The blooloop 50 museum influencer list 2020

In July 2021, Ngaire Blankenberg took on the role of director at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C.

In her 30+ year career, Blankenberg has been as a storyteller (first as a television producer and director and then as a museum interpretive planner) and a strategic cultural consultant, working with television, museum consulting and exhibition design companies. She has worked with 55 museum and cultural projects in 35 cities and towns on 5 continents.

She was with museum and culture consulting company Lord Cultural Resources for 12 years, where she was Director, Europe for the last five. She was also Head of Content and Planning at leading Dutch museum design firm Kossmanndejong.

“The National Museum of African Art embodies the Smithsonian’s mission to foster understanding, inspire dialogue and bring people together irrespective of language, culture or border,” said Lonnie Bunch, the Secretary of the Smithsonian, on her appointment.

“Ngaire’s leadership and experience will be invaluable in using the museum’s unparalleled collections and scholarship of African Art to further our reach, diversify our audiences and have a more profound impact on the nation and world.”

“Museums are institutions that carry a lot of systemic baggage from their colonial origins, but they are vital public spaces to reconsider how we connect and contend with one another and the planet, and where we can redefine, heal and reconcile,” Blankenberg added.

“The National Museum of African Art sits physically in a city with one of the biggest populations of African peoples in the U.S. Digitally it reaches far into the diaspora. I am so grateful for the trust being placed in me to continue to care for, build, interpret and share NMAfA’s fantastic collection, particularly in this new era of U.S.-African relations.”

Since the publication of this list, Blankenberg has left the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. She works as an independent consultant and founded the Institute for Creative Repair in 2023.

Eugene Tan is Director of both the the National Gallery Singapore (NGS) and of the Singapore Art Museum(SAM).

Tan has been Director of SAM since March 2019 and Director of NGS since 2013.

Under Tan's leadership at NGS Tan, the museum has created blockbuster exhibitions including “Reframing Modernism: Painting from Southeast Asia, Europe and Beyond” (2016), Yayoi Kusama’s “Life is the Heart of a Rainbow" (2017), "Century of Light” (2017–18), and “Minimalism: Space. Light. Object” (2018–19).

NGS has also established partnerships with leading international institutions, including Paris’ Centre Pompidou and Museé d’Orsay; South Korea’s National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art; London’s Tate; and Ilham Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. It has showcased major touring exhibitions that highlight art historical dialogues between Southeast Asia and other parts of the world.

For the last four years Tan has been guiding a major renovation USD 90 million project at SAM. On appointing Tan, Edmund Cheng, chair of the SAM Board, said, “We are at an important juncture for our museum’s development as we undergo a major revamp of our premises. We have great confidence in [Tan’s] ability to make a positive impact and advance SAM’s role as a leading museum of contemporary art through a shared vision and strong collaboration with our curators, programmers, and SAM team.”

Piotr Cywiński is a professional historian and the Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński started his role at the Auschwitz Museum at the relatively young age of 34 in 2006, making him just the fourth director of the Auschwitz Memorial since the war.

Both a museum and a memorial, The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, Poland is on the site of two parts of the former concentration and extermination camp. 2020 marked the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

Attendance in 2019 at the museum broke records, with around 2.3 million people visiting the site of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp. This was an increase of almost a quarter of a million over the previous year.

About the vital role of the museum, Cywiński has said, "Irrespective of whether it is realised within a 3-4 hour visit, or in the course of an in-depth, multi-day study or seminar visit, our moral obligation, the raison d’etre of this place, is to warn man of himself.”

In 2019, German chancellor Angela Merkel visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum for the first time. She donated €60 million to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation for Germany. This was in addition to the €60m donated by Germany when the fund launched 10 years ago.

Cywiński graduated in 1993 from the University of Humanities in Strasbourg as a Mediaeval historian and from the Catholic University of Lublin in 1995, obtaining his PhD from the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 2001.

Ellen Stofan is the John and Adrienne Mars Director of the National Air and Space Museum. She is also the first female Director of the museum.

Stofan resigned from NASA in December 2016. Although she has confirmed she planned to resign before Donald Trump became president, she has lamented the subsequent barrage of misinformation in relation to climate change, despite the science being unequivocal.

She told The Guardian, “We are under siege by fake information that’s being put forward by people who have a profit motive. Fake news is so harmful because once people take on a concept it’s very hard to dislodge it.

“I’m always wondering if these people honestly believe the nonsense they put forward. When they say ‘It could be volcanoes’ or ‘the climate always changes’… to obfuscate and to confuse people, it frankly makes me angry.”

Previously, Stofan was vice president of Proxemy Research in Laytonsville, Maryland and an honorary professor in the Earth sciences department at the University College London.

Since the publication of this list, Stofan has left the National Air and Space Museum for a role as under secretary for science and research at the Smithsonian Institution.

An American art critic, editor, writer and curator, Franklin Sirmans is the director of the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) Miami’s flagship art museum.

At PAMM, Sirmans has pursued his vision of the institution as “the people’s museum,” representing a Miami lens. He has done this by enhancing existing affiliate groups, including the PAMM Fund for African American Art and by creating the International Women’s Committee and the Latin American and Latinx Art Fund.

Before his appointment he was the department head and curator of contemporary art at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Before that he was curator of modern and contemporary art at The Menil Collection in Houston.

Sirmans has been a leader in creating a strong shared vision among his staff and fostering a team culture to make community impact. He brings depth, wisdom, and unparalleled leadership to the Perez Art Museum, and he is steadfast in his commitment to mission-driven work.

