Tim McHenry is the Director of Programs and Engagement at the Rubin Museum of Art, the museum dedicated to the art of the Himalayan region of Central Asia. The Rubin is one of New York’s smaller, “specialty” museums – it opened in 2004 and is deeply influenced by Tibetan Buddhism – and McHenry has created a series of programs that have helped define its place in New York while remaining true to its roots. These programs include the popular Brainwave series, which over the years has included everyone from drummer Questlove to author/psychologist Stephen Pinker to neuroscientist David Eagleman, and which tackles topics like perception, reality, and time. McHenry also oversees the annual Dream-Over, an exercise in mindfulness in the middle of the busy city that also doubles as a sleepover – under the watchful gaze of a hundred Buddhas.
The museums, the bigger cultural institutional life of the city... What would that look like for you?
Oh, well that's on the one hand a really easy answer to deliver, and on the other hand, the practicalities are hard to sum out. I think from an ideal point of view, access is probably the keyword here that I would want to use, and giving everybody the opportunities to choose to come and experience the commonality... I think people sharing a common experience, particularly when they're aware of sharing that common experience at the same time, that synchronistic experience is psychologically a really important bonding element. Having those sorts of quite literal congregations is really, really important.
There's work we can all do on our own, where we browse through museums, and spend time there. Ultimately, I think it's when you're all experiencing the same thing at the same time, that is a fundamental tendency for humans to associate with one another, and create unstated bonds, which is a very much a hardwired aspect of how humans came to survive. But, it's what we need to have to survive, so that our communities have become increasingly fractured.
What that looks like, whether it's in the form of music or whether it's in the form of other happenings, the successes we've seen of large scale meditation practices in Central Park. These are all examples of what we actually need more of in our community, rather than the isolation that we experience ourselves, which fuels segregation and insular thinking.
The idea of the museum as a place where you can present things like music and... I mean, you've done this over the years, presenting music, meditation practice, things like that. So the idea of a museum, not as something to experience just by yourself or with a friend, but communally, that seems to be a different idea.
By community, I don't mean necessarily hundreds of people... but just even creating or having congregate in groups of 15, will do it just fine. But it's that shared experience.
I've been doing a little research in this, because I'm exploring some social experience like this in museums when we open, which will be radically different, I think from any other that we presented. But, it's the idea that we experience in realtime the same essential function of body, basically. It's like when you dance together. It's incredibly powerful vehicle for generating energy and warmth from the feeling that we all belong.
While dance isn't our strong suit at the Rubin, and there are other practices that are currently not regarded as artistic necessarily... that have a tendency to forge a sense of community and a sense that we're here together and the only way forward is actually together. We are not isolated. We're not individuals. We are part of a society that we then forge in the image that we want to forge. That recognition and that breaking down of individual differences, is I think really key going forward.
How do people who wouldn't think of themselves as museum goers here in New York City, how do you give them access? How do they gain access to places like the Rubin?
Right. Well, as you know John, what's driven at the Rubin to do un-museum-like activities within the museum, that break down of the preconception of the museums as alienating fortresses of art and intellect, that you have no real access to, and that's not for me... but that has only gone so far.
The access points, in particular the issue of thinking that museums, or even a trip into Manhattan is not really affordable or sustainable for some people, is something all of the institutions in New York need to address. That comes to the financing of how our institutions are kept afloat, and what the priorities of those institutions are, in terms of making freely available the resources that they have, and the experiences that they have.
This isn't ideal. You've asked for ideals. [It's a] pragmatic balancing act between judging what we can do that people are willing to pay for — offer that. And then, making experiences accessible without regard to the cost of actually putting that on, or taking away the expense of the participant. So, invariably it's a balancing act. Museums are juggling that all the time.
What would that take to make that happen?
It would take maybe a greater understanding of what service institutions should be providing. That they are service institutions, rather than portals for the privileged. One can point to models... that are fully government subsidized, for example, that make that access possible.
But, just like the word compassion. Compassion is not compassionate. That's followed by action. That needs to be very, very engaged and proactive. So, sure you can make things free. Doesn't necessarily say that people will come. There needs to be a great deal more work done in communities and providing the incentive, the windows of opportunity, and even the vehicular access, to come and experience something of what institutions have to offer.
I believe in an ideal future world that institutions that provide the tools by which people can better navigate their lives, are the ones, that should in my view, really looks at themselves and see how they can make that happen.
Is that ideally what a museum should be? One of those tools?
Yeah, I think so. That's certainly how I see the Rubin, and how we see the Rubin. That it is... I mean, we're just following, unlike perhaps some other institutions, we have a remit to follow, which is to look at what the art is saying, and the ideas that inform the art are in service to relieving the suffering of us human beings in this situation we find ourselves in.
So, if we don't impart a translation of that in some way, then we're not really the best students of the art that we put on our walls. So, that's certainly what we're working towards.
Riffing off of something you said... The museum is a place you go to. It is static. It's there. It's that building. What about the idea of the museum as something that can meet people where they are? We're doing all this remote stuff during the pandemic, and we're getting used to the idea of working, when we're not at work... Is there some way that what we're experiencing now, could change the way museums do outreach and engagement?
Well, as you rightly pointed out, in the last few months of [we've] tried to reach people where they are, because there's no other alternative. And yes, it has changed our thinking about how best to serve our potential audiences. I say potential, because we're serving audiences, but we're quite sure that they're not the full range of what is possible.
I do have to come back to this, the physicality of the experience of being in one place at one time, experiencing the one thing that you can jointly register together. I haven't seen yet in the few things that I've explored online, anything that truly comes to replicating that experience. It still feels... And maybe because we're not used to it. Maybe we need to be trained into experiencing, or having this visceral sensation via Zoom, or some other mechanism that we haven't developed yet.
I dare say that would be some time in coming. So, I just returned to the ideal wish if you will, of the idea of being able to re-congregate in a physical place. There's something innately molecular about that, and electric about that, that I haven't been able to truly experience in a digital format.
So, while I think that digital is great, it's one way of creating portals of interest and access. I do think that ultimately the goal of the brick and mortar institution is to work towards creating access avenues to that experience.
Yeah. I can see that. I think of the digital thing as like the trailer that gets you to the movie theater.
Very good. Yeah, exactly. I like the quest and the chance to reinvent. It's ironic perhaps that at the Rubin, we dedicated this whole year to an exploration of impermanence, but that's the whole point. It's a realization that even the things that you think are fairly continuously present, are vulnerable and will go. Therefore, being in a constant state of readiness to adjust, and willingness to let go of what might be a nostalgic past, because it's associated with memories of your first music experience at CBGBs or whatever. You let that go and you create new ones to constantly reinvent yourself.
New York has re-invented itself several times. So, I've no doubt that it will again. But as you said, you have a chance to invent it in maybe a more compassionate light, and one that is something that gives them greater access to people to witness something of themselves, and others in a way that's actually helpful.
