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This summer, Isaac Butler published an essay in The New York Times entitled “American Theater Is Imploding Before Our Eyes.” The publication sparked a lot of conversations among everyone in and near the performing arts. While there was general agreement with that diagnosis, there was far less consensus about the underlying cause and even less agreement about the best course of treatment. Please join Isaac, along with Nataki Garret (One Nation / One Project and Stephanie Ybarra (Mellon Foundation), for a wide-ranging, online conversation about the state of our field, how we got here, and where we might go next. The conversation will be moderated by Jamie Bennett (Lord Cultural Resources).

Arts and culture play a tremendous part in Smart Growth America’s mission. Joy’s keynote discusses what practitioners have been taught on the role of arts and culture in cities and explores the following questions: Who is involved? Who is this for? Who gets to decide? How do we as practitioners/how have we democratized these processes in a certain way? 

Lord Cultural Resources is pleased to announce the release of its latest publication, the Manual of Museum Exhibitions 3rd Edition. To celebrate with us, we are hosted a webinar on the latest trends in museum exhibitions. During the hour-long webinar, we talked with the book’s editor, Maria Piacente, followed by a panel discussion with museum and cultural expert contributors.

This is a recording of the first session of the Creative Communities Commons (CCC) series at the School of Cities.

Gail Lord has developed a concept for an “Aware-house,” not a ware house, but an Aware-house as a place to put memorials and other works that have been removed from public squares. It is neither shrine nor graveyard, but a site of truth, reconciliation, and collective recovery where activists, artists, curators, historians, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, and the public can come together.

In this special, two-part episode, learn about Marcy Grossman’s public service career spanning 27 years -- up to her appointment as Canadian Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Yvonne speaks to Marcy about her experience as a Jewish woman working in a predominantly Arab country that’s just celebrated it’s 50th anniversary, the UAE’s achievements in economic growth, innovation, and the role of women in society. Marcy also speaks to the importance of Expo Dubai 2021 and Canada’s representation at the Expo among 191 participating countries. Finally, get insights on how the Canadian pavilion was used locally, on the ground, to showcase Canadian culture.

On this episode Kathleen Brown, Vice President, Lord Cultural Resources speaks to Mary Kershaw about growing up visiting museums and embarking on a major strategic planning process at the height of the pandemic. Mary explains how the pandemic spurred ideas around the Museum and its future, as well as why strategic planning is important as the Museum looks ahead to its upcoming centennial. 

Gail Lord speaks to John G. Hampton, Executive Director & CEO MacKenzie Art Gallery, about the challenges faced by museum executives during an era of great change, as well as the reconciliation, decolonisation, and Indigenization of institutions. John also discusses Radical Stitch, the most significant exhibition of contemporary Indigenous bead work ever presented in North America.

On this episode Yvonne Tang, Director, Visitor Experience, Lord Cultural Resources, talks to Liwy about the newly opened Museo Miraflores, its transformation and the ins and outs of implementation. Learn about Mayan culture and why Museo Miraflores is located on what was the southern end of the ancient Maya city of Kaminaljuyú. Liwy talks about how visitors are experiencing the new Museum and some of its most popular exhibits.

In this episode, Kathleen Brown, Vice President, Lord Cultural Resources speaks to Corey Madden about her journey to the Monterey Museum of Art, the City of Monterey, its unique features, community, and its cultural scene. Learn more about how this identity has helped develop the vision for the reimagined Monterey Museum of Art and how this will shift the museum’s historical operations.

On this episode Joy Bailey-Bryant talks to The Center for Black Excellence and Culture’s founder Rev. Dr. Alex Gee about the Center’s mission to enhance Black pride in Black achievement, innovation, and excellence, and facilitate the sharing of the Black experience through culture.

In this episode, Director, Lord Cultural Resources Javier Jimenez talks to Dr. Gus Casely-Hayford, Director of V&A East about his journey to culture and his belief that it is a mechanism to connect people, cultures, and time. Learn about how COVID and the Black Lives Matter movement have transformed the nature of the arts and uniquely impacted the V&A, and Gus’s own efforts to connect to new audiences, new voices. 

