Chair: Brian H. Peterson, Senior Curator, James A. Michener Art Museum

While museums use many strategies to communicate with their visitors, the most common method is also one of the most ancient: the written word. Often exhibition writing occurs in the context of a cooperative, team approach to exhibit making: ideas are fleshed out, strategies are mapped out, designs are worked out. But when all the planning is done, someone still has to sit down and write the copy. This marketplace is meant to honor the special skills that the exhibit writer needs in order to create effective object labels, text panels, etc. Featured are the results of a nationwide competition in which museum professionals from a wide range of disciplines submitted writing samples that were then juried by a distinguished panel that included:

Joshua Dudley, Senior Designer, Ralph Appelbaum Associates

Jay Rounds, Director, Graduate Program in Museum Studies at the University of Missouri and Editor-in-Chief of Exhibitionist

Patterson Williams, Dean of Education, Denver Art Museum

For the 2002 marketplace, the jurors selected seven entries from a total of seventy-one written pieces submitted. The jurors unanimously chose one entry as representing a high degree of excellence in museum exhibition writing; this entry has been marked “Special Recognition.” Each juror was then invited to select several favorite individual entries; these have been marked “Jurors’ Choice,” and the initials of the jurors who selected these entries can be found at the end of the jurors’ comments. Each juror has also provided a brief statement that discusses his or her values and priorities in the area of exhibit writing. 


Sponsored by the AAM Curators Committee