ABSTRACT
In this piece, Michigan State University Museum’s “Finding Our Voice” project team reflects upon their personal and professional experiences behind the participatory development of Finding Our Voice: Sister Survivors Speak (FOV). This groundbreaking exhibition project about the sexual violence crisis centered on the MSU campus was co-curated with assault victim representatives, Sister Survivors, and their allies. In this piece, the FOV museum team goes behind the exhibition to explore the multiple levels of courage required to navigate the mental stress and trauma associated with the exhibition topic, the ongoing media frenzy related to the event and highly public subsequent legal proceedings, and the delicacy of exhibiting a subject live-time in its home institution. They discuss the work as not institutional but as practices done through a set of individuals interacting in a certain time, place, and set of circumstances. As museum professionals, they ask themselves, would I do this again? Why or Why not? And, in hindsight, what would we need or do differently? From this experience, they offer thoughts around a new professional framework for museum professionals working with similarly highly challenging subjects.
