Has your museum ever tried to engage audiences in controversial topics, moderate discussions about social movements, or introduce inclusive practices only to be stymied by your board or director? Does it feel impossible for your museum to be an advocate for social justice issues? This session is informed by the growing movement of museums and museum professionals working to dispel the myth of institutional neutrality or nonpartisanship, the reality of museum professionals who can’t overtly address controversial topics, and a belief that “museums are places that are quietly subversive.”

1. Museums are Places that are
Quietly Subversive
Western Museums Association 2019

2. Presenters
Dulce Kersting-Lark, Executive Director, Latah County Historical Society,
Moscow, ID
Sonja Lunde, Deputy Director, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT
Dana Whitelaw, Ph.D., Executive Director, High Desert Museum, Bend, OR
Moderator, James Burns, Ph.D., Principal, Cypress & Sage Advising

3. Dulce Kersting -Lark
Executive Director, Latah County Historical Society
Moscow, Idaho

4. Committed to be Welcoming & Affirming
In the Summer of 2017 we joined the
local “Rainbow Directory” of businesses
PFLAG Moscow provided a short but
very useful training about the best
practices of being welcoming and
affirming to all

5. L to R: Dulce Kersting-Lark, Dr.John Streamas,
Dr.Joseph Lenti, Dr.Ken Faunce, Priscilla Wegars

6. Dr. Frederic Corss Church

7. One Public University Art Museum’s
Quietly Subversive Approach
Sonja Lunde, Deputy Director

8. Inclusive Restrooms: Implementing DEAI
Values & Influencing an Entire Campus
Under the
University of Utah’s
non-discrimination
policy, everyone is
welcome to use this
restroom.

9. We All Make Choices:
Finding and Telling More Stories
The artist’s
depiction is an
opulent
Western
European
construct,
meant to create
an illusion of
authenticity.
Images of native
inhabitants were
created for foreign
audiences. As a tool of
colonialism,
photographs often
portrayed the
exploitation of lands
and peoples.
(OBJECT LABEL)
European artists perpetuated
stereotypes and subject matter
that conveyed the deeply
problematic worldview that
Western Europe, dominated by
Christianity, was morally
superior to other regions.
INDIGENOUS CORPS OF DISCOVERY TOURS
w/ Delesslin George -Warren (Catawba Indian Nation)
DID YOU KNOW? 19th c. white, Euro-American artists profited from their
romanticized and mythological representations of Native Americans.
Meanwhile, Native American children were being forcibly removed from
their homes and placed in boarding schools - with the express purpose of
assimilating them into white, Euro -American culture.

10. Dana Whitelaw
Executive Director,
High Desert Museum,
Bend, Oregon

11. Definition of Subversive
Intending to overthrow, destroy, or
undermine an established or existing
system, especially a legally constituted
government or set of beliefs.

15. Creating new communities
for Museums

16. Evolving a program to be more relevant

20. Oregon Arts Commission and HB3139

21. Contact
James Burns, Ph.D.,cypresssageadvising@gmail.com
Dulce Kersting-Lark, dkersting@latah.id.us
Sonja Lunde,sonja.lunde@umfa.utah.edu
Dana Whitelaw, Ph.D.,dwhitelaw@highdesertmuseum.org
THANK YOU! If you would like a copy of the presentation and a
resource list please leave your business card.