The Children's Museum, Inc.

New Times gives a tour of the Miami Children's Museum and its corporate exhibitisements -- for kids of all ages!

Comments (0) By Kirk Nielsen Thursday, Oct 12 2000

...continued from page 4

With any luck corporate brands will not hover over the “Ports of Call” exhibit that, according to the museum's description, “will focus on the people, music, art, clothing, food, celebrations, and traditions of various cultures.” Let's hope their adults don't have this obsession with branding!

We'll check out one more exhibit: the arts and communications gallery. Finally it looks as though you'll be able to use your own imagination. You can create works of art and record music and videos. You can even pretend you're a TV reporter. But not now. It's time to leave the Potamkin Building (the name the board has given the museum complex in honor of the generous car dealer). Because those of you who have to take a bus off the island could have a very long wait. Oh look, Bobby and Shalonda have gotten into the paints. What's that you've drawn? A cruise ship? How nice.

Illustrations courtesy of Miami Children's Museum and Jeremy Eaton

More About

Well, thank you for coming along, kids. We hope our tour has proved educational. See? There is more to this place than meets the eye. Let's review, just once more. “The three central themes of the museum are community, communication, and culture,” says Deborah Spiegelman. But you've learned there are a few others that start with C -- like corporations, consumerism, and commercialism. Here's another: coup. The American Heritage College Dictionary defines a coup as “a brilliantly executed stratagem; a masterstroke.” Can you say corporate public-relations coup? Ask your mom to say it fast ten times on the way home.