As a museum, how do you compellingly tell stories about immigration? How do you guide visitors trouhg feelings of love, loss, fear and hope? In this ICOM Talk, four immigration museums shared stories about their methods and experience. A must for all museum professionals looking for inspiration on how to tell universal human stories.
Speakers
- Annie Pollman, Director Tenement Museum, New York, United States
- Diana Pardue, Director Ellis Island Museum, New York, United States
- Marie Chapman, Director Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, Halifax, Canada
- Willemijn van Drunen, Head of Marketing FENIX, Rotterdam
Watch this ICOM Talk
More about the speakers
Dr. Annie Polland is a public historian, author, and President of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Previously, she served as the Executive Director of the American Jewish Historical Society. She is the co-author, with Daniel Soyer, of Emerging Metropolis: New York Jews in the Age of Immigration, winner of the 2012 National Jewish Book Award. She received her Ph.D. in History from Columbia University and served as Vice President of Education at the Museum at Eldridge Street, where she wrote Landmark of the Spirit. Polland recently taught a course on the Lower East Side in History and Memory at Princeton University.
Diana Pardue is director of the Museum Services Division at the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island, part of the US National Park Service. She was involved with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island restoration projects in the 1980s which created the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. Her current duties include overseeing the museum programme and cultural resource management of the historic structures, archeology, history and ethnography of the sites. She was also a member of ICOM and chair of the ICOM International Committee of Architecture and Museum Techniques (ICAMT).
Marie Chapman is CEO of the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. Marie Chapman is CEO of the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. She began her work at the former Pier 21 society in 1996, where she held various positions. She was appointed CEO in 2011, when the organisation was transformed into one of Canada's six national museums. In 2015, she oversaw a renovation that doubled the size of the museum. In honour of her significant contributions and achievements for the museum, she received both the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012 and the Platinum Jubilee Medal in 2022. She has been a member of the International Women's Forum since 2012. She has been president of the Atlantic-Canadian chapter and is still a member of the national executive committee. Marie holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Mount Allison University. She is the proud mum of her son Will.
Anne Kremers is the director of FENIX, the immigration museum that will open in Rotterdam in spring 2025. Kremers is responsible for both the creation of the museum and the ground floor of the historic building where culture, creative and culinary will converge. Kremers previously lived in Hong Kong, where she worked for the Chow Tai Fook Art Foundation. She was involved in setting up art and design projects in Hong Kong and China. From 2013 to 2017, Kremers led Museum Villa Mondriaan in Winterswijk as the youngest museum director in the Netherlands. She studied General Cultural Studies in Rotterdam and Art History in Leiden.