Eve Moros Ortega, Director, Lord Cultural Resources, interviews Kitt Potter, the new Arts and Cultural Affairs Director for the City of Kingston, NY. Kitt has been charged with implementing the newly approved Kingston Arts and Culture Master Plan. Find out more what this cultural plan sets out, what it means for Kingston, and why investment in the arts is important.

Lord's U.S. President Joy Bailey-Bryant talks with Marc H. Morial, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Urban League about the League's origins, how the concept of the Urban Civil Rights Museum evolved, and what makes it unique. Find out more about its new home, the Urban League Empowerment Center – one of the most significant economic development projects in Harlem. 

Museums, like all organizations, are grappling with the need to be more inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible. Because museums are caretakers of cultural history and among society’s most trusted institutions, the moral imperative to live IDEA values is even more urgent. Read this document to learn the key takeaways from a panel discussion on IDEA at the 2022 AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo, moderated by Eve Moros Ortega, Director, Lord Cultural Resources.

Technology allows arts organizations to tell stories better, share knowledge, understand audiences, and increase operational efficiency. To harness the possibilities of technology, organizations need to understand their own internal capabilities, incorporate digital assessment into their strategic vision, and plan for future digital opportunities. Now more than ever, it is critical that arts organizations adopt digital tools and technologies to improve their operations, engage audiences, and innovate new ways of artistic presentation.

The inaugural Museums/Musées Canada Summit took place in Kitchener from April 3-6, 2022. Gail Lord, President and Co-Founder, Lord Cultural Resources spoke at the summit on "The New Context for Revisiting History Museums." Read her presentation to learn more about the challenges history museums are facing today and some ideas for shaping a path forward.

Lord Cultural Resources was proud to be part of the virtual conference organized by the Centre of International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata, and Ashoka University: Imaginations: Rural, Urban, Global. Gail Lord was a participant in the featured panel discussion "Contemporary Role of Museums and Universities in the 21st Century."

The Cultural Welfare panel took place on Dec 3, 2021 as part of AISC2021 (the Annual Symposium of the Italian Association for Canadian Studies hosted by the University of Bologna, in collaboration with academic and cultural partners in Italy and Canada). Special guests were: President Emerita of OCAD University, Sara Diamond; distinguished University of Toronto scholar and urban cultural-policy expert Daniel Silver; Director, "Master in Digital Marketing and Communication” program, University of Bologna Business School, Roberto Grandi; and, art critic, curator, and expert in public art, Fabiola Naldi. Hosted by Paolo Granata (University of Toronto) and Martin Stiglio (ARCHI).

In this episode, Veronica Gonzales, Thought Leader, Lord Cultural Resources, sits down with Tracy M. Colunga, Chief Innovation Officer at the City of Long Beach to speak about the development of the Latino Cultural Center. Tracy rose from officer to manager to Chief Innovation Officer through her 15-year tenure at the City of Long Beach. She has led the City's Office of Civic Innovation since 2017/2018. Her career and passion for the Latino Cultural Center project are informed by her background: granddaughter of migrant farmworkers and daughter to a mother who worked a blue-collar job.

This week's exciting conversation features Monica Sylvain, Ph.D., DEI Thought Leader here at Lord, along with Daniel Hammer, President and CEO of The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC). Learn about how Daniel Hammer and Lord developed a strategic plan for THNOC in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this episode, Lord's Principal Consultant Lisa Wright speaks with Gerald Dieleman, Senior Director - Horticulture at the Assiniboine Park Conservancy. As senior director, Dieleman does project planning and coordination for implementation of the Public Garden and oversees horticulture- and landscape-related capital projects.

Lord's Vice President Brad King dives into a lively conversation with Rashida Phillips, Executive Director of the American Jazz Museum. Rashida Phillips began her work as Executive Director in January 2020. In her About Me statement on the American Jazz Museum website, Phillips notes, “I believe all the roads of my life’s journey have led me to the American Jazz Museum.”

