One of my favorite things to do at home and when I'm abroad is visiting museums.

It's in these spaces that important stories of people, culture, history,

and our planet are preserved and shared.

I love them because, of course, they are spaces where you can learn, and

especially when you're traveling, they can give you really important

context about where you are.

But I also find that museums tell stories that make me feel things,

everything from sadness to excitement.

And that's the power of storytelling.

Today we're digging into museums with Maria Elena Ortiz.

She's the curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

We chat about the history of museums, and we're going to unpack the colonial

undertones that they sometimes have.

And of course, we'll talk about the role of museums in tourism.

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the responsible travel podcast?

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All of our contact info is in the episode description.

So

Katie.

Yes.

Remember this was like, I think when you were going to Portugal, you

messaged me and you said, Oh my gosh, Mark can't find his passport, or like

Mark's passport is about to expire.

Oh yes.

Well, this is something I think about a lot, is like taking care of your passport.

It's a really important thing.

I'm sorry, but have you seen those TikToks of somebody tracking how

many times their dad looked for...

his passport while they're in the airport and it was like something like 17 times

where he's just patting his pockets and like placing it somewhere and then pats

his pockets and can't find it again.

It's like the overdoing of trying to track your passport while you're in the airport

and then just completely forgetting where you put it because you're being

too cautious about where you put it.

It's, oh yeah, that's me every time.

I'm the airport dad.

I hold both.

Yes.

Okay.

I always.

This is a good couples question actually because Luke and I don't do that.

Luke and I are very like, we hold on to our own things because if

you ever get separated, not good.

It's true.

Cause Luke and I are always like, okay, what if like one of us messes up and

like for loses like both the passports, then we're like a mega screwed.

But if we only lose one.

We're still screwed but less screwed.

So we're always like, it's better to keep, keep each on our own because then we have

better odds at like not having a disaster.

This is definitely the smarter option.

I think because I think I just took on that role because I am.

more experienced traveler than Mark is and because he just tends to lose things.

So I think I just like took on that role whether or not he liked it.

And then, but he's a grown man, he can hold on to his own passport.

You know what?

This is what I'm doing in the future.

I am no longer holding on to both of our

passports.

I like to think I'm pretty good with my passport, although I have

left it behind in a room before.

I'm pretty sure I've talked about this on the show before, but I left my

passport in a pillowcase in, in a casa particular, which is like a homestay in.

Trinidad, Cuba, and it was like a whole thing we had to drive

like hours back to get it.

That was my one slip up and I gotta say I've been really good since then.

And it's only because you're putting it in an extra safe spot.

I was trying to be

safe.

Yeah.

It's actually a terrible hiding spot.

Like, that's where everyone hides things.

Like, don't do that.

Not in the pillowcase.

Um, okay, well.

I brought this up because I saw a TikTok recently that I

thought was really interesting.

Um, so let's cue it up so you can hear it.

We don't have to listen to the whole thing.

I just want you to get the gist of it.

So I've just been

rejected on my flight to Bali and I'm currently stranded in

the middle of Sydney airport.

No idea what to do or where to go.

And I literally just got told that if they'd let me into Bali, the

military and the security in the airport would have put me into a cell.

Basically, there was a tiny bit of water damage at the bottom of my passport.

I didn't even notice it.

I travel all the time and it's never been mentioned to me before, but apparently

Bali airport are really really strict and they are known for putting people into

a cell if they don't like your passport.

Obviously, I'm really upset.

Yeah, so this is like something I think a lot of people don't know, damage to

your passport, you can be rejected.

And I kind of, I don't really like this video because she makes it sound

like Bali is like the only place in the world where this happens, but it's

actually like a thing all over the world.

It can kind of depend on like who it is that looks at your passport.

Like it just, it's luck of the draw, like how.

astringent they are.

But yeah, for the most part, like most airports around the world will flag if

your passport has any kind of damage.

So I wanted to bring this up because I think it's an important PSA, like

before you're traveling anywhere, always look at your passport and make sure

there's no damage on it anywhere at all.

So for this person, it was water damage, which is pretty common.

But it can also just be like a rip somewhere, or if you haven't signed

it, that's another big problem.

People don't sign it.

But

like, what are you supposed to do, though?

If you notice that damage on your passport and you're like mid country,

like, what are you supposed to

do?

That's why you gotta check before you go.

But

what if it is?

What if you find that it is damaged?

