AKCHO Annual Meeting at the Nordic Museum
On Tuesday I attended the Association of King County Historical Organizations (AKCHO) Annual Membership meeting. The event also provided an opportunity to visit Ballard’s recently renovated Nordic Museum, which has been on my checklist for months.
The program included a warm welcome from Eric Nelson, CEO of the Nordic Museum. A quick video depicted some highlights from the museum’s opening in May.
Following the business meeting, there was a presentation from Jennifer Meisner, Historic Preservation Officer, King County Historic Preservation Program. An overview was provided for the buildings recognized with certificates of designation in 2018. Among them were the F.W. Woolworth Company building in Renton (down the street from my family’s auction business), and the Boeing Building 105 in Tuwkila, built in 1909 (a bit surprised it did not make the cut yet). Outreach to unincorporated areas of King County was also discussed as an initiative for 2019.
4Culture’s Executive Director Brian J. Carter and Heritage Support Specialist Cheiko Phillips discussed 4Culture’s activities and plans, which included listening sessions with communities all across King County to recognize local cultural resources and promote 4Culture’s services.
Following that was a panel discussing the theme of inclusion with:
Moderator: Hilary Pittenger, AKCHO Board
Panelists: Chieko Phillips, 4Culture
Nicole Robert, MOHAI
Aletheia Wittman, The Incluseum
Kicking off the panel was a question on the definition of inclusion. The conversation focused on how inclusion involves a series of building relationships. For exhibitions, it is helpful to have inclusive advisory committees that draw from diverse perspectives. One institutional challenge is uncertainty around the results of projects, or how the exhibitions or heritage content will be received. For this, we do not have control. In addition, the panelists discussed how some initiatives do not work as anticipated, and how progress can be made, even in failure.
Many other topics were discussed including: 4Culture’s racial bias training for employees; MOHAI’s racial equity plan; how inequity can result from collections policies; and the power of storytelling where the narrator can control personal narratives, without the interviewer, and sometimes in the absence of documentation (photographs or other meaningful objects).
After the panel, lunch was served, with further conversation amongst the attendees. It was a delight to meet some of the AKCHO members, hear about these inspiring exhibitions and projects, and reconnect with colleagues.
All photographs taken by the author and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.