Morgan Joseph Hamliton, Ph.D., and Zida Wang, Ph.D., alumni of the Department of Art Education’s Museum Education and Visitor-Centered Curation program, collaborated as co-editors of the newly published book, Creating Digital Exhibitions: A Practical Guide.
This volume includes works by FSU faculty, students, and alumni featuring their digital exhibition discourses and practices. Featured scholars affiliated with FSU include Ann Rowson Love, Ph.D., Annie Booth, Audrey Jacobs, Dianna S. Bradley, Hsuan Chi Liu, Yawei Xiao, Ph.D., and Zoe Hume.
Special thanks to Morgan and Zida for accepting this interview, allowing us to learn more about the formation process of this guide.
For Morgan and Zida, this connection all started with professors Ann Rowson Love and Pat Villeneuve, who introduced them to contacts at their publisher, Bloomsbury. At that time, they were working on their dissertation related to museum practices in digital settings. Morgan investigated digital programming during the pandemic, and Zida worked on a collaborative hybrid exhibition design.
“There’s a lot in there to appreciate, and what I tell everyone is you can either read it from top to bottom, or you can read the stories first, and then go back to the more academic stuff, or hop around. It’s really a practical guide in the sense that it’s to be used, not just to sit on the shelf and collect dust. So we read it, and we wrote it to be entertaining. So I hope that everyone gets to enjoy it.”
— Dr. Morgan Joseph Hamliton.
They originally proposed five themes to the publisher for this book: case studies, theory and practice, exhibits and programs, digital implications in galleries, and evaluation. Later, they worked with the submissions from the open call, interweaving featured works that can serve as the most valuable references for museum practitioners.
During the review process, they received practical feedback from the publisher to broaden their focus to all museum types, rather than only art museums, and by asking a central question: How can digital exhibitions help with the challenges museums may face with limited resources?
Their guide covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from theoretical to empirical case studies that inform readers with and without a museum background. This book offers a unique blend of resources Morgan’s interest in narrative inquiry to “process and generate information.” Readers can find chapters of a consecutive fictional story at the end of each section, weaving content, theories, and practices. It features a fictional character and occurrences in an art museum setting. Morgan hopes to tell stories based on real-world encounters and to connect with the book content, which can form new concepts of museum professionalism.
“I think to our potential future readers — whether you are working for a large institution, or a smaller to mid-sized museum or cultural organization, with very limited budgets and resources —we just hope this book can be a resource that can help you improve your museum or institution. We hope this will help you in any real-world practices. I think that’s something I want to say to the readers.”
— Dr. Zida Wang.
Talking about the challenges along the editing process, they shared the balance of their ongoing academic work and personal life, as they were all completing their dissertations while balancing work and moving. They also discussed new challenges regarding AI and how to acknowledge its use. All their efforts during the editing process and in communicating with authors culminated when the published books arrived, and the promotion began. On the other side, Zida mentioned how they grew along the way and were able to learn in depth about what our cohort is working on, as well as get to make connections with scholars based in different areas internationally. Morgan and Zida also shared exciting news that they are currently working on an upcoming publication about small to medium-sized museums that face challenges with tight budgets, saying “we are going to connect with curators, educators, and artists throughout the country and the world, putting on powerful and impactful programming and exhibitions with a very small budget and seeing what the tactics and strategies are that we all use to save money.”
