Earth day!

Happy Earth day! Please enjoy a photo of a time when I felt  the most connected to the natural world. These photos were taken within the last year when visited Switzerland, where I stayed at the historic Our Chalet, which is the World Association of Guiding Centre

The Our Chalet was founded in 1932. Lots of locations were considered for the site of the guiding centre,  and Adelboden was eventually chosen because of the adventure the mountain provided for girls when they arrived. Me and my friend had finished a day of messed up train schedules (our commute from Geneva was supposed to be only 2 hours and it ended up being like 5) so it really was a challenge the first time, and one we weren’t expecting.

Our Chalet has only been closed once since it’s establishment, which was in World war 2, when it was a centre for reuniting refugees (especially those with guiding and scouting connections). It was also used for training military skiers and interning foreigners. The Our Chalet only accepted Swiss Guiders at that time. The Our Chalet did provide relief funds for the war though

The Our Chalet continues to be a place for connecting people from around the world. It also encourages engagement with the amazing natural world through badge challenges. Literally everything in Adelboden is on a mountain, including the grocery stores and cinema.

As I wrote this post I was struck by the thought, is it open now? Unfortunately covid-19 has caused this beautiful place to be closed now, which is why it is even more pressing now to celebrate it’s beauty virtually !

**** All factual information cited is from the Our Chalet website

COVID 19's Digital Realm: Alienation and Communication

Like many of us I suppose, I have been thinking about what makes this pandemic different from other points in history. I know it still feels like we are still riding the wave of this virus, but at a certain point the COVID-19 pandemic will be a memory, and our lives today will become part of the history books. As part of history unfolding, I wonder about what our society will be defined by. 

Some of us like to look in the past to find areas of history similar to this one, and unfortunately one that continuously keeps coming up is the plague or the Spanish Flu. What marks this current time different from the past, however, is our access to instant communication. Any time there is a new death from COVID-19, the world is informed of that, and the daunting statistics rise. You could be watching the television for breaking news and have a notification on your phone come in at the exact same time with the same news bulletin. What do you do then? The vast majority of us share it. We share it so other people are not missing that specific piece of news. 

Another thing that defines our time is the meme culture cultivated by millennials. At this point, if you look at a meme and you don’t understand it then that causes a bit of panic because you feel like you’re missing out on widely known information. Of course it could also mean that you’re not actively involved in that specific subset of memes. You could have access to an endless supply of memes from one specific group, but be completely oblivious to something from another group (such as memes that are location specific or from a specific tv show).  A couple years ago in a philosophy of science class, I learned that the idea of memes came from an understanding of the way information is generated and passed on. A Smithsonian article from 2011 indicates that we live in a biosphere, which is “an entity composed of all the earth’s life-forms, teeming with information, replicating and evolving” (Gleick). The general idea is that information has “spreading power”, and that humans are largely responsible for that. Meme culture comes into play when we transmit those ideas with a single image. For example, most of us have seen the meme of Willy Wonka with a judging look on his face. The reference for this meme is different, but the message remains the same. Once you understand the reference you can understand the meme. Interestingly, you can also understand the meme even if you haven’t seen the movie. If you have seen one meme with that face that you understand, then you may be able to understand other memes with that same image. 

Of course, the danger with memes and their spreading culture is that misinformation can be spread just as quickly. This is where covid 19 comes in again, because false information about the virus can be spread quickly. Indeed, we are living in a time where there is so much information that it can be overwhelming and daunting in trying times such as these.

Even so, we rely on digital technology for information, communication, and human interaction. Digital technology has become so crucial to our day to day lives that it can be hard to separate ourselves from it. Something I am asking myself is how different this pandemic would be if we didn’t have digital technology. 

That question was partially answered throughout my reading of The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. Unfortunately, I could not escape the current world situation in my reading, as the main character in this novel was forced to be separated from her family because of a quarantine in her family’s living quarters in 17^th century Holland. The main character was working and living with another family so she could not visit her family on the weekends like she normally would. She was forced to find out about the quarantine and her sister’s illness from a butcher, whom she could only communicate with at certain times. This lack of information about your own family would not occur in our current digital age, considering our immediate access to technology. 

Limited access to technology can also create social alienation. I have known people in my life who for personal reasons have decided not to be on social media but have been somewhat isolated for that reason. Questions like “Didn’t you see that on Facebook” are frequent, and they still have to rely on people with social media for social updates, event information, and such like. The immediate assumption is that every person you meet is on some form of social media. Even when you meet someone for the first time and make a connection, the next thought is to often inquire if they are on social media. 