What do you do then?

You gotta get a new one.

Why

can't Why ? What's fraudulent about a little rip or water damage?

I just don't

understand why.

I honestly don't know.

I just know it's something you can't have on your passport.

The other thing that people often don't know I found, is you have

to have for some countries up to a year left on your passport to use

it.

This I know because.

This is why Mark ended up having to get a new passport because his passport was

going to be expired in like six months.

Yeah.

And we were traveling and we were like, okay, this is apparently not okay.

I would almost say like, cause I've been thinking about this

cause mine will expire in 2025.

I'm going to apply for my new one in 2024.

Like I'll apply for exactly a year.

before it expires.

So that there's like six months buffer in case it takes time

for the new one to come through.

This is just like my big PSA about everyone.

Go check your passport.

Make sure that it's not ripped or water damage.

Make sure that there's at least six months left on it.

But Kate,

we talked to Laurel in season one and her story was that.

Her passport got like crazy damaged, like completely ruined at a beach somewhere.

What are you supposed to

do?

If you're abroad and it happens, you have to go to your consulate, like

your country, your home consulate.

And they'll usually give you, like, a temporary passport, so, like, a

temporary document that you use.

Because, like, here's the thing, like I was saying, it's kind of luck of

the draw, because sometimes, you'll just end up with, like, a really

chill...

Somebody who barely looks at your passport at all.

Yeah.

Especially for people, like, like, white people are gonna have a good

chance, but, like, you never know.

So it's better to, like, Not risk missing a flight over it and make

sure that it's in good shape.

Thank you for this lesson Do you have any other passport horror stories?

I'm officially

freaked out.

I don't have any passports horror stories other than my actual photo Aaron Let me

just tell you when I went to go get my airport pass Or my passport photo taken.

I got it taken at like a convenience store near my, my

house, uh, when I lived in Toronto.

And I went on a brisk November day, just before work.

And so I walked down the street, and it was freezing cold out.

And got there, and...

My face is bright red from the wind burn, Erin, when you see, I thought

it was going to chill out and I think I put like a little bit of makeup

on and stuff so that it wouldn't be red, because I knew it might be

a little red from walking outside.

Oh, no, I look like I was laying in the sun for 12 hours and just

got a huge sunburn on my face.

It is so embarrassing.

And every time I use my passport and bring it to someone to check at

the airport, they look at me like.

Are you okay?

Like, it's, I feel like it's like, shouldn't even be legal to have the

photo that I have because it's just like a weird, weird representation

of me.

I know, this is the thing with the 10 year passports.

I'm just like, by the time we hit 10 years on mine, I'm not gonna look like...

my photo anymore.

I look like a

baby in it.

I got my, I think I got my last, because I need, I know I need to get a new one soon.

And I think I got my last photo taken in like 2017.

And at the time I was training for a half marathon, delivering

food on a Fudora bike.

10 hours a week, and biking to and from work every single day in Toronto.

I was 20 pounds lighter than I currently am.

Like, I am a different human being.

And I'm like, uh, I'm so sorry, like.

The biggest thing I hear is dyeing your hair, like if you dye your hair a

different color sometimes like you'll look so different that they might not

think you're the person in the photo.

This is the funny thing, right?

If you do your makeup and hair for your passport photo, just think, is that what

you're going to look like when you're going through security at like 5 a.

m.

at Toronto Pearson.

Because that's what I thought.

I was like, you know what?

I never look good when I'm going through the airport.

I'm usually extremely tired and not put together.

So I think I should look in the photo how I will look in that moment.

But it served me well.

They always believe it's me, so.

I

feel like that's the smart way to go.

Put no effort in.

That's my strategy.

I stand by it.

Okay, I think it's time we talk to, uh, Maria.

Are you ready to talk all things museums because you're so obsessed?

Yeah,

let's do it.

So yeah, to begin, Maria, could you tell me about your relationship with museums?

Well, I'm excited to be here.

Thank you for the invite.

And like you, I really always enjoy going to museum as well.

And really like looking at art and talking to artists and thinking

about culture and society.

I grew up in Puerto Rico and like I didn't know what a

curator was or what that role is.

and what it all entails.

Um, a professor of mine suggested to me that I should go into museum work.

I didn't know what it was, but at the time I was doing anthropology.

In our history, I was just very curious and very excited about what that could be.

