Monday Musings: Museum as Creative Hotspot

Posted on Mar 31, 2014

Last Friday I read a thought-provoking post from Jasper Visser about the use of alternative workspaces. “Why not work a couple of days each week from a bar, incubator or creative hotspot?” Jasper asked. “I’m sure you will achieve more, be more creative and probably be on the receiving end of more opportunities.”

This reminds me of the Register Citizen Open Newsroom Project in Torrington,Conn.Their Newsroom Café invites readers to interact with journalists at the paper, as well as offering coffee, free wi-fi, a community media lab and featuring an artist-of-the month. The Café not only provides an alt-workplace for community members, it also invites them to contribute to the work of the paper and creates a public interface for journalists.

Which leads me to my brief musing of the day. Flip Jasper’s thought: consider the Newsroom Café, and think about how museums might provide workspaces for the public. Not only would it cultivate the image of museums as convivial third place, it would provide a venue for interaction with creative people looking for opportunities to contribute. What if the museum posted its current challenges (strategic, financial, technological, logistic) and invited the peripatetic workers to weigh in? It could lead to some beautiful, and mutually beneficial, relationships.