Marketplace of Ideas, AAM Annual Meeting, 2004
Sponsored by the AAM Curators Committee

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

Museums use audio tours, docents, and interactive educational programs to enhance the learning experiences of visitors, but most often exhibit professionals rely on the tried and true method: the written word. While there are many theories and recipes for label and text panel writing, people who are "in the trenches" of exhibit creation often have to work out their own solutions. These solutions ideally are informed by thought, research and evaluation, but also are customized to fit the writers’ own temperaments, their audience, and the particular nature of the exhibit concept. To help promote excellence in museum exhibition writing, museum professionals from around the country were invited to submit examples of their exhibit-related writing that was juried by a panel representing four AAM standing professional committees: CARE, EdCom, NAME, and CurCom. Winning entries were displayed at the Marketplace, along with books and articles on exhibit writing and related presentations by distinguished professionals.

In addition to the chair representing CurCom, the jurors for this year’s competition were: (CARE) Beverly Serrell, director of Serrell & Associates; distinguished writer and exhibit specialist, and author of the widely used book Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach (AltaMira Press, 1996); (EdCom) Vas Prabhu, Deputy Director for Interpretation and Education at the Peabody Essex Museum and the 2002 recipient of the EdCom Award for Excellence in Practice; (NAME) Lynne Friman, President of Envisions Design; past president of NAME and former head of exhibition design and facility development at the Henry Ford Museum and the Detroit Historical Museum.