Because I already had like a lot of artist friends and would talk

about art and would spend time talking and thinking about ideas.

So it just felt like a natural thing for me to explore.

Yeah.

I want to ask you actually like how you would describe your work,

like what a museum curator does.

Because I do think there is like an air of mystery around this job.

A lot of people like don't know what it entails.

I do

a little bit of everything, you know, sometimes I'm very, uh, sarcastic

when I describe it to people, like, sometimes I feel like it's a cross

between a politician and a car salesman.

Um, uh, but it's very, but I do a little bit of everything.

So, of course, I do some of the most traditional stuff, like

writing, public speaking, donor cultivation, just a lot of travel.

I do a lot of traveling for, uh, different aspects of my job, a lot of thinking about

like acquisition and collection building.

Also within the museum, I'm, I'm part of the face of the museum, right?

So I also do marketing.

Uh, so there's a lot of intellectual work, but then there's also a lot of production,

like what it means to put an exhibition together from the big idea to the details.

And that's where a lot of the politics come in because the museums

are, have different departments.

And there's different constituencies and different audiences.

Yeah.

There's so much like going on behind the scenes that I think people

don't think about when they just pop into a museum to see an exhibit.

I'm also hoping you could describe what in your mind a museum is

and we can get like a little philosophical about it if you want.

And also if you have some historical context you can share about sort of

like the history of museums and how we got to where we are today with them.

So, you know, if I remember correctly from my classes in graduate school,

museums started all of them started through private collections, people in,

in parts of Europe that were collecting a lot of work and probably at the time

they didn't thought it was like work the way we talk about work in modern

contemporary time, but paintings are objects from different places and

they would have them in their homes.

And then.

Yeah.

In Paris, there were at times the public salons where people would

actually open spaces to show art and they were really like places

for conversation and discussion.

So that is like the most kind of like Western traditional

way of talking about museums.

I think right now, you know, museums are of course bastions of culture

and a place in which we can see art, see objects and think about like.

Just society and civilization and all the things that excites us as a community.

Even the artists that we see right now in museums, they're speaking about

today in a way that, that inspires us.

Totally.

Okay.

So I think I know what your answer to this next question will be, but

I'm going to ask it just in case.

So Katie came up with a great idea for this episode after

she listened to an episode of another podcast called Red Nation.

And the podcast episode was called We Are Not Dinosaurs.

And in it, they talk about the Native Museum Industrial Complex.

And coincidentally, they have a woman on, a guest named Elena Ortez, who is

not you, but she led us to finding you.

And in that episode, they ask her, museums.

Are they cool or are they whack?

And we would love to hear your thoughts on this.

I would say some are cool and some are whack, you know, like everything.

Is that the answer you thought I was going to say?

Yeah, it

is.

Because some museums have made me very uncomfortable.

I'm going to talk about one that did and some are really cool.

Which one?

Okay, we can get into it.

So actually, like, when Katie brought up the idea for this episode, I was like

perfectly primed for it, because I'd been thinking a lot about this museum

experience that I had on a recent trip to London, the UK, not London, Canada.

I know people mix it up.

So yeah, I visited the Sir John Stone Museum.

Do you know it?

No, but just by the title, it feels like, you know,

yeah, it's an obscure one, which is why I was curious to visit it.

So Sir John Stone was a professor of architecture at the Royal Academy.

And of course, he was a dedicated collector.

He collected everything from paintings and sculptures to artifacts.

And the museum itself is his home exactly as he left it.

So you can walk around the house and look at everything that he collected

and how he had displayed it in his home.

And the part that like really captured my attention was this

whole like part of the house that's dedicated to Egyptian artifacts.

And I had a guide for the visit, and I was just like noticing this

lack of discussion around like how these items got to this house.

Like, how did he acquire these Egyptian artifacts?

And it just wasn't like part of the storytelling experience of this museum.

And so I left it feeling like, okay, like this is obviously an example of colonial

times and a colonial mindset in the UK.

But it made me uncomfortable because I felt like the message of the

museum was, look at all this cool stuff that this cool guy collected.

And I felt like there was an opportunity for there to be more meaningful

messaging around, like, why he was able to collect these artifacts and, like,

how they represent colonial power and, like, a colonial history in the UK.

So yeah, honestly, I kind of left with an icky feeling, and I know that many museums

have these legacies rooted in colonialism.

Collections often come from, like, wealthy donors who benefited from

empires, and so those artifacts were often taken without permission.