Throughout this quarantine, I also read Educated by Tara Westover. The alienation expressed in this memoir is more extreme, as the author of this novel grew up with a survivalist family that resisted the influence of doctors, schooling, and mainstream society. An aspect of the novel I want to point out, however, is that the author finally gained an understanding of world events she was missing when she went to school and used the computer to google the Holocaust. This was an area of history that she had not been exposed to before because her family limited her access to the outside world. The computer was a device with which she gained understanding of the world around her, and was symbol of the wealth of information in the world. Embracing technology is what led her to enter the 21^st century and the digital age.

My intention is not to turn everyone towards embracing technology, as much as my intent is not to turn people away from it either. I want us to acknowledge that digital technology is part of our world view, and it cannot be ignored no matter how you approach it. Without a doubt, our connection to technology and digital communication has given us a connection to the world, which reminds us that we are not alone in this situation. We are all in this together.

­Works mentioned

Gleick, James. “What Defines a Meme?” Smithsonian Magazine. 2011 <https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-defines-a-meme-1904778/>https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-defines-a-meme-1904778

Chevalier, Tracy. The Girl with the Pearl Earring. 1999

Westover, Tara. Educated. 2018.

Virtual museums and their place in a pandemic.

Like many of you, my life has been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Museums have closed around the world. As I have a degree in Museum Studies and volunteer at several museums, I feel this change very strongly.

Museums are historically buildings that people visit to explore culture and history on their own terms through interactive exhibits, information panels, and material objects.

The onset of the pandemic has caused the development of a new form of cultural exploration- Virtual museums. If you look on twitter you will notice that a trending topic is #museumfromhome

 The tag “museumfromhome is interesting because there are so many interpretations of what a museum can be. You will see posts from famous institutions such as the Van Gogh Museum and the National Gallery of Art to Botanical Gardens posting history about plants. Many people have adapted to sharing “information bites” in a short format so it can fit in the twitter word count. All these interpretations are the same in that they make history available to the public and connect that history to something visual.

I looked for a definition of virtual museum online, and every definition says the same thing: 

a digital entity that draws on the characteristics of a museum, in order to complement, enhance, or augment the museum experience through personalization, interactivity and richness of content.

I think in this time we are all looking for some sense of normalcy, so I’m going to talk about how exploring these museums virtually is similar to physically viewing them. For one thing, the historical information that you crave from museums is the same in terms of content.

Also, when you visit a museum visitors can also be secure in the knowledge that they can “choose their own adventure” so-to-speak. Often you can ask for a guide, download an app to guide your experience, rent audio accompaniments, or simply explore the museum in silence. Personally I am one of those people that reads every information panel, but I know others that find other ways of exploring a museum just as enriching. The main point is that you take what you want out of the exhibit, which is exactly what virtual museums offer. All the information is there for consumption if you so desire. 

I would personally recommend any exhibit hosted by Google Arts and Culture. An example is the Musee D’Orsay in Paris. There is a short description of the history of the museum, and an online exhibit. Looking at museums through exhibits is one way of exploration, and certainly what you would expect in a physical museum. Another way of exploring is through type of art (modern art, oil paint, etc), or by choosing a specific colour. If you have a specific preference for the colour blue, then you can simply look at paintings and objects of that colour. Usually one cannot explore a museum in those ways physically, unless the museum was specifically set up that way. Google Arts and Culture also hosts that immensely popular app that allows you to take a photo of yourself and find paintings that resemble your face. Apps are usually an accompaniment to a physical museum and offer fun ways of exploration.

Another virtual museum I would recommend is the British Museum. The layout of this virtual museum is quite similar to the physical museum. I recall being there last year and having to wait in a line to go through security before I entered the building. Clearly this is not something you have to do if you visit the museum virtually. Additionally, the virtual museum is laid out in a similar way as the physical museum. Their online format is laid out as a tour around the world: Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, Oceania. You can specify a certain time period or theme as well. I would say that the British Museum offers the conventional way of presenting history. You will see that the most recent collections fall under the art and design theme.

What is missing from these exhibits is the physical aspect, which is certainly something we are all missing in this time. Looking at a museum object online is not the same as viewing a museum object in person. At a museum, there is often only a sheet of protective glass separating you from material culture.  You may not be able to touch it but it’s there in front of you.

