Frederic Remington Art Museum

Diversity, Equity, Access, and Inclusion Plan

Approved by the Board of Trustees August 2022

Summary

The following Diversity, Equity, Access, and Inclusion Plan was created by members of the FRAM Education Committee between April and June of 2022. It outlines a set of commitments, goals, and action steps to be taken up by the Remington Museum to advance its mission and its strategic plan. The work it outlines is ongoing, and the plan will accordingly be regularly updated to reflect developments in professional standards, in society, and in Museum planning.

A key element of the plan is the establishment of an annual retreat to review the plan, update and revise it as appropriate, and to outline action steps according to a three-year timeline, with assignment of primary responsibility (staff and board). The timelines will reflect both priorities and logical sequencing. The first set of three-year action steps will be itemized at a retreat in January 2023.

Frederic Remington Art Museum DEAI Plan

Mission Statement:

The Frederic Remington Art Museum expands and deepens appreciation and understanding of artist Frederic Remington (1861-1909), honoring the final wishes of his wife, Eva Caten Remington, by preserving and sharing his artwork and ephemera, their personal art collection, and her home, the Parish Mansion.

We will keep his legacy relevant and will be a destination and resource for the world-wide community of American Art enthusiasts and scholars by engaging diverse, contemporary audiences in educational programs, presenting inspiring exhibits, and interpreting and contextualizing his work and legacy through a modern lens with a focus on uplifting marginalized voices.

We will be stewards to our regional community by maintaining the Remington Museum campus, showcasing the work of regional artists, and celebrating Ogdensburg native and Remington’s colleague, sculptor Sally James Farnham (1869-1943).

Diversity, Equity, Access, and Inclusion are essential to the success of the Museum’s work of engaging contemporary audiences and building relevance. To succeed in its mission, the Museum must seek and share a broader array of perspectives on Remington’s work, find new and better ways to welcome and engage current and prospective audiences, eliminate barriers to access and participation for historically underrepresented groups, and invest in inclusive practices at the organizational level and through exhibitions and programming.

Recognizing that diversity and inclusion strengthen and advance organizational excellence, the Frederic Remington Art Museum affirms the following principles and commitments:

The Frederic Remington Art Museum is enriched by the diversity of its staff, volunteers, visitors, and partner organizations, teachers, scholars, and artists. We pledge to respect, value, and reflect differences including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, nationality, religion, socioeconomic status, life experience, educational status, marital status, language, physical appearance, and mental or physical ability.

All individuals should be treated fairly and justly, and have the right to access the Museum and its collection in a relevant and meaningful way. In pursuit of equity, we pledge to identify and eliminate barriers to visitation and participation for people of all backgrounds, ages, and abilities, paying special attention to historically underrepresented groups. The Museum will strive to eliminate practices that may exclude or disadvantage groups and individuals, and to cultivate practices that welcome and empower those who have been excluded.

Identify and implement cultural, social, linguistic, and other changes needed to make the Museum’s spaces, exhibitions, programs, interpretive materials, events, social media, communications, and marketing appealing, accessible, and equitable.

The Museum aims to be a valuable and trusted social, cultural, and educational resource for all. In pursuit of this goal, we pledge to adopt more inclusive assumptions, knowledges, and practices that communicate respect for visitors’ expertise, references, and experience.

It is our aim that Museum employees, trustees, interns, and volunteers reflect and embrace these core principles, and our responsibility to seek to ensure that staff demonstrate cultural competence.

Given the extent to which Remington’s art represents Black and Indigenous people, the Museum has a special responsibility to welcome, honor, and amplify Black and Indigenous perspectives on Remington’s work.

The following plan defines the strategies and action steps that will be taken to enact these commitments. The success of this plan is dependent upon support and ongoing, intentional action.

Organizational Culture

Implement an annual DEAI retreat in January to evaluate progress toward DEAI goals and to establish action steps for the upcoming three years.

Invest in Board, staff, and volunteer training programs to deepen and extend understanding of diversity, equity, access, and inclusion and enhance cultural competencies. Training should be seen as ongoing and responsive to developments in professional standards, in society, and in Museum planning. Connect participation in training programs to annual performance reviews.

Recruit, develop, and retain employees with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Analyze data from searches to increase institutional accountability.