So, yeah, that was my most recent icky museum experience, but I'm

curious, like, your thoughts on that.

You know, I think that, like, people often, like, in my field, we forget

that culture changes and the way we tell stories changes and should change, too.

So, I work in art museums, and even there, like, the way you talk

about art history is very much thinking through a Western lens.

So I think the challenge for our industry right now is to really rethink

the way we tell stories and, and what are the stories that we have not told?

That are part of that narrative, because I'm sure that those objects

that were in that museum were part of a very rich context at a given culture.

Like, what about the people that were there and used those objects?

Like, I would like to know more about that.

So I agree with you that, that it is problematic to just say one part of the

story and then ignore everything else that surrounds and gives more richness to those

objects.

It's a tough question because going to museums like that, I know the British

Museum is another one that gets like a lot of flack for its colonial history.

Do you have ideas on like how museums can rectify this today, like as we

acknowledge history more and more?

What can museums be doing to sort of shift the way they storytell?

Like what actions should be taken in these spaces?

Well, I think that first of all, they should like bring

that into awareness, right?

And acknowledge it, which I think is sometimes the hardest step.

And then they should hire curators.

and engage board members that are interested in telling those stories.

You'll be surprised the wonders that it does to, like, I'll give you an example.

You have an art museum that has never had a curator of color within those

institutions, and museums like that, it's very likely that their collections

of different types of artworks, of artists of color, Black artists, Native

artists, you know, are quite low in terms of holdings, but once you bring

somebody that has the background on that, on that knowledge and on all those

works, that's going to just enrich the exhibition program and enrich the museum.

I would start small.

Like, I think that sometimes it can be overwhelming to think, oh, we need

to like deaccession everything or just return all these objects to the people

that like originally owned this works.

I think that by just starting small baby steps.

Small goals that include different ways of storytelling and different

ways of thinking out this material and recontextualizing it will eventually

lead us to better, more equity.

Yeah.

It's an interesting point you bring up about like representation, because that's

something we talk about a lot on this show, but like diverse representation

in travel media and like how much.

it's lacking.

And to be honest, I never thought about it in the context of like

a field like museum curation.

How diverse are curators these days?

Like, is it really white?

It is a very white field.

Yeah.

There's some, you know, groups that are more organized than others, like

at least here in the US where I'm at.

I think there's more growth in part of the African American

dialogue in terms of curatorial.

Certainly the Latin American or the Latinx, even though it's very

rich and it's very powerful in its own right, still probably needs

more representation in museums, especially positions of leadership.

And mainly because of the population too.

Latinos in this country are really, are the biggest minority.

So, but yet they still They're probably one of the groups that are the least

represented in museums, collections, exhibitions, and definitely staff.

It's definitely an area of growth.

Yeah.

And I guess another option potentially would be like to hire people for

consult for situations like this, like say they don't have a curator on

the team behind an exhibit who like.

can personally identify with the story that's being told.

Do museums ever, like, think, oh, let's hire someone from the community to come

in and, like, give us consult on how to tell this story in an ethical way?

Yeah,

they do.

That's a step, right?

And I think often it's the first step that consultant most likely

is going to tell them you need to hire somebody to, to develop this.

Like right now I'm actually doing that for another museum here in Detroit, and

it's just a week of work and that's it.

I think I'm going to, of course, be a resource and it speaks very

highly of the institutions that they are doing this type of work.

But at the same time, you know, eventually they need to hire

roles that can be dedicated.

For those positions, because curators, you know, we build backbones.

So, for example, before working at my curate museum, I was working

at another museum in Miami.

And now I'm working at the Miami Museum on 4th floor, um, in Texas.

And before I was the person at Museum Miami.

There, uh, at the PAM, I build a really strong kind of African Denisporic,

Latinx, Latin American collection.

And that's going to be there forever.

So every new curator that comes to work there, they're going to have to

work and build with those objects and include others into that conversation.

So it's very important to, to hire and have leadership

positions in those museums.

I wanted to touch more on the storytelling aspect because a museum that does

it really well is here in Toronto, it's called the Aga Khan Museum.

It's fantastic museum.

If you're ever here, you gotta go.

What are like the modes in which museums?

Create the story, because I think, like, everyone thinks it just has to do

with, like, the plaques that you read.

But are there more elements involved in, like, communicating

a story to someone who's visiting?

Totally.

Like, today, I actually went to the African American History Museum here

in Detroit, which next time you're in town, I recommend you to go because

they have this installation, which, you know, I think that is quite interesting.

And it basically is in his, uh, uh.

It's go inside different moments of time from the moment that

humans are in Africa to then like the different kingdoms of Africa.

And then the European settlers come.

It's quite bizarre because you kind of walk into the boats where they,

they were taking the enslaved people.

And then you walk into this place where you're in America being sold as cargo.

And then you end up in the 2000s with like American politics of

like Jesse Jackson and others.

So they're really saying that, you know, they're narrating a very specific.

Narrative of just, you know, a history of blackness in the U.

S.

So that's an example of storytelling for sure.

In my own work, being interested in the diaspora and so on, I am now

working on a show called Serialism and Us, which deals on the history

of serialism in the Caribbean.

And it kind of asks, it's framed under this question, like what happens

if you would think about serialism, instead of starting in Europe, starting

first in the Caribbean, then going to Europe, and then going to the U.

S.?

So that's, you know, that's storytelling in a completely different

way.

Oh, I love that.

When and where will this exhibit be happening?

That's going to open

at the Modern in Fort Worth in March of next year.

Till July.

Amazing.

So come and visit.

Yeah, so I wanted to talk a bit more about artifacts that we see in museums.

I do think actually in recent years, I've noticed like more public discussion

around this stuff, especially like colonial artifacts that we see

in especially European museums.

So like artifacts that have been obtained through unethical or like colonial means.

I'm curious what recourse you think there is now?

Because this is a debate, I think amongst people, it's like the question of should

Can these items be returned or can they be kept in some sort of ethical way?

How do you think museums should be approaching this?

And what's the best way nowadays for museums to be sourcing

their artifacts and their

art?

I think it's good to know where you got it from and who, who and how.

I mean, I think that for places like the British Museum.

Or even big like the National Gallery in the U.

S., like those museums that are quite encyclopedic that do have a lot of

objects that who knows how they, they came from the original places.

They have bigger questions to address.

Who owns them?

Who are they for?

Sometimes those objects were not meant to be handled the way

they've been handled in museums.

So it's a tricky, it's a tricky conversation.

I mean, some museums are returning some of the objects.

others aren't.

So I guess it depends a lot on the politics of a given institution.

For example, you know, the headdress of Montezuma, that big

headdress is actually in Austria.

I lived in Mexico City and it's bizarre to me that such an iconic object that

represents so much for Mexican culture is in Austria and, you know, I, I don't

know, but I doubt that they want to give it back, but should it be in Mexico?

Probably, yeah.

And that's the other part that, that is complicated that a lot of when these

objects are taking from their context to another place, being in Europe, the U.

S.

Canada, maybe even, they are ignoring the fact that the communities and cultures

that use or, um, made those objects are, have been eradicated from earth.

And that's a problem I see often in those more historical museums that they show

these cultures as if they don't exist, as if they're not at the current time living.

Like I remember one of the first time I, the first time I heard Mayan.

Spoken was when I was waiting tables at a restaurant in Houston, because

some of the waiters were actually my own descendants, you know, from

Guatemala, that type of ignorance.

It's, it's dangerous, or it's problematic.

Yeah, your mention of that reminds me of the, I'm going

to butcher Koh Noor diamond.

It's in the UK now.

And it came from India during the British Empire.

And apparently, India has been asking for it back and they're being denied.

And it's this question of like, well, it was stolen.

Like, should it not be returned?

And does it not belong in the place that it came from?

Which actually makes me think a lot about sort of like the experience

of, of someone visiting a museum to see the headdress, like in Austria.

It's sort of out of context in a setting sense.

Like to me, it would make more sense to travel to Mexico to see it.

And I also wonder like, if it is a disservice to Mexico's tourism

industry, because people I'm sure travel to go and see it.

And then for it to be in Austria, it's like, well, shouldn't people travel to

Mexico to see it like in its home context?

I don't know.

This is kind of like a question too, because I understand that

like, people local in Austria might want to see these things as well.

I don't know.

It's difficult.

Well, luckily Mexico is an amazing country and there's so many things

to do, lots of reasons to go.

Yeah.

There's so many reasons to go to Mexico that, and you know, Mexico has taken,

um, a lot of measures with their objects.

So for example, uh, Frida Kahlo.

Kahlo, you cannot see it unless you're in Mexico.

