About Teen Miami
In summer of 2010, HistoryMiami launched Teen Miami, a three-year research and collections initiative on the history of teen life and culture in Miami-Dade County. As part of the project, HistoryMiami has brought teenagers from diverse backgrounds and high schools to work at our museum, engage the history of region as it relates to teens and develop content for a planned Teen Miami exhibition that will open at the HistoryMiami in September of 2012.
Teen Miami seeks to address the need for teen voices and experiences in history museum exhibitions, collections and archives. While teens have been the enduring subject of bestselling books such as Catcher in the Rye, and movies such as The Breakfast Club for decades, history museums have relied almost exclusively on interpreting history through adult experiences. The exclusion of teen voices has resulted in a disconnection between museums and adolescents that is reflected in the low number of American teenage visitors to museums nationally. Teen Miami addresses this disparity by making the local teenage perspective central to the exhibition planning and development process.
Teen Miami consists of three phases spanning three years.
Year One 2010
During Year One, the team will learn about and engage in research on the history of Miami-Dade county and teen culture nationwide. The team will be challenged to engage the convergences of these histories from existing primary resources about teen life in the museum’s extensive archives and object collections. The teens will also intern in different departments of the museum, gaining real life experience and exposure to the career opportunities available to them both within the museum and elsewhere.
Year Two 2011
In Year Two, the teen team will be trained in audio-visual and digital documentation methods, and participate in the collection of 50 oral histories with community members from multiple generations on the subject of growing up in Miami. The team will process the collected oral histories and utilize the contents and materials to develop a website and provide content direction for creations and design of the Teen Miami exhibition.
Year Three 2012
In Year Three of the project, the teen team will be heavily engaged in the rollout of the exhibition from fundraising, program development and management to public relations and marketing. During the third year of the program the teens will work closely with the Education department on the public programs associated with the roll-out of the exhibition. As part of this work the teens will work on fundraising and marketing projects that will help create a teen audience base that will live on at HistoryMiami after the Teen Miami exhibition.
Teen Miami promises to bring high school students, parents, teachers and community members to HistoryMiami in significantly larger numbers than the museum has seen before. As a review of teen culture in Miami across successive generations, it also will bring teenagers and adults together by highlighting the historical experiences common to both.