The lively conversation continues between Lord's Director Sean Stanwick and Ma. Elizabeth "Marilies” Gustilo, Senior Director of Arts and Culture at the Ayala Museum, Makati, Philippines. 

In this episode, find Lord's Director Sean Stanwick in insightful conversation with Ma. Elizabeth "Marilies” Gustilo, Senior Director of Arts and Culture at the Ayala Museum, Makati, Philippines. 

In this episode, Lord's Senior Practice Leader Kathleen Brown speaks with Jason Cryan and Sarah George, Executive Director and Chief Philanthropy Officer respectively of the Natural History Museum of Utah. As Executive Director, Jason Cryan helps shape the vision for the Museum and advocates for a highly skilled, creative, and dedicated staff.

Join Lord's Vice President Brad King in conversation with Steve Cheasley, Board member of Exporail (The Canadian Railway Museum/Le musée ferroviaire canadien), and President of The CRHA Foundation. Exporail’s mission is to develop, preserve, and showcase a collection of Canadian railway heritage objects and allow the public to live the railway experience in person.

In this episode, Lord's Senior Practice Leader Javier Jiménez Fígares hosts a discussion with Pepe Serra Villalba, Director of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC), Barcelona.

As part of the Bihar Museum Biennale 2021, this panel's discussions addressed the following: How are the museums of the day increasingly becoming platforms of dialogue and representation? To what extent are engagement-driven programs, workshops, and seminars helping museums open up lively conversations of relevance? Are we seeing an evolution of museum cultures towards becoming democratic platforms, and how?

Join Gail Lord as she reflects on the origins of Lord Cultural Resources and the role of modern museums today, in Part 2 of an interview hosted by Level5 Strategy, a leading strategy and transformation consulting firm based in Toronto.

Join Gail Lord as she reflects on the origins of Lord Cultural Resources and the role of modern museums today, in Part 1 of an interview hosted by Level5 Strategy, a leading strategy and transformation consulting firm based in Toronto.

In this episode, Lord's Director Javier Jiménez Fígares speaks with María Lucia Alemán, Executive Director of MAC Panama (El Museo de Arte Contemporáneo/The Museum of Contemporary Art), Panama City.

Join Lord's Senior Consultant Eve Moros Ortega as she speaks with Susan Edwards, Executive Director and CEO of the Frist Art Museum, Nashville. 

In this episode, Lord's Senior Practice Leader Dov Goldstein interviews Kimberly Viney, Senior Director at the Niagara Parks Commission.

In this episode, Lord's Principal Consultant Lisa Wright joins in conversation with Tim Johnson, Indigenous Advisor: Museums, Heritage, Legacy.

Join Lord's U.S. President Joy Bailey-Bryant for a special Juneteenth conversation with Vedet Coleman-Robinson, Executive Director of the Association of African American Museums (AAAM), Washington, DC.

This episode features Lord's Research Consultant Tiffany Lyons in conversation with Monica R. Sylvain, Ph.D., Thought Leader in IDEA at Lord Cultural Services.

Join Lord's Senior Practice Leader, Kathleen Brown as she speaks with Greg Lucas, California State Library. Greg Lucas was appointed California’s 25th State Librarian by Governor Jerry Brown in 2014.

In this episode, Lord's Senior Practice Leader Dov Goldstein speaks with Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh, Co-Executive Director and CEO, Remai Modern, Saskatoon.

In this, Lord’s inaugural episode of Culture Break, join Lord's US President Joy Bailey-Bryant in conversation with Raymond Codrington, Ph.D., President and CEO of Weeksville Heritage Center, Brooklyn.

Gail Lord reflects on International Museum Day and introduces Culture Break, our new video series!

Each day during Women’s History Month, the Lord Cultural Resources team celebrated a woman who has made the world a better place through culture. We received such wonderful response to our posts (65.2K views in total) that we decided to create a poster of all these important cultural leaders so that everyone can to be inspired.

Thank you for all that you do to make the world a better place through culture. We hope that this poster will uplift you in the days and years ahead.