Tim Reeve is Deputy Director and COO of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the world's leading museum of art, design and performance and is also leading the development of the new V&A East in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, East London.

Reeve is project lead on the ambitious new 'V&A East' development in East London. This will see the creation of both a major new permanent gallery and exhibition space plus a new research and collections centre as part of the East Bank cultural and educational legacy.

Prior to joining the V&A, Reeve was Director of Historic Properties at English Heritage, and managed the National Heritage Collection's 420 historic properties. A graduate in Ancient History from Royal Holloway, University of London, Reeve studied at the Institute of Archaeology (UCL) and INSEAD on its International Executive Programme.

Laura Lott is the inspirational CEO of The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and her leadership has helped guide the museum sector through an unprecedented period of change.

A results-oriented, strategic leader with a track record of leading transformative change in nonprofit organisations, Lott served as The American Alliance of Museums' chief operating officer for five years before becoming the chief executive officer in 2015. She now effectively leads a diverse, national organisation with 35,000 members.

As a direct result of Lott's work to transform the AAM, it has been better able serve its constituents through enhanced membership offerings, accreditation, annual meetings and by sharing and promoting best practices. Furthermore, AAM member institutions, from art museums to science centres, arboretums and historic houses are better understood and supported because of the success of AAM's annual “Museum Advocacy Days,” which Lott leads. This effort results in increased funding for museums, libraries and other cultural institutions across the US.

Lott's commitment to Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion has led to unprecedented funding from major foundations for support of a national initiative to enhance diversity and inclusion within museum leadership. This work is inspiring institutions across the country to address this issue with intention, action and urgency.

During the pandemic, Lott has been the epitome of a strong leader. Through her leadership, AAM has provided vital information for museum professionals and has tirelessly advocated for government funding for the industry.

Since the publication of this list, Lott has left AAM to serve at the National Gallery of Art in Washington as administrator and chief operating officer.

Gail Lord is one of the world’s foremost museum planners. She is also an art critic, commentator, public speaker and co-author of six museum planning manuals and several books.

Lord co-founded Lord Cultural Resources with her husband Barry Lord in 1981 with the aim to deliver specialised planning services to the museum and cultural sector.

Since then, the firm has grown into one of the world’s leading cultural planning firms focused on museums, cultural districts and the creative economy. With headquarters in Toronto, it also has offices in New York, London, Mumbai and Beijing. It has now completed over 2,500 projects in 57 countries and 450 cities.

Lord has championed the idea of "Soft Power" and is an advocate of a close relationship between cities and museums, and the opportunity this gives museums to provide tangible public benefits. As such, she has worked with cities across the world to develop their museum hubs and cultural spaces, including Vienna, Salford, Bilbao, Chicago, Toronto, Ottawa and Johannesburg .

She also runs courses in cultural leadership, strategic planning and the application of soft power by cities and museums. Lord has also written numerous museum planning manuals with Barry Lord. Titles include “Cities, Museums and Soft Power”, and "Manual of Museum Management for Museums in Dynamic Change".

As one nominator said, "Every time I meet her on a project I'm amazed at her enthusiasm and encouragement for all members of the team. This enthusiasm is also matched with her encyclopaedic knowledge of what museums are doing globally and her understanding of all aspects of what people are looking for in a museum."

A professor of digital museology at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland, Professor Sarah Kenderdine researches at the forefront of interactive and immersive experiences for museums, galleries, libraries and archives.

Kenderdine is considered a pioneer in the fields of digital heritage and digital museology, and is a regular keynote speaker at related forums internationally, including the World Economic Forum (WEF).

She has built a new laboratory for experimental museology (eM+) at EPFL. This explores the convergence of aesthetic practice, visual analytics and cultural data. She also serves as the director and lead curator of EPFL’s new art/science initiative, inaugurated in 2016 as ArtLab. In addition, she develops interactive and immersive experiences for museums and galleries, often employing interactive cinema and augmented reality (AR).

Kenderdine has produced more than 80 exhibitions and installations for museums worldwide and has 35 peer-reviewed publications, including two books to her name. In addition to her museum exhibition work, Kenderdine conceives and designs large-scale immersive visualisation systems for public audiences, industry and researchers.

She curated the recent Deep Fakes: Art and its Double exhibition at EPFL, which she said was  “the culmination of several years of new creative practices emerging from the world of computer science". Kenderdine added: “It was only recently that artists and producers began to fully grasp the potential of computational production and new forms of art."  The exhibition showcased technologies disrupting the art world, including artificial intelligence (AI), computer vision, interactive and immersive media, and 3D and 5D printing.

Catherine Franche is the Executive Director of Ecsite, the European network of science centres and museums.

Ecsite, the European network of science centres and museums, was created in 1990. Its  stated mission is to inspire and empower science centres, museums and all organisations that engage people with science, and to promote their actions. For close to fifteen years Franche has been its inspirational and charismatic Executive Director and has been instrumental in the organisation's growth and continued success.

Active in the field of science communication, Ecsite's approximately 350 members are science centres, museums, research bodies, festivals, universities and planetariums. Under Franche's leadership the annual Ecsite conference has grown to become the largest science engagement event in Europe. It now attracts over 1200 science centre professionals from over 60 countries.

Responding to the pandemic, Franche and her team have been a vital resource for members. Resources have included a Covid-19 resource page, a series of webinars and a couple of one-day educational conferences. All of these resources have been provided to members free of charge.

A skilled communicator in a multi-cultural and multi-linguistic environment, Franche holds an MBA in cultural management from HEC Montréal (Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales).