The Spokes Editorial Committee is growing: Michèle Antoine, Director of Exhibitions at Universcience (Paris, France) and Frank Kupper, Assistant Professor of Science Communication at the Athena Institute (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) were invited to join as the result of the open call for new members launched a few months ago. Welcome on board!
Michèle sums up her career and the expertise she’ll be bringing to the Committee in three words. First: exhibition with nearly thirty years of experience developing, programming and designing exhibitions, constantly questioning museographic language and the specificity of this medium. Second, environment: she spent 17 years at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and was also very involved in the Ecsite Nature Group, exploring questions that, according to her, must now more than ever be at the heart of our relationship with the public. Finally: management, as she is now heading a large department in a very large institution. Michèle will herald more managerial content in Spokes: she’s convinced that the way we organise, feed and train staff has a strong influence on the quality of our public offer.
“Spokes fulfils an essential function,” she stated, “to temporarily take employees out of their day to day business and make them think. Too busy with routine and emergencies, we are at risk of no longer thinking about the very foundations of our activity, its raison d'être and the values that underlie it. I’m looking forward to joining an Editorial Committee whose mission is to intellectually challenge the field”.
Defining himself as an interdisciplinary researcher, facilitator and performer, Frank was once trained as a biologist, philosopher and theatre maker. He is both a scholar and a facilitator and likes to work together with practitioners to make ideas real and contribute to change. Frank got acquainted with the Ecsite network through EU-funded projects, in which he’s been helping science museums and science centres to build the capacity for science-society dialogue through the development of interactive research and dialogue methodologies, training activities and coaching trajectories. His drive is to make people think and spark dialogue and ultimately to contribute to the transformation of science and its relationship to society. As a prelude to his joining the Spokes Editorial Committee, he recently co-authored an article on co-creation, arguing that most co-creation processes rush into solution-seeking... neglecting to frame the initial problem.
“When I started working with science museums and science centres,” he shared, “I was immediately drawn to this engaging community that sparked creativity, commitment and collaboration in providing a good place for science in the world. I admire the dedicated work of Ecsite to keep this community as "alive and kicking" as it is. Becoming a Spokes Editorial Committee member will be a way for me to engage more with this community, and make my own contribution”.