Like they don't loan, like the things that are considered national

heritage, because people steal them.

Till this day, they just don't loan them.

And I guess that's what I'm saying, right?

Like to see Frida Kahlo's work, like, and I went and I saw it in

Mexico City, it was incredible.

I know people who've traveled to Mexico City for that reason,

like to go to that museum.

Does Mexico not deserve the right to like hold that?

Hold that art and make it a reason for people to come visit.

I mean, I think it does.

I think it does hold it right to all the objects.

It's, it's in direct contact to that history.

Maybe that's a good way to think about it.

Like who are, like in your level of proximity, who's

the closest to that object?

and has kind of primary understanding of what it is.

And that should be the people should have it.

And then this brings me to like another question, which is, as a

museum goer, are there museums that you would say like are unethical

to visit or irresponsible to visit?

Like, is this something that museum goers should be thinking about?

I think that there are some museums.

that I might be less interested in going, you know, uh, for

example, and the thing is that a museum can be of anything, right?

So there are some museums that just, you know, they just present one

point of view of what creation is.

Not to give a sense or of what, uh, a particular culture should be and that to

be less interested in that type of story.

And there were times where there were museums that were promoting stereotypes.

And I, as a museum goer, I'm not interested in a museum that may call

themselves an international museum and only shows one perspective.

Because I do like, I'm very curious, I do like learning about

different ideas, different cultures.

Yeah, so I guess like one way to figure that out because it's always hard to

know right like I guess there's some clues you can dig around the website to

figure out like what the vibe of a museum will be, but Katie and I always talk

about like going to the reviews as well.

We love leaving reviews.

So maybe it's worth it for people to leave reviews if they find like, oh,

this museum had a really like biased story or like that's what I walked away

with like maybe leave it in the reviews.

Are museums checking their reviews?

Reviews.

Reviews.

I check the reviews.

Yeah.

I do.

I mean, summary, you know, something we take to the grain of salt.

We definitely check the reviews for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I also wanted to ask a bit more about modern museum culture and like, If you're

noticing as a curator, any shifts in the approaches that like new museums are

taking, how they might be approaching curation differently, um, to try to

sort of like decolonize the practice.

I think that, you know, there's definitely a desire to diversify more.

They also try to hire, you know, more diverse curators, people from different

backgrounds, not all, but, but some.

So that is a shift that I'm seeing.

I think also there's a desire to reconsider the

way we say, we tell history.

You know, if we go into a very linear way of saying, of talking about

art, like, okay, this is 1960s, and minimalism, and all this kind of

basic traditional Western canon.

um, notions, then that leads very little opportunity to include others

because, um, people that may not be of a particular background do not follow

that kind of lineage, traditional lineage narrative that has been so

well documented and recorded in like kind of the mainstream culture, right?

But we'll see what stays because this is very normal in museums, like

there's waves of like, let's talk about the other and let's all be

kind of Shangri La, but then there's ways of more conservative, um, omens.

So, and museums are, within themselves, very conservative, so it's really

hard, even though these impulses are happening, like, to see a big

shift, that's gonna take a while.

Okay, what about, like, the nitty gritty of being a curator?

Like, how do you find the individual pieces?

Like, do you

know a guy?

I know a couple guys, a couple girls, and a couple of non gender conformist people.

Different ways.

Sometimes I find art to different art through the other artists.

You know, I travel, so I'm constantly looking at art,

constantly looking at exhibitions.

I also go a lot to art fairs.

So I basically, how do I find artists?

By constantly looking at art, really, in different modes.

Being in my phone.

Being in, uh, in real life, like in places.

Ugh, your life just sounds so fun.

Just, you curate all these amazing exhibitions.

You get to travel around the world and hang out with really cool artists.

Like, I, this sounds really amazing.

This sounds like an amazing career.

Yeah, it sounds, it sounds, it sounds glamorous, right?

But it's, you know, you're dealing with different types of personalities.

I'll say that.

And, you know, nothing is perfect.

Like the art world is one of the most.

deregulated spaces in the world for the longest time until today, like the whole

thing about salaries and equity, like, um, and also when it comes to diversity,

like I worked in Mexico city, then I came back to the U S and when I was

working, you know, in my current job, my last job in Miami was the first time

that I was shocked by how, you know, Um, conservative and white museums are so

like, it's, you know, it's not like other industries, like medicine or teaching

where there's at least a different, like, there's a variety of voices that has

been, that have made it more accessible.

