In this mini-episode, Alyssa sits down with Sarika Sanyal, the Program Director of Future Tenant, to talk a little bit about some of the experimental research they have done this semester to inform future programming. They discuss Future Tenant’s partnerships with CMU School of Art, the Pittsburgh Airport, and MuseumLab at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.
[Musical Introduction]
Alyssa Wroblewski: Hello AMT Lab listeners, and welcome to a minisode with the Arts Management and Technology Lab. My name is Alyssa and I am the Podcast Producer. In this before and after minisode we sit down with Sarika Sanyal, the Program Director of Future Tenant, to talk a little bit about some of the experimental research they'll work on this semester that will determine their programming for the following semester. We hope you enjoy this minisode brought to you by AMT Lab.
[musical interlude]
Alyssa: So I'm here today with Sarika Sanyal, the Future Tenant Program Director, and according to your website, Future Tenant here in Pittsburgh is a student run organization that provides a laboratory setting for artists, arts managers and audiences to explore the limits of the creative expression of presentation and interpretation of various art forms. Today we're discussing Future Tenant’s work this semester on their hands-on experimental research for spring programming. So, thank you so much for joining us today Sarika.
Sarika Sanyal: Thank you Alyssa.
Alyssa: Alrighty, so, can you tell us the specifics of your research and what Future Tenant’s current hypothesis is for your research?
Sarika: Yeah. So, to start with, Future Tenant is currently in a bit of a transition, um, as an organization and we're using this year as a pilot to test out various ideas, as well as taking some time to do some in depth research into our brand and our identity. We're moving towards being a service organization that aims to support and grow the work of art and artists in the community and we are calling this for now Future Tenant 2.0.
Alyssa: Cool!
Sarika: So, for this year, we've established three partners in the community, one which is The Children's Museum that we're talking about today; the CMU School of Art, working directly with their MFA graduate students; and the Pittsburgh Airport, where we're working within their arts program on two transit murals. And that’s sort of to create a dynamic programming with each partner that gives us, as arts managers and training, hands on management experience in different types of arts organizations. And as it relates to our partnership with the Children's Museum, this year we want to explore working with kids and leverage the unique place of MuseumLab, which is an extension of the Museum and emphasizes hands on learning through art and technology. Our aim is to create pop-up programs that continue Future Tenant’s sort of mission to be innovative and experimental, but with a new audience. The arts as we know are sometimes slow to adjust to the digital age and we're trying to find our footing within that so that we can plan programming for the spring by placing ourselves in a more like experimental museum laboratory that tests, you know, different ideas of what a museum today is with the audiences of tomorrow.
Alyssa: Okay, so you've mentioned a few places that your research will take place at, such as the Children's Museum. Can you tell us how you will approach your research at these particular venues?
Sarika: Yeah, sure. So, we've decided to use a design thinking approach, which is a human centered approach to solving problems or a challenge and for us specifically, through an experience that creates some type of impact with our audience. There are three phases we're going to be working through and those are inspiration, ideation, and then implementation. We're currently in the first phase of this, so the inspiration sort of research side, which will be followed with prototyping and implementation of a specific program in the spring. And this approach will really inform our programming and partnership with the Children's Museum, when it will basically follow two tracks: observation of our audience and learning from the artists who are specifically working within the space of arts and technology. Using the design thinking model, the team has worked on coming up with a research question that we’re sort of-, will frame the rest of what we're, what we're looking for. And that's how might we engage youth in our in technology, so we're kind of, we're keeping it broad but specific at the same time. And then from here, we'll move into immersing ourselves in that environment and really observing our audiences.
Alyssa: Will any of your research faces take place at any events this semester?
Sarika: Yeah, so this semester, so actually, this weekend we’ll be at Steam Carnival, which takes place at the Children's Museum, and they-, and it's geared towards a couple different things. They have one day, which is professional development, and then the day that we’ll be attending is for children and families. So, they'll have various different booths set up and like different organizations throughout the community, different schools, who will be, you know, having some type of activity or workshop that engages with the youth. And so, we're really looking to walk in the shoes of our audience, see how they're exploring and connecting science, technology in the arts together, and the Museum is really a perfect host to develop a program like this that essentially intertwines all of these elements and is dedicated to investigating these avenues in a way that's engaging and changing the museum dynamic. Um, and then once we've sort of worked through our research while we're there, we'll sort of build a framework around this design challenge, and kind of go from there.
