Taking Care: Collections Conversations

Adam Eisenberg, University of Washington Museology Affiliate

Adam Eisenberg has enjoyed a varied career. He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder and spent seven years as a Los Angeles-based freelance writer, covering movies and television for magazines and newspapers in the United States, Japan, France and England. His writings included behind-the-scenes coverage of the original Ghostbusters, The Terminator, Return of the Jedi, Gremlins, Aliens, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; and he interviewed many Hollywood icons including George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, Bill Murray, Harrison Ford, and Tom Cruise.

 
Seeking a career shift, Adam came to Seattle and earned a JD degree from the University of Washington School of Law. Since graduating in 1992, he has worked as a criminal prosecutor, civil trial attorney, court commissioner, and magistrate. From January 2017 to January 2023, he was an elected Seattle Municipal Court Judge.

 
Currently, Adam is the Interim Director of the Externship Program at UW Law School, but he has been teaching Museum Law for the UW Museology Graduate Program since 2011. He wrote and produced a documentary about reforestation that was narrated by William Shatner, and served as a research consultant for Hollywood Eigamura, a film-focused exhibition that toured Tokyo and Osaka, Japan. He practices the martial art of aikido, and is the author of the nonfiction book, A Different Shade of Blue: How Women Changed the Face of Police Work.

Justice McNeely, Assistant Registrar and Archaeology Repatriation Coordinator, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture

Justice McNeeley is the Repatriation Coordinator and Assistant Registrar for the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. Before she joined the Burke Museum, she worked as an Archaeology Field Assistant for the Field Methods in Indigenous Archaeology (FMIA) Field School, and later she worked in the UW Special Collections Library as a Project Archivist. Justice graduated from UW in 2018 with a BA in Archaeological Sciences, and she recently received her MA from the UW Museology Program in 2022. Justice is Inupiaq and enjoys working with Tribal Nations and pursuing decolonization praxis and discussions.

Pam McClusky, Curator of African and Oceanic Art, Seattle Art Museum

Pamela creates exhibitions and collections that rely on alliances with African, African American, and Oceanic artists and scholars, as well as Australian Aboriginal communities and museums. Often these projects rely on research that involves oral histories and performances, and challenges to the reliance on written records alone. Past exhibitions she has been involved with include: Disguise: Masks and Global African Art, Gauguin and Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise, Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art, and Nick Cave: Meet Me at the Center of the Earth. 

Now on view at the Seattle Art Museum, she has curated a selection of animals in art called Pacific Species, a collaboration with an Afro-Futurist artist, Saya Woolfalk, on Lessons from the Institute of Empathy and IKAT: A World of Compelling Cloth. IKAT unveils ikat from eight regions of the world and a collection formulated after working with Threads of Life, an organization based in Ubud, Bali.