Create and communicate channels through which staff can voice concerns and ask questions regarding aspects of diversity, equity, access, and inclusion.

Create a code of conduct to outline expectations for respectful behavior on the part of staff and volunteers.

Use internship and fellowship programs to drive improved workforce representation

Seek out minority-owned businesses and contractors, and contract with them as preferred vendors

Finalize FRAM Land Acknowledgement and create policy and procedures for its use

Seek guidance from Akwesasne Cultural Center & Museum and from Traveling College

Hire translation assistance to translate into Mohawk (Traveling College)

Exhibitions & Programming & Curatorial

Expand reach and relevance by presenting exhibitions and programs that address issues that impact people’s lives. At all times, remember to ask for whom something will be relevant and why, and maintain radical openness to new forms of relevance.

In consultation with scholars and other advisors, design interpretive materials that better speak to new audiences.

Provide many points and modes of access, through designing programs, environments, exhibitions, products, and services that meet the needs of all visitors and allow them to participate fully in the Museum’s offerings

Develop strategies to use virtual programs, digital platforms, and social media to reach new audiences

Ensure that the planned platform for digital access to collections and content is designed to reach the widest possible set of audiences

Present multiple, diverse perspectives on art in all interpretive materials and educational programs. Exhibitions and research should reflect underrepresented communities.

Develop clear visitor engagement goals for all education and public programs, and develop and revise programs to meet them

Use internship and fellowship programs to research and interpret works representing nonwhite subjects in Remington’s work

Strengthen and expand existing guest curator programs to heighten the impact of new interpretations of Remington’s work. Decenter whiteness in the Museum’s exhibitions by inviting non-white curators to design exhibits.

Create a process for co-creation of exhibitions with partners who bring the voices, expertise, and experiences of people who have been underrepresented in Museum exhibitions.

Bring scholars to address and foster conversation about issues of race, sex, gender, and ethnicity in Remington’s art.

Offer no-charge programming where possible. Offer free or reduced admission for anyone with a SNAP EBT card: https://museums4all.org/about/

Create a reproduction-based traveling exhibit or exhibits that addresses Remington’s representations of race, of indigenous people, or violence. The same materials could make a Virtual Field Trip package.

Adjust colonial and racist terminology in artwork titles and signage. Unless it is clear that Remington himself assigned the problematic title, the work should be renamed, with the history of naming kept in the object’s catalog record. Works with racist and imperialist titles assigned by Remington should have contextualizing information accompanying the title on all signage.

Research will be required to clarify the history of the titles assigned to works in the collection.

Expand access to the Collection through digitization. Ensure that digital portal and all contents of Digital Collection are inclusive.

Audiences & Partnerships

Develop partnerships with new cultural organizations to build trust and relationships with new audiences.

Develop corporate or public partnership that advance the Museum’s DEAI goals and expand access.

Identify best practices for visitor engagement and train front-end staff and volunteers, including audience-specific training (with respect to differences in ability, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, cultural background, socio-economic status, military background, cultural background, etc.)

Engage Indigenous individuals and communities in conversation to build trust and new institutional mechanisms through which they will feel seen, heard, respected, represented and understood, and the Museum will feel strengthened by the inclusion of their narratives and voices.

Undertake outreach efforts at a wider range of cultural and community events or festivals, with interactive elements to engage audiences.

Find new ways to listen to the voices and needs of Museum audiences

Marketing & Communications

Target marketing efforts on building diverse audiences and bringing a greater diversity of visitors to the Museum.

Marketing and communications plan should clearly identify targeted demographic segments and specific actions to engage them.

Solicit and apply feedback from target audiences about their areas of interest.

Develop strategies to reach first-time visitors to build sustained relationships.

Ensure that there is diverse representation in the planned rebranding campaign so that our new brand resonates with the broadest audience, has a clear message of inclusion, and tells a relevant story. The final product should include audience-specific messaging.

Use multiple channels to create marketing programs that educate in advance of visiting

Museum campus

Integrate universal design principles to make each visitor feel welcome.

Develop maps and signage that meet ADA requirements.

Conduct an accessibility audit of indoor and outdoor spaces, and identify ways to better accommodate all audiences in keeping with best practices in the field.