Seattle Art Museum
SAM as the Seattle Art Museum is affectionately known is made up of three campuses which include the main art museum, a sculpture park and a gallery for art sales.
The main gallery is in the heart of Seattle’s downtown and has a good collection of contemporary art.
The SAM currently has a no photography policy in its galleries but is looking to change this to encourage visitors to engage and experience the gallery spaces and the art.
It has been really interesting seeing how people view art and museum objects these days, and more and more it is through the lens or screen of a digital camera. While it is odd in the gallery space the flow on effect of sharing photos with family and friends (look out people I have over 1000 to share!) means more people are experiencing, learning and becoming aware of the objects, artists and importantly for us, the museum and galleries.
SAM has a new media manager who is running the Twitter, Facebook and YouTube applications for the SAM and they have around 4,000 fans and followers on each application.
Their Facebook application is very much used for event announcements while the Twitter account is encouraging conversation amongst their community.
One really nice project SAM is running is the ART HIT whereby one of their curator’s load’s up a work of art with a description on Facebook. At first they were worried that the text being uploaded was too long for Facebook users but fans seem to love it and it is really encouraging dialogue about the art. You can check it out at http://www.facebook.com/seattleartmuseum
