TOP TEAM
The goal of the NCM is to inspire and promote creativity
Engaging children through contemporary art and helping them become future productive citizens are the aims of San Diego’s New Children’s Museum. The Top Team explain how
PLAY AND DISPLAY KATHLEEN WHYMAN • MANAGING EDITOR • ATTRACTIONS MANAGEMENT
JULIANNE MARKOW Executive director and CEO
What is the NCM? The New Children’s Museum (NCM) is the only children’s museum in the US with a mission dedicated to commis- sioning artists to create site-specifi c installations for an audience of children and families.
What was the inspiration? NCM was founded as a traditional chil- dren’s museum. In the early 1990s, the museum started using contemporary art as its focus, inspired by the work of American artist Alan Kaprow, who saw art as a way to explore the world. Another infl uence was Victor D’Amico from the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He believed children should be allowed to engage in open-ended ways of art to explore their own creativity.
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What is the museum’s aim? Our mission is to inspire creativity, imagination and critical thinking in children and families through contempo- rary art. Using that inspiration, we aim to help children develop the skills that we believe are important for future pro- ductive citizens. We want to give them the ability to collaborate, do general problem solving and look at the world in a slightly different way. We also want to help people become
comfortable with art, so we present it in very non-threatening ways to show it’s there for all of us to enjoy.
What changes have you made? The major change that we’re in the process of implementing is to focus even more on being child-centric. So, instead of being a contemporary art
museum for children and families, we’re a children’s museum that centres on contemporary art. Another aim is for everything we offer
at NCM to be pleasantly frustrating and engagingly compelling, so our visitors want to come back and do it again.
How did you set up the top team? When I started a year ago there was only one senior staff person – Tomoko – in place. I viewed it as an opportunity to hand-pick the other directors and make sure there was the right chemistry. The biggest challenge was needing to
take the time to fi nd those people with- out other senior staff in place to support that effort. It just meant it took us a little longer to get going, but we have a great staff in place now and everyone works really well together.
“WE WANT PEOPLE TO BECOME COMFORTABLE WITH ART, SO WE PRESENT IT IN NON-THREATENING WAYS”
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