And there isn't necessarily a specific type of programming or, you know, there isn't, like a specific thing that we're looking for out of this. It's really just to, like, be a sponge, you know, and soak in everything we can, looking at, you know, the first time, like, someone is really discovering specific activity to like, what not only our direct audiences, how they're reacting, but also our audiences on the periphery. So, you know, the parents or like, you know, friends or older people around and then really thinking about ho-, what they walk away with through that program and you know, and there's various different things that that can come out that like a workshop or you know, actually using some of the-, people actually have like, you know, iPads or things that kids are like interacting with. And there's also more, I guess, traditional, like, hands-on workshops that are happe-, happening in the Museum like the installation right now, which is by an artist named Nick Chon, and he does a lot of mosaic work. So, they have like actual spaces in the MuseumLab where kids are allowed to come and they kind of build their own mosaic pieces.
Alyssa: Nice! Oh my goodness!
Sarika: Yeah! Yeah, it's awesome.
Alyssa: Okay, cool. So it sounds as if there's going to be quite a bit of work within this programming and development process because Future Tenant-, like the staff has to remain very flexible in this development.
Sarika: Yes.
Alyssa: It also sounds like it's going to be a very good opportunity to reach out to a lot of audiences, both young-, um,both the youth and their parents and a lot of these families that are involved to really partake in these particular programs. So that's really awesome.
Sarika: Yeah.
Alyssa: Okay, so what sorts of programs will you use to keep track of the results of your research?
Sarika: Yeah, so that's a bit of a tricky one, given that, we will be at a children's museum. So, there are some limitations and how much we can be recording, you know, can't really take videos or, like, photos, really, because you need certain permissions to go through that.
Alyssa: Oh, yeah, that makes sense.
Sarika: Yeah. So,” we really had to come together as a team and think about like, okay, what's a good way for us to do this?”. So really, there's three of us currently in Future Tenant. Our, our method is really to show up at the event and divide and conquer in a way, so we're going to be splitting up and having our own experiences, taking notes, detailed notes, just really just observing and, you know, reframing like our place as a, uh, as a person attending the event in terms of like, you know, be-, like actually being a younger kid and like going up and approaching these activities, listening to what people say and what they really take away from it, if they come back to it and how long they spend at each spot. So, it's, it's a fairly simple and straightforward approach in terms of how we'll be recording it, but the idea is that afterwards as a group we're going to come back together, regroup, and continue with our design thinking approach. So, from there we'll go into a brainstorming and sort of coming together on everything we, we observed and sort of mapping out the journey of what it was like to be there.
Alyssa: Okay, so basically from there, you'll be taking a lot of live feedback and using and using these visual components that will eventually go into a visual digital map of sorts?
Sarika: Yeah. So, I think initially what, what will happen is us sort of individually writing stuff on post-its, you know, bundling these different ideas. So, sharing ideas and then grouping them together in themes, and then sort of seeing what that journey was like, which will then be probably recorded into the computer in some way. We work as a group-, we work visually really well and so it'll help us to sort of see like how that journey can support our vision and goals for the year, especially given that Future Tenant is transitioning into this, this model.
Alyssa: Okay, yeah, yeah. So, it sounds as if there's a few lean techniques in there, along with some design thinking that will help you guys in your research and your process. So, and you know, I think that's really cool. I'm excited to see what kind of results you guys will have in your research once we check back in next semester. Very cool.
Sarika: Yeah.
Alyssa: But thank you so much for joining us.
Sarika: Thank you so much!
Alyssa: Yeah, absolutely. For our listeners, if you would like to learn more information regarding Future Tenant and their projects, you can check out their website at futuretenant.org. That's F U T U R E T E N A N T dot org.
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