Jessica Ruhle
6. Awakening Our Sense of Touch—Patricia Maunder
Part III. The Museum as a Site of Re-Experiencing
7. “A Power in the Place”: Disrupting the Silence and Memorializing Legacy: An Interview with Bryan Stevenson
8. The Iconization of a Monument: The MiQua in Cologne, Between Interpretation and Imagination—Thomas Otten
9. A Labour of Love: (Re)birthing the Babies of South Australia’s Destitute Asylum—Corinne Ball and Nikki Sullivan
Part IV. Within (and Without) Museum Walls
10. Both Ways: Growing Art and Community through Touch—Kristin Tollefson
11. “The Arc of Promise”: Awakening the Heart Through Art—Hildy Tow
12. Crafting Community, Connection, Compassion in a Pandemic—Nikki Sullivan
Further Reading
Index