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Recent Posts by Elizabeth Merritt

Special Screening of Repatriation Documentary at AAM 2025

Category: Center for the Future of Museums Blog
I’m excited to announce that AAM has arranged a special showing of the 2024 documentary Dahomey at the upcoming AAM Annual Meeting in Los Angeles. Dahomey, directed by French Senegalese …

Against Efficiency

Category: Center for the Future of Museums Blog
On occasion, I use this space to comment on norms and practices that I feel do active harm to our sector and our peers. (See, for example, my short rant on “quiet quitting” and the …

Living in a Wild Future

Category: Center for the Future of Museums Blog
In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic upended the world for Americans and American museums, my job shifted from focusing on the far future to the immediate present. As museum leaders …

How to Face the Future, Cultivate Optimism, and Defy Dystopia

Category: Center for the Future of Museums Blog
Over the past month I’ve been immersed in conversations with directors, staff, independent professionals, funders, and association staff, all trying to find a way forward in the face of the …

Strengthen Your Museum with Data

Category: Center for the Future of Museums Blog
The past few weeks have many of us feeling uncertain about the future. I’m writing to remind you of an opportunity to reduce some of that uncertainty with cold, hard facts. Since 2020, AAM …

Responding to Rapid Change by Assessing Risk and Asking Questions

Category: Center for the Future of Museums Blog
In recent weeks, museum leaders have often been forced to make decisions on the fly, in advance of crafting a comprehensive (or even a tentative) plan for coping with the current tsunami of …

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