As Trump takes aim at the Smithsonian, meet the woman racing to visit every exhibit
“My goal for this is almost to provide a spool of marketing for the exhibition,” she said. “One of my priorities is to bring people to museums, to make people curious, reminding people that learning is fun and hope, to break the stigmatization that museums and galleries are stuffy and exclusive and people cannot come.”
Jones stopped to take historical images from a tram passing the White House. “This is what I like to see, the streets I recognize,” she said. “Look how much they are close to the White House with a tram.”
She added: “People on roller skates! I didn’t expect it. A tour! It’s so cool.”
This year, Jones ended up at a professional crossroads after leaving his job as vice-president of marketing.
“I called her my adult sabbatical year,” she said. “There were so many aspects of what I did that I liked it, but I was just sort of exhausted and I felt a drift. So, I took the year with the intention of understanding what brought me joy in life, which I wanted to do.”
By making videos on the Smithsonian, she discovered a passion for content creation, which she intends to continue after filming her latest Smithsonian exhibition.
“I tried, I think, three times and I failed before making my first exhibition. I went to a museum with the intention of reading everything, and I was too impatient to do so, embarrassed to film in public, “she said. “I’m really proud of myself for the progress I made in my ability to concentrate, my self -confidence.”
While Jones built her channel, the Smithsonian found herself under a meticulous examination. Last month, the Trump administration informed the secretary of the Smithsonian, Lonnie G. Bunch, that he would start a systematic review of “deleting division or supporters” before the 250th anniversary of the nation.
A week later, President Donald Trump targeted the Smithsonian on Truth Social.
“The Smithsonian is out of control, where everything that is discussed is how horrible our country is, how bad the slavery and how badly complicated the oppressed-nothing about the brightness, nothing about the future,” he wrote. “We are not going to allow this to happen.”
The first phase of the journal will focus on eight Smithsonian museums, including the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of African-American History and Culture and the National Portrait Gallery.
In an interview with Fox News, Lindsey Halligan, one of the White House officials who signed the administration’s letter of the August 12 to the Smithsonian, addressed the journal.
“The fact that … Our country was involved in slavery is horrible-no one thinks otherwise,” she said. “But what I saw when I crossed the museums, personally, was a surachis on slavery, and I think there should be more than one on the way on the way since slavery.”
The Smithsonian institution was in the administration’s reticle before last month’s announcement. In March, Trump signed a decree entitled “restoring the truth and reason for American history”, which ordered the institution to “prohibit spending on exhibitions or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans according to race or promote programs or ideologies incompatible with federal law and policy”.
In April, an exhibition of African LGBTQ artists was suddenly postponed by the National Museum of African Art of Smithsonian. The following month, NBC News documented more than 30 artefacts which were withdrawn from the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. And in July, the artist Amy Sherald canceled a next show at the National Portrait Gallery after declaring that the commissioners expressed concerns about the painting of a transgender statue of freedom.
“It has become clear during my exchanges with the gallery how the independence of conservation collapses when politics enters the room,” she wrote on msnbc.com. “Museums are not stages of loyalty. These are civic laboratories. These are places where we fight with contradictions, meet the unknown and expand our circle of empathy. But only if they remain free. “
This is not the first time that the Smithsonian has been in the cross fires of a cultural war. In 2010, the institution withdrew part of an exhibition entitled Hide / Seek featuring works by LGBTQ artists after a sustainable outcry by the president of the time John Boehner and Catholic organizations.
The institution was also filmed by a debate on a national exhibition of the Air Museum and the Espace of the Gay Aircraft Enola, which dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during the Second World War. Critics have turned plans to include Japanese perspectives and information on the effects of nuclear war as an example of “politically correct” conservation “.
“The Smithsonian has faced moments of crisis in the past … But the moments of crisis have never come from direct political assault, certainly not in the hands of the executive,” said Dr. Sam Redman, director of the public history program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “I know that we use the unprecedented word at that time, but this is really unprecedented in terms of reflection on the Smithsonian.”
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