S05E03: Embodied Evaluation and Cultural Storytelling in Museum Spaces

Overview 

In this episode, Gladys is joined by Rachel Chaffee, Abby Perez, and Sakira Hermawan to reflect on their collaborative evaluation of the Grounded by Our Roots exhibit in the Pacific Northwest Coast Hall at the American Museum of Natural History.The conversation traces how their partnership began and explores the possibilities that emerge when museums invite Indigenous approaches to evaluation and storytelling into cultural halls.

Together, they share how the team designed an evaluation process that moved beyond traditional survey-based methods to center embodied experience, creativity, and relationship. Through youth partnerships, focus groups, zine-making, storytelling, and time spent in the hall with Indigenous curatorial fellow James McGuire (Haida Nation), visitors were invited to reflect on their emotional, sensory, and relational experiences of the exhibit.

Grounded in the Four Rs framework: reflexivity, respect, reciprocity, and relationality, the team reflects on how this approach transformed their understanding of evaluation, museum responsibility, and the role of visitors in meaning-making. The conversation also highlights the importance of vulnerability, time, and trust in collaborative evaluation processes, and the ways creative and relational methods can open new pathways for learning within institutions. Ultimately, this episode invites listeners to imagine how evaluation can become a space for relationship-building, embodied reflection, and new storytelling within cultural institutions. 

 

Bios

Rachel Chaffee is an Assistant Director of Youth Research and Evaluation at the American Museum of Natural History. She completed a Ph.D. in Education with a focus on learning in out-of-school-time settings at the University of Rochester’s Warner School of Education.

Her areas of research include participatory methodologies with youth and the role of belonging and flourishing in youth academic and career pathways. 

 

Abby Perez is the Senior Manager of Youth and Workforce Development at the American Museum of Natural History. She designs museum programs centering community, science and communication. She is passionate about exploring museums as third spaces, community-driven research, and expanding pathways for youth to experience and exchange culture within New York City and beyond.  

Sakira Hermawan is a student in her last year at Barnard College, studying Anthropology and minoring in Ethnicity and Race. She is from Indonesia but is currently based in New York City. Her current areas of interest include alternative pedagogies and knowledge production, grassroots organizing, and space-making.

 

Resources

Grounded by Our Roots Exhibit. Pacific Northwest Coast Hall, American Museum of Natural History

American Museum of Natural History Museum Education Experience Program (MEEP)

Evaluation as Relationship: Embedding the Four R’s of Storytelling into Museum Spaces, Journal of Museum Education. 

Insights For Indigenous Evaluation Book (Open access and free online!) https://pressbooks.pub/indigenousinsightscollective/ 

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