But till this day, a lot of people don't know how, what

careers do and how to become one.

So how do you know if it's foreign to you all, like it's foreign to

people that, you know, like me, they didn't realize what it would do.

So, so there's still more information that needs to be accessible.

to make it more equitable for people that work in it.

I have a silly question now that just popped into my head.

I'm just curious what you'll think about this.

There's a lot of movies about really expensive art being stolen.

Is this really a thing?

Does this really happen a lot?

It happens.

It goes to someone who wants to buy it, you know.

Like a private

collector who just like hides it away?

Because I'm just like, wouldn't someone recognize this?

It's like a famous piece of

art.

Well, yes.

So people do get caught, you know, and sometimes people may buy it and they might

not know and that happens often also.

That happens more and more now with artifacts that somebody would buy it

and then it gets to auction and it gets somewhere that is more public

and then they have to return it.

And that actually, there was a work once that we were looking at.

By a really well known artist, very hard to get, and we're gonna buy

it, but then we have to run it by the estate of the artist, and they

were like, we have no account of this artwork, it's definitely his.

But we need to, that, that needs to come to us first.

Like, that's not, you know, so there was a lot of questions in terms of

how that object was circulating.

And the other thing that's very common is false falsification.

Like I used to work at the, that VFL, the Saladar Tepulco Siqueiros in Mexico

City, which is the old studio house of that VFL Siqueiros, if you know

the muralist, there's Diego Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros, and Siqueiros, I

mean, the museum was beautiful because.

My office was full of his murals, but he was also known as one of the big,

like he falsified a lot of his work.

Like sometimes, uh, he would have workers that would, he would pay them with work.

So the, the worker would paint the, the painting and then he would sign

it, but it wasn't his painting.

So there's a lot of false cicadas running in the market and the second.

So, so, and that's, that's another one, like the, the false, I mean, Basquiat.

is another big one, which I don't know if you guys saw recently

in Florida, there was a show of Basquiat that, um, it was a bunch of

falls.

It's funny.

It's almost like there's ghostwriters for artists.

I've actually read about this before.

I think I was reading about Some of the like famous Dutch artists that

they had like people that they would hire and they were actually training

them and they would end up painting like parts of these paintings that

we now like see in the Rijksmuseum.

But it was more of like, Oh, I'm mentoring you.

So like, you're going to help me.

paint this painting that's gonna take six months.

Interesting.

Katie.

Katie's like free

labor.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's wild, especially because some of these

objects, like they trade in the art market for very high prices.

So if, you know, let's imagine I'm this wealthy woman can collect this amazing

Basquiat and then I want to sell it and then somebody tell me it's fake, you know,

that's, that's, I'll be pretty annoying.

Okay,

here's a question for you.

As you got into the world of art curation, uh, were you ever

influenced by the one and only Sex and the City's Charlotte York?

No.

Very

predictable

answer.

Yeah, no, it's completely, I mean, I I have to admit that I haven't

watched Hexadecency in a long time.

Okay, thank you so much for entertaining that question.

Okay, Erin, over to you.

I've never been asked that question, so thank you for offering me that experience.

We are

truly journalists.

We've just gone completely off script because you're just like bringing up so

many questions for both of us, clearly.

I have one more that actually I didn't write to you in advance, but

you might have some thoughts on it.

And it's...

Related to something that I've talked about on this show a lot,

which is that I really love going to cities where museums are free.

I love it because obviously it's free and, but I also like it for that reason

because you can just sort of go in and out as you feel, because sometimes when

I go to a museum here in Toronto, it's like notoriously expensive to go to a

museum, and so I always feel this sort of pressure to like, okay, I'm going to spend

like six hours, be completely exhausted by the time I leave, and sometimes it

detracts from the experience because I feel like I'm just trying to like

consume as much of that museum as I can.

in one visit, whereas like, for example, when I was in Dublin,

all the museums are free.

So I would just every day sort of pop into one for an hour, go to different section.

And I, it felt like I was having a more meaningful experience because it wasn't

like rushed, there was no pressure on it.

But then I was wondering, because I guess when museums are free, it

means they're being publicly funded.

And so I'm curious if you think.

There's any issues with that?

Like, is it better for a museum to be like privately funded versus publicly funded?

Do you think museums should be free?

You know,

I worked in both.

