Meet  the  Free  the  Museum  Activators

Activators are people creating a community of Free the Museum practitioners. We’re artists, exhibit planners, professors, designers and museum thinkers, ready to help you hack the world.
 
We founded Free the Museum to find more museum professionals who – like us – are ready to break museums out of their physical, historical, and psychological boxes.
 
An Activator is:
  • part consultant
  • part facilitator
  • part connector
  • part thinking partner
  • part pep talker
 
If you need a push or a break-through, need to find project partners, an Activator may be able to help you
TO CONNECT WITH ONE OF OUR ACTIVATORS, EMAIL US: hello@FreeTheMuseum.org

ANDREA

Andrea Jones is an independent consultant and master educator with 20 years experience as a change agent and education strategist.  
​
location: DC/Maryland, USA

expertise:
  • Content
  • Design
interests: ​
  • ​​Finding the balance between fun and thought-provoking.
  • Understanding how learning experiences can be catalysts for social change, self-reflection, and empathy.
  • Designing for interactivity and participation

offerings:
  • Interrogating the "why" of a project
  • Help with interactivity and participatory design
  • ​Distilling academic facts into universal human questions, themes, and emotions

Betsy

Betsy Loring, chief cat-herder at expLoring exhibits & engagement, LLC, has 20 years of experience developing indoor and outdoor exhibits in science and children's museums and nature centers. 
​
location: Massachusetts, USA

expertise:
  • Content
interests:
  • Playful life-long STEM learning
  • Intersections between exhibit development and urban planning
  • Environmental issues

offerings:
  • Content brainstorming partner
  • Prototype problem-solving
  • Goal-setting and evaluation guidance    

Emma

Emma Thorne-Christy is an independent exhibition designer and activist artist with a background in cultural studies, museum exhibition design and community organizing.
​
location: Los Angeles, USA

expertise:
  • Design
  • ​Build
interests:
  • Social justice & activism within the museum​
  • ​Participatory experiences
  • Guerrilla art installations

offerings:
  • Design brainstorming pal
  • Materials and fabrication suggestions
  • Guidance for installing unsanctioned projects

michael

Michael W. Burns, founder and executive director of the Omnimuseum Project, and a partner and design director at the experience design firm, Quatrefoil Associates, has been designing museum experiences, public installations and events for over 25 years.
​
location: Maryland, USA

expertise:
  • Design
  • Build
interests:
  • Experience Design
  • Public Activations
  • Ubiquitous Museology

offerings:
  • Conceptual development and planning
  • Consulting on informal learning interventions

TIM

Tim McNeil is a Professor in the UC Davis Department of Design, Director of the UC Davis Design Museum, and principal with the design practice Muñiz/McNeil.
​
location: Davis, CA, USA

expertise:
  • Design
  • ​Build
interests:
  • Exhibition planning, development and design
  • Audience engagement, placemaking and experience design
  • ​Communication of objects, ideas and information in the built environment

offerings:
  • Design ideation and creative problem solving advice
  • Design development process, detailing and specifications recommendations
  • Prototyping and fabrication suggestions

TRICIA

Tricia Austin is Course Leader of MA for Narrative Environments at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts in London.
​
location: London, UK

expertise:
  • Content
  • Design
interests:
  • The design of narrative environments
  • Placemaking
  • Participatory design

offerings:
  • Action research methods
  • Brainstorming
  • Being a critical friend
TO CONNECT WITH ONE OF OUR ACTIVATORS, EMAIL US: hello@FreeTheMuseum.org
hello@freethemuseum.org