Talk held at Urban History Exhibited. Seminar at Den Gamle By in Aarhus, Denmark. 25th October 2011. Rainey Tisdale, Community Fellow at John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, Brown University. 25th Oct. 2011 Abstract: I spent 2010 surveying city museums in Europe and the United States as part of a Fulbright-sponsored research project. Since then I have continued to closely follow developments in this field in order to determine what we are doing poorly, what we are doing well, and what the 21st-century city museum should look like. Drawing from this work, my paper will explore recent trends in urban public history, particularly those taking place outside the walls of the physical museum, including geo-tagging, pop-up museums, user-generated content, and hyper-local history projects. I will also discuss what these trends mean for city museums and for our audiences. I will end with my personal vision for the 21st-century city museum.

1. HOW TO BUILD A BETTER CITY MUSEUM Rainey Tisdale Fellow, John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities, Brown University raineytisdale@gmail.com, raineytisdale.wordpress.com

3. Local Audience Eric Fischer Locals and Tourists #28: Copenhagen Red: Tourists Blue: Locals

4. 1. Contemporary Life Moveable Feast Exhibition, Museum of the City of New York, 2011

5. 1. Contemporary Life Museum of Vancouver. Mission: To hold a mirror to the city and lead provocative conversations about its past, present and future Phote by Victor Y Wong via flickr

6. 2. Modest Buildings, Flexible Programs The new Museum of Liverpool, opened summer 2011 photo by Robert Cutts via flickr

7. 3. Geo-Tagging Streetmuseum IPhone application, Museum of London 20 th -century city museum: Artifacts and stories are consolidated in one building, removing them from their original geographic context 21 st -century city museum: Geo-tagging technology reunites artifacts and stories with their geographic context

8. 3. Geo-Tagging historypin.com

9. 3. Geo-Tagging whatwasthere.com

10. 3. Geo-Tagging Pinning not just photos but objects

11. 4. Pop-Up Projects Fussnote Project , Hamburg Temporary history where you don’t expect it

12. 4. Pop-Up Projects Helsinki Berlin

13. If This House Could Talk, Cambridge 4. Pop-Up Projects Photos by Ross Miller and Cathie Zusy

14. 5. Personal History Point-à-Callière Museum, Montreal My Block My Family My City

15. 6. Hyper-Local Engagement Stockholm

16. 7. Interdisciplinary Collaboration London Wall by Thomson & Craighead, Museum of London

17. 7. Interdisciplinary Collaboration Fiction: Great Chicago Stories Chicago History Museum

18. 8. Creative City Museums Amsterdam Amsterdam Berlin Helsinki Your Museum ? Luxembourg Copenhagen copenhagen.dk