Turning Museums Inside Out

Tuesday, October 11, 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Space is limited at offsite sessions, so a ticket is required. Tickets will be available at the registration desk beginning at 7:00 am on Tuesday morning. If the tickets for a session are all gone, you will know that it is full and can make another choice.

Buses for offsite sessions will depart from the main entrance of the hotel at 2:00 pm on Tuesday.

Organized by Frances Phillips, program director, Arts & The Creative Work Fund, Walter and Elise Haas Fund.

Presented by Lori Fogarty, executive director, Oakland Museum of California; Jill Sterrett, director of conservation and collections, San Francisco Museum or Modern Art.

Using two museums as case studies, we’ll explore how technology and new approaches to engaging the public are changing the way museums organize their departments and staffs, involve artists and the public, and envision their community roles. At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, we’ll see how documentation of artwork delves into questions of artists’ intentions and how digital archives are actively used by education, marketing, and curatorial departments—not isolated in the field of conservation. At the Oakland Museum of California, a capital project raised opportunities for rethinking and reshaping the visitor experience. The permanent collection now reflects how the holdings of the museum’s traditional wings of science, history, and fine art inform and enrich one another.


Founded in 1935, session host the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art was the first museum on the West Coast devoted to modern and contemporary art. Following the session, participants will have an opportunity to tour the museum’s current exhibitions.