Kathy2

Kathleen McLean

  • What I do, where I work

  • I am principal of Independent Exhibitions, a museum consulting firm specializing in planning, design, and exhibition development. I work all over the country and sometimes in Canada.

Positions

  • Director of the Center for Public Exhibition at Exploratorium

  • Director of Exhibitions and Publications at Brooklyn Children's Museum

  • Director of Exhibits and Publications at Maryland Science Center

  • Museum Curatorial Specialist at Oakland Museum

Website(s)

  • Darkened Waters: Profile of an Oil Spill

    Darkened Waters: Profile of an Oil Spill

    Case Study

    by Kathleen McLean Published January 09 2008

    INTRODUCTION The November 2007 oil spill in the San Francisco Bay was an ugly deja vu. As I read about the initial collision report, the first emergency response, the rising anger of powerless citizens, and the desperate attempts of oiled seabirds to...

  • Preview Center, Center for Creative Connections

    Preview Center, Center for Creative Connections

    Case Study

    by Kathleen McLean Published August 01 2007

    The Preview Center was a temporary installation at the Dallas Museum of Art, designed to show visitors and funders what the new DMA's Center for Creative Connections (CCC or C3) will be like when it opens in 2008. It was organized around the ideas that...

  • Pain and Hope: 20 Years of HIV/AIDS in Vietnam

    Pain and Hope: 20 Years of HIV/AIDS in Vietnam

    Review

    by Kathleen McLean Published March 06 2011

    I recently had the privilege of visiting and working with the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology (VME) in Ha Noi. A temporary exhibition, "Pain and Hope: 20 Years of HIV/AIDS in Vietnam," was on view while I was there, developed by in-house VME staff working...

  • The Edge: Where California Culture, Critters and Environment Collide

    The Edge: Where California Culture, Critters and Environment Collide

    Review

    by Kathleen McLean Published July 01 2007

    This interesting exhibition experiment--recently opened at the Oakland Museum of California--was created on a shoestring budget in less than a year. Focused on the ubiquitous nature/culture tensions in California, the exhibition juxtaposes artworks,...

  • Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen

    Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen

    Review

    by Kathleen McLean Published April 12 2007

    It has been over five years since I visited the temporary exhibition, “Devices of Wonder” and I still remember it as a significant visitor experience. It certainly wasn’t because of the exhibition design—a typical presentation of objects under...

  • Massive Change

    Massive Change

    Review

    by Kathleen McLean Published April 12 2007

    I first saw Massive Change at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. I had heard about it from staff at the Vancouver Art Gallery, where the exhibition originated, and from all the press materials I received, it sounded like it might be different from...