So I worked in Mexico City Museums are publicly funded, right?

And here in the States, museum are mostly private funded, right?

To me, if you're asking me, I think that it's whatever works best for the museum.

So for example, there are museums that you know, when you have a

mix of funds, it's really great.

Because there's more checks and balances, I guess.

So there's, you know, partly public, partly private.

You know, some challenges, when I worked in Mexico in terms of museums, was that

we never had, like, all our budget was determined by the state and the election.

So if you had a president which wanted to dedicate funding to another industry,

then of course you would suffer.

The art museums would suffer.

And there wasn't necessarily, at that time, I cannot speak for today, but

at that time, you know, there was more to do with the philanthropic culture.

So I think that it depends because at the same time, you could argue that one is,

if, if a museum is privately funded and there's an endowment set up for, for it,

then perhaps you have more intellectual freedom, but which happens a lot in the U.

S.

Because everything is private, then the boards become very important

and often they might have say on what you show in exhibitions and the

type of artists that you work with.

I'll say this though, in terms of the free entrance question, that's independent of

public or private because you could get a donor even in a private organization

to pay for having the museum for free.

Because at the end of the day, admission within a museum's overall

budget might not be a big ticket item.

It's not, it's not like salaries, right?

Or the electricity bill.

So like, I, I don't think that like that entrance question is,

is, it's a public private question.

It's more about like, where, if there's funds that can cover that cost.

And if.

philosophy and vision of the leader of the museum or the board or whatever finds

that as an important mandate to adhere to.

And a lot of it is also cultural.

Like here in the U.

S., a lot of museum prices, tickets have been going up.

And I think that there's a lot of, there's some places in New York, like

that it's 30 to go into a museum.

And I would argue that in the U.

S.

there's a certain value to paying for stuff.

And it's, I find interesting that, like, that, uh, what you

mentioned about committing to time, because I think that often what

all people feel is also anxiety.

Like, for example, Jamie Holmes, he talks about how anxious he

was the first time he went to the museum, he didn't know what to wear.

For somebody that might not be as a custom to go into museum

doesn't know how to wear it.

It's just creates more distance, right?

And I think that's a problem, especially like with modern

art and art museums, which is

Yeah, it's almost like, I might be totally wrong, but there is this sort of like

air of, I don't know, like high culture.

I hate that phrase, but around museums where I think like they

might not feel like safe and accessible places to all people,

but they're fun places to, like, to kind of just look at things

and to just be amazed by a human hand can do or a mind can do.

So I certainly, you know, if you don't know what to wear, you

don't know do just wear whatever.

Nobody cares.

No one's looking at you.

They're looking at the art.

Well, the guards might

be looking at you.

Yeah, that's true.

You don't need to care about what they're doing.

Okay, so you're obviously an avid museum goer.

Can you tell me about one of the most meaningful museum visits you've had?

There's so many.

I'll just say one that I had this week.

So, um, I went to the Detroit Institute of the Arts and there they have

Perhaps like the best thing about mural that he did in this state.

If you saw that Freedom movie, I think there's scenes of him making it.

It's in the middle of the courtyard and is, you know, is this mural where it's

about, you know, he was commissioned by the director of the museum and the mural

was paid by Ford during the height of like the auto industry in Detroit, in the U S.

And I believe that when he started, there were protests going

around because of workers rights.

And then also the depression was starting.

So he's kind of extrapolating, like, these different moments

on industry and civilization.

And the mural looks, like, beautiful.

Like, it was done yesterday.

And you just walk in there and you just get completely, you know, taken

by this piece of art that it was done.

Almost a hundred years ago, but it feels so contemporary, but there's

other museums that I recommend.

I mean, there's a great museum I think in almost in every part of the world.

What

would you say to people who say museums are boring?

That they haven't found their right museum, you know, that's what I would say

I'm really I'm curious now like anyone listening if you don't like museums DM us,

tell us why, let's get into this, because I'm curious now, I don't think I've ever

actually met someone who has told me like in all seriousness that they don't

like museums, because I will not allow it, but next time I'm gonna, I'm gonna

dig a little deeper for some answers.

Maria, thank you so much for joining us.

This has been really great.

I've learned so much.

Um, where can people find you if they want to follow your work?

You can

definitely find me on the gram.

I am at contemporary chica.

I'm there.

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Curious Tourism, the responsible travel podcast, is written and hosted by me,

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