Centering Children in Interpretation at the Clyfford Still Museum

with Nicole Cromartie, Director of Learning and Engagement, Clyfford Still Museum
April 25th
9 AM Pacific, 10 AM Mountain, 11 AM Central, 12 PM EST
1 hour, plus 15 mins for Q+A (75 mins)
AAMI Members $5; Non-Members $15

Centering Children in Museum Interpretation at the Clyfford Still Museum

Participants in AAMI’s 2022 Denver conference may remember the Clyfford Still, Art, and the Young Mind exhibition (March 11 – August 7, 2022), which was on view at the Clyfford Still Museum. Co-curated with children across the Front Range from six months old to age eight, Young Mind revealed how children think about art. Co-curators Bailey H. Placzek and Nicole Cromartie organized the exhibition into five gallery themes corresponding to key developmental stages researchers identified based on children’s preferences. Local children selected and arranged their favorite artworks; shared their perspectives for gallery interpretation; and helped design interactive activities. CSM worked with Trainer Evaluation to better understand the impacts of this new approach to exhibition development, specifically, the child-led interpretation. Learn about the key findings from this evaluation, the implications for the field, and how CSM has continued to center children’s (and other community members’) perspectives in interpretation.

Bio

Nicole Cromartie is the Director of Learning and Engagement at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, Colorado. Nicole’s research interests include evaluating early learning in museums, sharing curatorial authority with children, and the benefits of museum experiences for our youngest visitors, from birth to 14 months. In 2021, Routledge published Cromartie’s first book, Evaluating Early Learning: Planning for our Youngest Visitors, which presents developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant practices for engaging young children and their families in museums. She has held education positions at numerous arts and culture organizations, including The University of Denver (Colorado), The High Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA), The Center for Civil and Human Rights (Atlanta, GA), and Visual Understanding in Education (San Francisco, CA).

She is currently enrolled in the Leadership for Educational Equity, Early Childhood Education EdD program at the University of Colorado Denver. She earned her  MA in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts and a BA in Art History from the University of Florida.