This year’s CAM Social Impact Summit explored how museums are serving their communities in new ways, particularly in response to the pandemic, and how they are assessing their social impact. Lord's Senior Practice Leader Kathleen Brown facilitated an interactive session that included a live word cloud assembled in real time by all participants – summarizing those session learnings that resonated most with summit-goers. Check out their learnings from the breakout sessions, below.

In this second installment, the Garden Conservancy's James Brayton Hall is joined in conversation with Joy Bailey-Bryant, Lord Cultural Resources's U.S. President, and Lori Fogarty, Executive Director of the Oakland Museum of California.

Culture Bridge is a miniseries between the Garden Conservancy and leading experts who are leveraging the power of gardens to transform the world.

Lord Cultural Resources Director Javier Jimenez Figares took part in a panel discussion with other professionals from museums, academia, communications, and technology exploring such questions as: Can we speak of a true "digital culture" in museums? What digital and technological experiences from other areas of culture may be of interest to museums? How does new digital technology influence designers of face-to-face experiences in museums? Does digital mediation really change the relationship between a museum and its communities?

Note: Spanish only, no text
In association with The Russian Museum Collection

The OMA 2020 Conference program was inspired by the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but also addressed the many challenges facing museums during the COVID-19 pandemic and social upheaval that have made 2020 an extraordinary year. Gail Lord, President and Co-founder, Lord Cultural Resources spoke to the Conference on the question of "Is there a museum crisis?"

Watch Gail Lord and her guests from India, the U.S., and Canada at the Creative Bureaucracy Festival 2020 in a discussion about Soft Power. 

Soft Power is the ability to impact behaviour through influence, persuasion, and agenda-setting. Countries tend to build walls while cities build bridges, especially in our current period of mass migration. Gail Lord, President and Co-founder of Lord Cultural Resources and a leader in the Soft Power movement, interviews three pioneering public servants who understand how it works and how to bring it to life.

True disruption is not temporary: the changes wrought by a once-in-a-century pandemic, a transformative societal movement to fight anti-Black racism, and the accelerating pace of human-driven climate change have left many cultural institutions reeling with the knowledge that they cannot – and should not – return to business as usual, even if and when the current maelstroms abate.

“It would be a mistake to try to reopen the same museum that we closed. This is an opportunity to leapfrog over where we were into some new realm,” said Judy Gradwohl, President and CEO of the San Diego Natural History Museum. She was speaking at a virtual summit on the Future of Natural History Museums and Science Centers facilitated by Lord Cultural Resources.

Lord's President and Co-founder Gail Lord discusses what impacts the current crisis situation have had on global trends in culture, what lessons we learned, and what we should take with us into the future.

Part of Potanin Foundation's Dialog Series

The global pandemic has accelerated the need for digital engagement and transformation within our museums. In this webinar, Sarah Hill, a past Senior Consultant at Lord Cultural Resources, explores what the “next normal” might look like and discusses which digital initiatives museums should consider prioritizing in the medium term.

Inspired by the innovative thinking of Marshall McLuhan, participants – 34 academics, artists, designers, raconteurs, innovators, and thinkers from around the globe – explore the mosaic of the metaphoric Global Village in a post-Covid world. The collectivity of global thought, actions, and generational evolution are among the defining principles of the global human condition which this live online forum set out to examine. Hosted by Paolo Granata.

See Gail Lord in conversation beginning at 26:43

Gail Lord and others discuss the process and steps that organizations move through in responding to inquiries and feedback. In pulling back the curtain, the discussion considers the roles that PR, Human Resources, and Social Media play in responding to crisis and controversy, and also looks at ways forward in transparency around answering public and staff questions. Moderated by Tiana Webb Evans.

The second in a four-part webinar series, Inclusive Gardens in Unconventional Spaces talks about how to expand the narrative around gardens to build a more inclusive understanding of American gardening traditions. The series is designed to stimulate thoughtful conversations about the role of gardens, both private and public, in a world that is experiencing seismic social, ecological, economic, and cultural change.

Hosted by the Garden Conservancy and Lord Cultural Resources