“Hope is a muscle, a practice, a choice that actually propels new realities into being. And it’s a muscle we can strengthen.” –Krista Tippett (journalist, author, creator and host of On Being)

I’m going to close out the year by penning a brief gratitude post reminding myself of the many Good Things that happened in 2024 and sharing my personal wish list for the next twelve months. If your lists and mine overlap, perhaps we can work together in 2025! (I’ve highlighted some opportunities to collaborate, in bold text, below.)

I hope this inspires you to take a moment to remind yourself of moments of joy, even in hard times, and to exercise your “muscle of hope” going into the new year.

Looking Back and Flagging Some Opportunities

I am very grateful to have welcomed Ariel Waldman onboard as CFM’s Project Manager in October. As is true for many staff here at the Alliance, Ariel has a deep background in museums and educational institutions, having worked at the Smithsonian Science Education Center, the National Museum of the United States Army, and the International Spy Museum. She’s already bringing her keen eye and organizational skills to the production of TrendsWatch and publication of our Next Horizon papers.  Having been a “department of one” for many years, with Ariel’s help I look forward to tackling new projects and extending our reach. One notable project will be to refresh and revitalize the CFM blog with new topics and authors. If you are interested in writing a guest post sharing how your museum is responding to forces of change, particularly any of the many issues we’ve addressed in TrendsWatch or on the blog, please reach out to Ariel at futureofmuseums@aam-us.org.

Last month we wrapped up the first two stages of our deep dive into the Next Horizon of Museum Practice: Voluntary Repatriation, Restitution and Reparations. The project is framed around the Three Horizon’s Model for building better futures, and this year we focused on how to envision futures that are a better fit for our values and practice. Sixty-nine people joined me for a workshop at the annual meeting in May for a day-long dive into positive foresight, culminating in the creation of movie pitches around their visions. In November, we published the Next Horizon collection: fifteen academic papers, opinion pieces, and speculative fiction exploring how language and practice, may change in coming decades to help museums be a new kind of steward for culture and heritage. Please read, share, and comment on these papers! Regarding the blog (see above), we are particularly interested in guest posts responding to and expanding on the thoughts shared by our authors, and examples of museums putting these ideas into practice.

In August, I had the incredible opportunity to teach foresight workshops in Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville, organized by Humanities Tennessee, as part of their Shared Futures Lab.  The purpose of that program is to “explore how the outcomes of past and current humanities programming may impact the future of Tennessee communities and civic life.” In support of that admirable goal, I led about 100 participants through the process of scanning for change, exploring the implications of significant news, finding a path forward, telling stories about possible futures, and integrating foresight into their work. (Check out two of the “artifacts from the future” they created, left, and below.) If I did nothing for the rest of my working life but teach workshops like this in every state of the union, I would feel fulfilled. Let me know if you are interested in hosting a foresight workshop at your museum, a conference, or across your state.  I am happy to brainstorm with you to generate ideas for funding these events.

 

Looking Forward, and Flagging Opportunities

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to help museums and museum people through what is likely to be a difficult near-term future. First up, I’m working on a set of scenarios on navigating the cultural, political, and economic challenges that may arise under the incoming administration and the general political climate of the country. Normally, my work focuses on helping museums think on a longer time frame, but with many museum people worried about the impact the election may have on their work, funding, and personal lives, that time frame has collapsed from the next four decades to the next four years. This kind of mirrors the pivot I made at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when I shifted to short term forecasting. This new set of scenarios will, I hope, function in a similar way by helping museum people manage uncertainty through monitoring critical indicators, modelling potential outcomes, and creating appropriate contingency plans.

This focus on the short-term future will also inform the next iteration of the foresight workshop I teach each year at the annual meeting. Each year I change up the agenda, focusing on different exercises and skills. Per the quote from Tippett that opened this post, we need to nurture our ability to be optimistic in the face of challenges. So this year I’m going to focus on how we can use foresight to cultivate hope and use “practical optimism” to guide ourselves, our institutions, and our communities through difficult times. I hope you consider joining me for this workshop in LA. Every year we’ve offered this workshop, it has sold out. Registration for the meeting is now open, and tickets for events will go on sale in January–snag your spot early.

I, myself, am cultivating optimism around stage 3 of the Next Horizon project—how to navigate the second horizon (aka ‘the messy middle’) to create preferred futures for museum practice and museums’ relationships with descendant communities. If you are interested in partnering with CFM on this work, hosting a workshop or convening, or have ideas for potential funders, please let us know (again, at futureofmuseums@aam-us.org).

I’ll close with another great quote about hope, from historian and activist Rebecca Solnit via my fellow futurist Jane McGonigal:

“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency…To hope is to give yourself to the future—and that commitment to the future is what makes the troubles of the present inhabitable.”

Warmest regards from an optimistic future, and best wishes for a bright 2025

 

 

 

Elizabeth Merritt
VP Strategic Foresight and Founding Director, Center for the Future of Museums
American Alliance of Museums