Museums in this time have definitely gone out of their way to replace the missing physical aspect though. For example, some museums are extraordinary for their physical structure, but have made that available in virtual format as well. My last recommendation for now is the Goggenheim Museum, which has an online format that still allows visitors to experience its spiral staircase in a Google street view format. You can choose an object and see your position to the staircase in relation to that object

The desire to experience culture and be with people is in our bones. Nothing can replace that. I will be with every single one of you waiting for the museums and cultural centers to open again. But until then, be comforted in the fact that everything you want from museums is still there. It is just a matter of expanding your mind and exploring in a different format, which is really all that museums ask from you anyway.

Websites mentioned

Musee D'Orsay: https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/musee-dorsay-paris
British Museum: https://britishmuseum.withgoogle.com/
Guggenheim Museum: https://artsandculture.google.com/streetview/solomon-r-guggenheim-museum-interior-streetview/jAHfbv3JGM2KaQ?sv_lng=-73.95902634325634&sv_lat=40.78285751667664&sv_h=11&sv_p=0&sv_pid=MfnUmHRyOSzMtY3vtYU05g&sv_z=1
Other photos taken from twitter. Credit goes to them.

Imposter syndrome

As a graduate student, I have become accustomed to introducing myself in an academic sense. When I was in Canada that went something like “Hey I’m from Newfoundland and I study Canadian literature because I love Canada so much”. Okay I never actually said that but I always found Canadian literature beautiful and moving. I still do.

Being a grad student in Scotland is a little different though, partly because I have been a grad student before. Now my introduction is “Hey I’m from Canada where I studied English, and now I’m studying museums”. Sometimes I feel weird admitting to people in my current program that I already have a master’s degree.  It feels like a betrayal of the “imposter syndrome” that most first year masters students go through together.  For those of you that don’t know- imposter syndrome is the persistent fear that you don’t belong. For me that was constantly checking my email for an email that said I was accepted by mistake. That never happened because I did belong, and I do belong in my masters program now.

I sometimes feel the imposter syndrome in a different sense in my museum studies program. I have gotten to the masters level in English literature with a specific academic mindset, and now I’m studying with people who have established themselves in the fields of anthropology and archeology. I learned that all UK students had to do a dissertation in their undergraduate degrees. That scares me little. They already know how to write a huge paper like that. In my degree I wrote a lot of long essays, but never took the thesis route. I haven’t had to read a novel yet in this current degree. I haven't had to analyze a line of poetry. That is different for me. 

I love doing something different though. I love being in the same university setting (albeit with more castle-like buildings) and studying something different. I love walking through the campus knowing that I am a postgraduate. I love talking with people who I probably wouldn’t have met had I not been open to studying something different in a different country. This isn’t a goodbye to my studies in English Literature. This is recognition that I can find academic thrill in something else and fulfill my longing for learning with something else.

A new beginning

One of the things I kept telling people as I was preparing to move to another country for a year was that I didn't feel nervous at all about the process. Did I feel unsure? yes. Did I question myself? yes. I remember one of my professors who wrote a reference for me asking if I could handle moving to Scotland. I told her yes, which I think surprised her. It surprised me too.

I understand the feeling of being nervous. I understand the feeling of being so paralyzed with self doubt that I can't move, I can't think, I can't even breathe without wondering what people are going to think of me, or if i'm doing the right thing. I've felt this on a normal day at school in high school. The worst feeling of nervousness I ever feel is when I am about to speak in front of a group at school. My chest hurts for days after because there is so much build up at those times. 

Why is it then that I could move to another country without feeling that extreme sense of doubt? After my mom left me in Scotland she texted me and said that I did it. I decided on this all by myself without thinking about other people and I made it. It was my time. Correction. It is my time. 

Strangely the process of moving to Scotland brought memories of another time I moved to a different country for an extended period of time. This was when I was 14. My family moved to New Zealand for 6 months.  That was another time I felt that chest throbbing pain of nervousness. I felt that almost daily. I don't talk about that time in my life a lot because it is painful to think about but at that time I let culture shock consume me and almost defeat me. 

Thinking about this doesn't make me scared for being in Scotland. It motivates me. In New Zealand I wasn't open to new things but today I am. As of this moment I can say that I have been away from Canada for almost a month and I am still alive. I haven't cried. I haven't questioned my decision. Just yesterday my mom asked if there was anything in Canada that I wished I had and I struggled to answer. It's not because I don't miss my country, but that looking back isn't what I want to do with this year.