BY KATHLEEN MAHER
The Barnum Museum was established in 1893 by P.T. Barnum and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. On June 24, 2010, the building was struck by an EF1 tornado that significantly damaged it as well as thousands of irreplaceable artifacts.
- Kathleen Maher
While the museum has become a model for disaster recovery; it must now become a living, breathing symbol of rejuvenation and renewal in the face of adversity.
Despite disaster-related setbacks, the museum is forging ahead with plans for the future. Working with BRC Imagination Arts (the award-winning, world-renowned exhibit designers) the museum is creating new and vibrant exhibits that offer learning through exploration, imagination and innovation, stimulating the power of creativity and sparking intellectual curiosity.
BRC was selected to work with the Barnum Museum based on its staff”™s years of experience as extraordinary storytellers and technical wizards (designing globally acclaimed sites including the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library.) Barnum”™s great stories will be presented by seamlessly combining rigorous and uncompromising scholarship and storytelling with traditional museum design, artifact display and award-winning state-of-the-art media, theater, technology and immersive environments.
The Barnum Museum of tomorrow will be a new kind of place designed for a new kind of audience. It will give 21st-century guests the experience they require ”“ emotional, immersive, cinematic and story-driven. Visitors will emerge with a greater attraction to, and fascination with, the life of P.T. Barnum. The re-imagined Barnum Museum will transform and expand perceptions of Barnum from showman to a remarkable thinker, entrepreneur, philanthropist, force for good and timeless role model for the power and strength of the indomitable human spirit.
In Barnum”™s words: “The one end aimed at was to make men and women think and talk and wonder and, as a practical result, go to the museum. This was my constant study and occupation.” These are words we aspire to everyday as we re-envision and re-imagine the museum. The disaster recovery has been a long journey but every day is a step forward, and the thing I know for sure ”” the show will go on!
Kathleen Maher is executive director of the Barnum Museum, a member of the Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County.
