Exhibition Developer - Urgent Position

Our Mission: Since the 1893 World Columbian Exposition, our organization has aimed to connect people to the natural environment and human history.

The Exhibition Developer works with Content Advisors—academic researchers and community members—to shape the stories an exhibition will tell and advocate for the visitor. The Developer is responsible for shaping the exhibition’s visitor experience goals and works closely with other team members who create the exhibit elements that facilitate those experiences for the visitor. This includes Exhibition Designers, Graphic Designers, Media and Interactives Specialists, Production Supervisors, and many other team members. The Developer balances the needs and desires of the visitor, the institution, and the communities we serve.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Establish a conceptual and organizational framework for each exhibition, including the creation of sensory/motor, affective, and cognitive goals for visitor experience
• Work with content advisors and team members to shape interpretive materials (photographs, illustrations, infographics; music and sound; video and animation; replications, touchable, and immersive environments; mechanical and digital interactives)
• Conduct artifact research, identifying potential items for display; create and maintain object databases; take and enter preliminary dimensions and photos; enter and update information for collections items, incoming loans, and other acquisitions
• Write and edit label text, media scripts, interactive text, and related internal documents (grant proposals, presentations for senior administration and Trustees, and reports to donors and other funders)
• Advocate for visitor experience throughout project phases
• Conduct background research sufficient to provide an “expert layperson’s” understanding of the content of the exhibition and to ensure efficient and productive discussion of the topic with the assigned content advisor
• Communicate exhibition content for other departments’ needs (i.e., marketing, public relations, institutional advancement, membership)
• Conduct visitor surveys for front-end, formative, and summative evaluations and create related visitor studies reports

Qualifications:

• Professional-level writing skills
• Demonstrated ability to tell stories through a variety of experience types
• Expertise in conceptualizing and synthesizing complex information
• An exceptional level of creativity coupled with the ability to shift to the execution of detail-oriented tasks
• Experience working as part of a large team, requiring strong judgment, interpersonal awareness, and diplomacy
• Experience working with people of diverse backgrounds, facilitating group discussions around topics that may be politically, historically, personally, or emotionally charged
• Strong time-management and organizational abilities
• Openness to criticism: comfortable receiving, consolidating, and addressing feedback from many sources

Community Collaboration

All exhibition development requires the skills, experience, and fulfillment of the responsibilities mentioned above. Over the last five years, the museum has increased its levels of community involvement, particularly in our cultural exhibitions. These collaborative or co-curated exhibitions have enlarged the Exhibition Developers’ responsibilities. Depending on project scope, schedule, and staffing levels. Developers assigned to cultural exhibitions may also be responsible for the following:

• Establish and cultivate relationships with external community partners
• Facilitate exhibition process for groups of community collaborators; educate and empower collaborators, eliciting participation, feedback, and consensus-based decision-making
• Travel to communities; represent the museum at community functions; lead off-site presentations and workshops for community groups (may require evening and weekend hours)
• Collect primary source research material (interviews, family photos, documents, etc.) from community members and archives
• Create and manage databases tracking participants and progress for community-driven exhibitions
• Lead team meetings with community partners and staff across the museum
• Serve as point person for collaborators to help them navigate the museum, connecting them with museum staff across departments as needed
• Advocate for collaborator needs in the exhibition process and communicate collaborator feedback to other divisions and departments; convey administrative decisions to collaborators
• Facilitate commission of new artworks and other items for exhibition
• Negotiate honoraria, image rights, and recording fees for community collaborators
• Arrange travel itineraries, gifts, and condolences as needed for community collaborators
• Schedule meetings, set agendas, and send follow-ups and reminders regarding deliverables and deadlines

Important Note: In order to protect the health and safety of our employees, guests and their families, the Field Museum is requiring all employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Requests for exemptions from the vaccine will not be considered as given the nature of this position, we are unable to provide an accommodation for anyone who has not been vaccinated.

The Field Museum is an equal opportunity workplace and employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, Veteran status, or any other protected class. We strive to create a working environment that is free of all forms of discrimination and one that promotes human dignity and mutual respect among all staff. We believe every member of our organization enriches our diversity by exposing us to a broad range of ways to understand and engage with the world, to identify challenges, and to discover, design, and deliver solutions.

The Field Museum strives to ensure that our career website and recruiting process are accessible to all. If you are unable or limited in your ability to use or access our online application, or if you require reasonable accommodation in completing this application, interviewing, completing any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participating in the employee selection process, please direct your inquiries to [email protected].