On the opening of the Museum of Solutions, Mumbai

I gave these remarks at the opening gala for the Museum of Solutions on November 24, 2023.

Intro: the MuSo “3 boxes” video

The Museum of Solutions is represented by a simple red box; our logo.

Like the museum itself, this red box isn’t something we want you to passively admire; It’s an invitation. It’s questions: When you look at the world around you, what do you see? And then: what can you imagine? And then: what can we do?

But why is this important? Why build a museum to make an invitation and ask questions?

The Museum of Solutions is built on 3 fundamental ideas.

First, that the world is an increasingly complex and challenging place. The future our children inherit from us will be full of dramatic change and uncertainty; great need and great opportunity. The way we were taught to work and live together in the past will no longer suffice.

Second, that young people; the beautiful, funny, silly, capable, extraordinarily children that we love — that we all once were! — have a special place in this world. But their needs, rights, and capabilities are often undervalued or overlooked by grown ups.

Decisions we adults have taken have made the future less hopeful and less joyous for young people than it should be.

And when we overlook young people we not only harm them — we rob society of their extraordinary talents: to see the truth and to speak that truth to power; to imagine without boundaries; to solve problems; and to love.

And third, that museums, which have traditionally been a place where we look at the past, can now be, must now be, a place where we work together to imagine and create the future.

That all sounds pretty heavy. But the good news is that we here at MuSo think that changing the world can be playful and fun.

In fact, the key insight of MuSo is that changing the world *must* be playful and fun.

Children and grownups alike — we learn best when we are playful. Through play we truly see each other; we empathise. With play, our creativity is unleashed and our imagination is set free. And through play we become brave and confident — we take risks, we fail and fall, pull each other up, and try again.

This kind of playful learning: seeing, imagining, and doing together …together... is what MuSo was built to celebrate.

I believe that the Museum of Solutions is the most important museum project in the world today. Nowhere else have I seen this deep, unwavering commitment to the rights, capabilities, and futures of young people so magnificently realised.

And I think in a few moments, when you start exploring the museum yourself, you’ll feel this way too.

Whenever and wherever you see our beautiful red frame with “MuSo” written on the top of it, I invite you to pause for a moment, find a friend, and tell each other what you see in the world. Tell us what you imagine for the future.

And then: roll up your sleeves, find some fun, and let’s see what you can do.

Tonight, this isn’t just a party and MuSo isn’t just a box: it’s the future waiting to be imagined.

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Photo: Kartik Rathod

Links/references for Living With War and the Lianza New Zealand National Library Conference

logo - text that says "living with war"

Ahiahi pai to all of you at the Lianza 2023 New Zealand library conference (October 31)!

And greetings to my colleagues at the Living with War conference in The Hague (November 3rd)!

For the Lianza conference I’ll be joining you from from inside the wood fabrication shop in the 10,000 square-foot Make Lab of the soon-to-open Museum of Solutions, Mumbai! And on November 3 I’ll be with you in person in The Hague for Living With War.

We are opening in November and we’ll be releasing more info, teasers, and events info very soon!

(You can check out our Instagram {the main platform in India} and website now for some sneak peeks of the building, program, and philosophy. Here’s a short post (about my joining the team) that gives a good short overview of the project. LOL see below for a special personal photo album treat.)

Links and notes related to my talk

  1. Photos — Some photos of the site, construction, and goings on here.

  2. Climate Things — I mentioned the Climate Things initiatives, 23 Climate Things and the Culture for Climate Innovation Prize. We would love to have you all involved - - so drop us a note and let us know how we can help! Special shoutout to the great Erik Boekesteijn (who I believe is with you there today?! Hi Erik!), Jan Holmquist and Julia Matamoros who are bringing their tremendous passion and expertise to the project, and of course our initial group of funders/supporters.)

  3. Culture, climate, and The Big Frikin Wall —This talk was a super-short “reduced Shakespeare” version of longer, more detailed work on the subject of updating library practice and The Big Frikin’ Wall, so here is some more detailed work if you’d like to dig in.

    MuseumNext Interview: Culture, activism, and the big Frikin' Wall - a long interview with me about these ideas

    Video and slides/links for NEMO webinar, Create Dangerously: Museums in the Age of Action - tons of notes, references, and a 45 minute webinar version of these ideas from the Network of European Museum Organizations. (Also a keynote talk from the NEMO 2022 conference in Lisbon.)

    Notes from Digital, Culture, and the Transformation of Europe - a cool set of slides presenting the outcomes/synthesis of a 2021 workshop with library and museum/cultural leaders in Leiden, The Netherlands

…More coming soon. Got to watch the conference talk now!

Announced today: Director of the Museum of Solutions, Mumbai (MuSo)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Museum of Solutions, Mumbai
May 10, 2023

Today we are proud to announce the appointment of Michael Peter Edson as the Chief Museum Officer (museum director) of the Museum of Solutions. Edson, an internationally renowned museum professional, will be responsible for leading the museum’s mission to inspire and empower young people to solve the world’s most pressing problems.

“Mike has been a long-time friend and supporter of MuSo,” said Tanvi Jindal the museum’s Founder. “He is a visionary and empathetic leader with a passion for the social impact of museums. Mike’s creative drive and his deep commitment to the rights and capabilities of young people make him an ideal leader for our organization.”

With over 30 years of experience in museums, Edson has long been at the forefront of transformational change in the cultural sector. Edson was formerly the Director of Web and New Media Strategy for the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum and research complex in Washington, D.C., and he was the co-founder of the Museum for the United Nations - UN Live, where he forged a new vision to catalyze global effort towards the sustainable development goals of the U.N.. Edson is a frequent speaker on the topic of technology, culture, and social change, and he has been active as a consultant and collaborator in over 20 countries.

“MuSo is a groundbreaking initiative: full of global significance, but founded on a true love for the people and future of Mumbai,” said Edson. “The world is changing quickly and museums are changing too. In the past, museums looked backward at the past through the eyes of a few experts — today, museums are looking toward the future, inspired to make a better world with and for the communities they serve. I am honored to be joining the Museum of Solutions at this important time.”

Mike will join the team full-time in August.

About MuSo

The Museum of Solutions (MuSo) is a new, state-of-the-art museum in Mumbai, India, dedicated to inspiring and empowering people to solve the world’s most pressing problems. MuSo’s exhibits and programs will explore a variety of topics, including climate change, poverty, and inequality through hands-on exploration and playful learning. The museum will open its new, purpose-built 100,000 square foot facility in the heart of Mumbai's Upper Parel district in 2023.
Press release, Museum of Solutions, May 10, 2023 (via LinkedIn)
A small picture gallery about the museum is here (my photos).

MuseumNext Interview: Culture, activism, and the big Frikin' Wall

Jim Richardson and Tim Deakin published a long interview with me on the MuseumNext website in advance of the Green Museum Summit.

As a former Director of Web and New Media Strategy for the Smithsonian Institution and co-founder of the Museum of the United Nations – UN Live, Michael Peter Edson’s career has often been intertwined with the big issues over the last 30 years.

He explains to MuseumNext why the landscape has changed for museums and how passivity is no longer an option in the face of urgent issues like climate change. Instead, he advocates for new and dynamic forms of activism in order to have a “consequential impact on the course of the Anthropocene”.

Video and slides/links for NEMO webinar, Create Dangerously: Museums in the Age of Action

A quick post here with some links I’ll mention in tomorrow’s Feb. 14 Webinar for NEMO – the Network of European Museum Organizations: Create Dangerously: Museums in the Age of Action.

Video of the talk and Q&A

Slides: Google Slides / slides in a static PDF format

Recommended books/articles

Below are some of the books/articles I recommend towards the end of the talk, more-or-less in order of appearance.

Please get in touch if you have any questions or suggestions!

On the edge of collapse

The Rite of Spring was a revolutionary work for a revolutionary time. Its first performance in Paris [in 1813] was a key moment in cultural history – a tumultuous scandal.

Written on the eve of the first world war and the Russian revolution, the piece is the emblem of an era of great scientific, artistic and intellectual ferment. No composer since can avoid the shadow of this great icon of the 20th century, and score after score by modern masters would be unthinkable without its model.

The Rite of Spring has survived many trials in its first 100 years, not excluding the notorious premiere, during which Nijinsky's provocative choreography elicited such a volume of abuse that the music itself was frequently inaudible. Initial performances – even Stravinsky's own – of this immensely complex score were often on the edge of collapse, but the piece is now part of the international orchestral repertoire and the greatest risk it faces today, paradoxically, is routine renditions which make a work which should shock seem safe and easy.

George Benjamin, How Stravinsky's Rite of Spring has shaped 100 years of music, The Guardian, 29 May 2013

Not the universe.

Carlo Rovelli lecturing at the Royal Institute

The passage of time is not for us a rational thing to contemplate. It’s something we live into — we are the passage of time. We are this constant computing of time.

We can think about reality without space. We can think about reality without things. But it’s very hard to think yourself in a reality without time. You wouldn’t know how to start thinking.

But the confusion is: is this because reality by itself cannot be thought of without time?

No, it is because our thinking cannot be thought without time. We cannot think without time. We are a time machine. Not the universe.

Physicist Carlo Rovelli, The Physics and Philosophy of Time [at 43:41], the Royal Institution, 13 June 2018

The one minute

BARKEEPER

Will you go looking for her?

THOMAS

She is in the past.

…The past is not my concern.

And the future is no longer my concern either.

BARKEEPER

What is your concern, Tommy?

THOMAS

The one minute.

The soldiers minute.

In a battle that’s all you get.

One minute of everything at once.

And anything before is nothing.

Everything after, nothing.

Nothing in comparison in that one minute.

Peaky Blinders, season 1 episode 7 (wiki)

The embers of dead empires

Kenya Digital News (video /YouTube)

Kenyan U.N. Ambassador Martin Kimani’s remarks to the U.N. Security Council following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This situation echoes our history. Kenya and almost every African country was birthed by the ending of empire. Our borders were not of our own drawing. They were drawn in the distant colonial metropoles of London, Paris and Lisbon, with no regard for the ancient nations that they cleaved apart.

Today, across the border of every single African country, live our countrymen with whom we share deep historical, cultural and linguistic bonds.

At independence, had we chosen to pursue states on the basis of ethnic, racial or religious homogeneity, we would still be waging bloody wars these many decades later.

Instead, we agreed that we would settle for the borders that we inherited, but we would still pursue continental political, economic and legal integration. Rather than form nations that looked ever backward into history with a dangerous nostalgia, we chose to look forward to a greatness none of our many nations and peoples had ever known.

We chose to follow the rules of the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations charter, not because our borders satisfied us, but because we wanted something greater, forged in peace.

We believe that all states formed from empires that have collapsed or retreated have many peoples in them yearning for integration with peoples in neighboring states. This is normal and understandable. After all, who does not want to be joined to their brethren and to make common purpose with them?

However, Kenya rejects such a yearning from being pursued by force. We must complete our recovery from the embers of dead empires in a way that does not plunge us back into new forms of domination and oppression.

We rejected irredentism and expansionism on any basis, including racial, ethnic, religious or cultural factors. We reject it again today.

Kenya registers its strong concern and opposition to the recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states. We further strongly condemn the trend in the last few decades of powerful states, including members of this Security Council, breaching international law with little regard.

Multilateralism lies on its deathbed tonight. It has been assaulted today as it as it has been by other powerful states in the recent past.

We call on all members to rally behind the Secretary-General in asking him to rally us all to the standard that defends multilateralism. We also call on him to bring his good offices to bear to help the concerned parties resolve this situation by peaceful means.

Let me conclude, Mr. President, by reaffirming Kenya's respect for the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.
Anything can happen, and it happens really, really quickly.
— Skier Mikaela Shiffrin, from “A Bump in the Road: In a stunner, Shiffrin skis out in the defense of her giant slalom gold” by Dave Sheinin, Washington Post (print version, page D1), 7 February 2022

Keynote with Meta Knol: The Messy Stuff Wins

How to Create a City of Science, a keynote by Meta Knol & me for the KM World 2021 conference back in November, is about the development of the digital/physical concept for the Leiden 2022 European City of Science initiative, which Meta directs.

Aside from the revelation of her team’s astonishing, 365-days of community-owned and community-led programming, two key moments from Meta’s remarks really stand out for me.

The messy stuff wins

At 18:44, Meta talks about her realization (sparked by some research and thinking I did in response to this tweet) that the messy stuff — content and engagement that is authentic, original, and intuitive — wins out over the steady and predictable “fixed formats” often preferred by traditional organizations.

I didn't expect it to, but it's really true: the messy stuff wins. The most authentic. The most original. The kinds of communications where people would just let go of control and build on trust… To allow spontaneous, original ideas to win from the fixed formats. To make sure that you don’t let the rational get in the way of the intuitive. These are really hard things if you are so much stuck in your pathways. So we had to open up, which also meant that we had to exceed our own expectations for what we wanted to make. And certainly we had to let go of the expectations of others. So: The messy stuff wins. Let go of control.

Let go of the frameworks you learned in school

The other moment that sticks out for me comes at 21:10 where Meta talks about abandoning the traditional frameworks of target groups and “pre-fixed media strategies.”

I said to my team, let’s abandon the whole set of criteria of thinking about target groups and pre-fixed media strategies: What we will do is we will focus on specific interests of people. If you are interested in the stars or astronomy I don’t care if you are a 10-year old girl or a Nobel prize winner. Or if we do an activity on kidneys, and your brother has a kidney disease, then I'm sure you will be interested – and you will be no matter where you were born, in which area, what your income is, what level your education is. So that’s the interesting part, if you really focus on these topics that people are interested in intrinsically then you can just let go of all the frameworks that you learned in school about target groups.

The Leiden 2022 European City of Science formally opens in a public webcast at 2pm CET Saturday.

Not about the cheese

“Have you seen a man in his 60s have a full temper tantrum because we don’t have the expensive imported cheese he wants?” said the employee, Anna Luna, who described the mood at the store, in Minnesota, as “angry, confused and fearful.” “You’re looking at someone and thinking, ‘I don’t think this is about the cheese.’”
From A Nation on Hold Wants to Speak With a Manager, by Sarah Lyall. New York Times, 1 January 2022

Most of us are forgetting that from the beginning of our life we are approaching death. Life is absurd. But you can fill it with ideas. With enthusiasm. You can fill your life with joy.

Mountaineer Reinhold Messner, contemplating the meaning of Nimsdai Purja's ascent of Earth's 14 8,000 meter peaks in 7 months. From the film 14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible (2121). Messner was the first to ascend all 14 8,000 meter peaks (and he did so without supplemental oxygen), a feat which took him 16 years.