Videos Archives - Paul Orselli

Just One Thing about Exhibits!

Paul Orselli Talks Museum Exhibit FAQs TOO!

The Room(s) Where It Happened ... September 24, 2025
Here's something that museums can give you that Artificial Intelligence or Virtual Reality can't touch -- the literal "room where it happened."As someone who was born and raised in Detroit, it was incredibly powerful to stand inside "Studio A" at the Motown Museum, where amazing musicians like Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, and Marvin Gaye created […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)
Museum Work as (Quiet) Resistance September 11, 2025
You know that moment when a board member suggests you "tone down" that civil rights exhibition? Or when a donor hints that your climate science display might be "too political"? Or when local politicians start making noise about your programming choices?Welcome to the front lines of cultural resistance.Guess what? Our work is inherently political. Every object we choose to […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)
The Secret Sauce of High-Quality Museums: Internal Capacity August 29, 2025
Here's something I've learned after years in the trenches of exhibit design and development: all truly high-quality museums share one critical characteristic. It's not their flashy architecture, their famous collections, or even their generous budgets. It's something far more fundamental.High-quality museums have strong internal capacity.Now, I'm not saying these museums create everything internally—that would be […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)
Postcards from the Future! August 20, 2025
Last month, during a workshop in Bulgaria, I did an activity called "Postcards from the Future!"It allowed workshop participants to synthesize some of the work we did earlier in the week and to share a future goal related to the workshop content with a partner.Basically, each participant chatted about their goals, and then had a […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)
Museum Materials Hacks: When Home Depot Meets High-Touch Design August 11, 2025
Today, we're diving into the delightfully scrappy world of unconventional exhibit materials. When creativity kicks into overdrive, and the hardware store becomes your new best friend. Because sometimes the best exhibit solutions are hiding in aisle 7, next to the paint brushes.Here are some of my favorite "Wait, That's Not What It's For" materials:Pool NoodlesThose colorful […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)
18 Years of ExhibiTricks! August 3, 2025
The ExhibiTricks blog turned 18 this summer!Since June 2007, I've been posting roughly once a week -- so I've built up quite a "back catalog" of ideas to share.Here are four "blasts from the past" that are among the most popular ExhibiTrick posts:Are Exhibit Timelines So Boring Because of the Lines? There are soooo many timelines […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)
Back to Bulgaria! July 19, 2025
I'm excited to be heading back to Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, in just a few days to kick off the FIFTH edition of the MUSE Academy program sponsored by the America for Bulgaria Foundation (ABF).The MUSE Academy will equip Bulgarian professionals from museums and other cultural organizations with the tools to create compelling exhibits and tell powerful […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)

The Room(s) Where It Happened ...

Here's something that museums can give you that Artificial Intelligence or Virtual Reality can't tou...

Museum Work as (Quiet) Resistance

You know that moment when a board member suggests you "tone down" that civil rights exhibition?&nbsp...

The Secret Sauce of High-Quality Museums: Internal Capacity

Here's something I've learned after years in the trenches of exhibit design and development: all tru...

Postcards from the Future!

Last month, during a workshop in Bulgaria, I did an activity called "Postcards from the Future!"It a...

Museum Materials Hacks: When Home Depot Meets High-Touch Design

Today, we're diving into the delightfully scrappy world of unconventional exhibit materials. When cr...