The Association for Art Museum Interpretation is pleased to announce that we are now soliciting content for our blog. Watch this space for contributions from diverse voices helping advance our field.

Interested in contributing to the blog? Please review our editorial guidelines below:

AAMI strives for the blog to push forward conversations around timely issues in interpretation and to present examples of innovative interpretive practice from our members and others. The blog serves as a hub for: 

• Debating
• Delighting in
• Discussing
• Delving into

…ideas around contemporary interpretation, sparking critical questions around the functions and ambitions of visitor engagement in art spaces in the 21st century. 

Article Categories

The following categories provide some guidance around what type of content we are looking to include on the blog; however, they are not exclusive. Feel free to pitch us on something that does not fit these categories! 

Questions From the Field

• Do you have a pressing question that needs answers from a range of practitioners? The AAMI Blog is the place for you. This recurring series of posts puts an emphasis on the comments section, encouraging dialogue from professionals in response to questions submitted from the field. 

We Tried This

• This series highlights unexpected projects across the field.
• A mix of case study and reflection: what niche did this project/program fill? What did we learn? What would we do differently? 
• Did your project sound amazing on paper but fall down in execution? We want to hear about that, too. 
• Suggested word count: 500-700 words

Salutes

• We all take reference photos of things we like at other museums, and this is a chance to build a repository of great things other institutions are doing.
• Short articles that salute our interpretation colleagues in art museums and the general museum world.
• Format: Light on text, heavy on images
• Submit anything that inspires you – a smart label, a paper pick up tour, an initiative for families, etc. 
• Articles should address the following questions: Where did you see this, and in what context? When did you see it? What made it stand out for you? 
• Suggested word count: 100–200 words

Interviews

• Pitch an interview with someone whose work you admire! It can be someone doing interesting work in the field of interpretation, or someone whose practice overlaps – think researchers, programmers, curators, artists, writers, audience-focused collections staff, and more. 
• Suggested word count: 700–1500 words

Anatomy of an Exhibition

• This series highlights the intentional work of interpreters within exhibitions by discussing the reasoning behind various interpretive choices. Anatomy of an Exhibition articles should include extensive imagery of the exhibition in question with annotations such as why we advocated for seating here, why we wanted to include a talk back station, why we made this label look/read a certain way, why we wanted to call out this theme on a larger interpretive panel.
• Suggested word count: 300–500 words with multiple images. 

Visitor research how-tos

• Highlight recent visitor research from your practice and offer your colleagues instructions on implementing their own research. 
• We feature both summaries of formal studies and the results of smaller-scale, informal research. 
• Suggested word count: 400–800 words

Reading List 

• The blog will feature a monthly(ish) reading list linking to interesting articles from both mainstream and industry publications. Submissions will be gathered from twitter, email, and responses to our newsletter. Guest editors will also be invited to curate reading lists from time to time. 

Submission Process

AAMI welcomes submissions from professionals working in or otherwise interested in the field of art museum interpretation. Prospective writers can submit by filling out our Google Form, including a 3-5 sentence summary of the article they’d like to propose. Full articles should not be submitted. Articles may be pitched to fit into the categories outlined above, but we are also open to new ideas! 

To submit questions to the field or articles for our reading list, you can tweet at us or email artmuseuminterpretation@gmail.com

Selection Process

Submissions will be reviewed by the AAMI communications committee. Submitters will be informed within three weeks whether their idea has been accepted. We will then work with you on a time frame for the submission of the draft. Article drafts may be edited before publication. 

Tips for Blog Success

• Include photos and graphics! Art museum interpretation is a visual field, and articles should be illustrated. At minimum, provide a horizontally formatted image to serve as the header for your article. 
• Practice what we preach! Interpretation is all about shaping compelling narratives through concise and engaging writing. The blog should be a place where we put these principles into practice. 
• Be timely! To stay relevant in our fast-paced world, museums must be nimble in responding to pressing events. We’d love to hear about how you responded to a current event, or made historical subject matter come alive for contemporary audiences. 
• We love data! If you have visitor research or other forms of data to back up your work, please include it.
• Once your article is posted, promote it to your colleagues and on your own social media channels. 

The Fine Print

All authors retain copyright and grant AAMI non-exclusive rights to publish and share submitted articles on its website and across communication platforms. 

We will not publish any content deemed offensive, threatening, defamatory, or otherwise inappropriate in our editorial judgment.

The views, opinions, and positions expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of AAMI.