What democracy looks like: crowd-collecting protest materials

ABSTRACT

Mass political protests have emerged as a persistent theme in the presidency of Donald Trump, among them, the 300+ Women’s Marches that occurred worldwide on 21 January 2017. Collecting by curatorial staff at protests is an existing, although sometimes controversial, practice. However, in the era of social media, crowd-collecting has also become common practice. This Forum article summarizes the history and practice in museums and identity-based archives and proposes protocols for documenting artifacts acquired by protest participants.

KEYWORDS:

• American history
• political protest
• museum practice
• archival practice
• curatorial practice
• women’s rights

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Barbara Cohen-Stratyner recently retired as Rosenberg Curator of Exhibitions, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Over 25 years, she developed more than 90 exhibitions on the performing arts (dance, theater, music, film and broadcast media, as well as each one’s design and technology), with websites and public programs. She also developed exhibitions and centennial projects for Carnegie Hall, Barnard College and Times Square. She holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies, an MFA in Theater Design, and an MS from the Bank Street Leadership in Museum Education program. She has written or edited reference books and has a past history in costume construction. Her curator blogs on the LP exhibitions can still be found at https://www.nypl.org/blog/author/barbara-cohen-stratyner. She currently blogs as outsidethemuseumblog at WordPress. Cohen-Stratyner continues to be active with AAM’s LGBTQ Alliance and Committee for Diversity in Museums, of which she is a former Chair. She also serves as Treasurer and long-time Steering Committee member of the Museum Access Consortium.