Labor Museums New Museum Uncomfortable Realities

A Brief Statement on Museum Responses to COVID-19

A person is standing on a stairway and has their leg on the 4th step, meaning to skip the steps below. The first step says “long term planning,” the second says “tapping into the endowment,” the third says, “Pay cut to senior management,” the fourth step (on which the person has their foot) says “furloughing staff.”

The COVID-19 Crisis is exposing the ills of the US economic system and museums are no exception. Mass layoffs and furloughs shouldn’t have had to happen, but those actions keep the people at the top safe and confirm that we cannot mend, fix, or return to the status quo because it’s broken.  

Some small museums had no choice but to layoff or furlough staff, bigger museums have other options. Regardless, we need to figure out how our institutions can be more sustainable and that means valuing and protecting the workers that makes these institutions run.

The image above is from the Freeze_Magazine Instagram account, developed in collaboration with the New Museum Union.

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