When Melanie Ide was tapped to head Bishop Museum, in November 2017, she was living in Manhattan, near Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the world’s largest museum exhibition design firm, where she was a principal with decades of experience in museum planning, design and program development.
Her star-studded client list had included the Smithsonian Institution, the International African American Museum, the Japanese American National Museum, the New York Public Library and the American Museum of Natural History as well as the Obama Foundation, where she continues to “maintain a relationship with the project and the team” developing the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
Born in California and raised in the Bay Area, earning an architecture degree from University of California Berkeley, Ide’s initial professional ties to the islands were forged from 2005 to 2014, when she led a team that helped to restore the museum’s signature Hawaiian Hall and Pacific Hall galleries during a $24.5 million capital campaign.
Ide also led the first-phase development of a 2016 interpretive master plan that aimed to help the museum rebound from a period of falling revenues.
Her family ties here go back four generations, on both sides. While growing up, she spent summers at a maternal grandparent’s house in Kawailoa, the Waialua Sugar Mill plantation community.
“Hawaii has always been in my heart and having worked on Hawaiian and Pacific Halls only deepened my appreciation for Hawaii and Bishop Museum,” Ide said. She added, “My long career of planning and designing museums and exhibitions around the world let me see that Bishop Museum is unique, and perhaps the most undervalued museum treasure anywhere in the world.”
Founded 130 years ago by Charles Reed Bishop in honor of his late wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the museum is deeply rooted in Hawaii’s cultural and natural histories. It’s Hawaii’s largest museum and home to the world’s largest collection of Polynesian cultural artifacts and natural-history specimens.
Ide said she sees her role as the museum’s president and CEO as an “incredible opportunity to transform and reveal Bishop Museum as the extraordinary resource and treasure that it is.”
Question: Is there anything about your transition to leading the overall museum that’s been unexpected in a big way?
Answer: No big surprises. If anything, it turns out that our museum environment is as fast-paced as the hardest-core New York City creative sector, which I’ve lived in for the past 30 years.
Q:Earlier this year, Bishop Museum decided to retain its 537 acres of Waipio Valley land that had been for sale. You said then that in 1897 Charles Reed Bishop wrote that he wanted that land “protected perpetually.” Thoughts?
A: January 2016 wasn’t the first time Bishop Museum contemplated having to sell lands. The best guarantee that Waipio Valley won’t face any risk of future sale is for all of us to recognize its sacred and historic status, and that Waipio must be protected in perpetuity. It is our responsibility to ensure this happens, and through the community’s broad support and participation, we should be able to fulfill this responsibility.
Q: The museum’s 15-acre botanical garden in Kealakekua is up for sale?
A:While Waipio Valley had been on the market it had not been listed. However, Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden had been listed for sale and we expect a sale to be completed by the end of the year. AGG is an extraordinary and unique resource, to which the museum is deeply connected. Bishop Museum performed three generations of archaeological research on the site, created four biogeographical zones of ethnobotanical plants, a nursery and conservation resource, and ran successful festivals for the community and educational programs for students.
Q: Also in the news is a ki‘i showcased in a current exhibit, “Kini ke Kua: Transformative Images,” which explores the role of traditional sculpture in Hawaiian culture and society. Tech billionaire Marc Benioff donated a wooden war god statue he bought at auction for about $7.5 million. But now there are questions regarding uncertainty pertaining to the age and sculpture’s price tag value/worth?
A: Our community is very fortunate to have received the extraordinary gift of this ki‘i. Its value has already been present in the dialogue sparked, relationships built, and interest generated from so many different people. I’ve personally witnessed its impact from different perspectives — whether aesthetic, spiritual, historic or educational.
Q:According to news reports, at the auction sale, the ki‘i’s age was tagged at about 200 years old. But some international experts have since said it could be a the 20th century sculpture, and worth less than $5,000. Are you pursuing any effort, such as DNA testing, to help sort out the puzzle?
A: Yes, our curators are pursuing a variety of research avenues to learn more.
Q:In the aftermath of the 2008 economic downturn, and under diminishing federal funding, the museum had financial struggles. What does that picture look like now?
A: We have been through a very harsh time and have emerged out of survival mode. We’re proud to have: closed our third consecutive fiscal year performing with an operational net positive; brought our payables current; held off on drawing on our line of credit; removed staff from a decade of furloughs; and begun reinstating employee benefits.
We are deeply grateful to our staff, who are the people who, through the harshest of times, have kept our collections safe and the museum open and operating every day of the year, except Thanksgiving and Christmas. While we still have real challenges, we are strengthening every day.
Q: How large is the staff?
A: We have approximately 118 full-time employees, 22 part-time employees, 40 casual employees and more than 150 active volunteers, interns and docents.
Q: What’s the status of museum membership?
A: Our goal is to build our membership and network to include all people with a connection to Hawaii, whether on or off-island, throughout the Pacific, including Asia, across the continent, and to Europe; and we’ll be looking at ways that we can serve our broader membership.
Q: What do you see as the museum’s top strengths?
A: To name just a few, (a) Bishop Museum’s knowledge core, which is comprised of world-class collections, research, and living culture containing primary source material across numerous fields and practices; (b) its unique status, being a museum founded for and rooted in our Native Hawaiian host culture; and (c) its unique status as the repository of the Hawaii Biological Survey, which is intended to document and monitor over time, every plant and animal in our state — where we hold the distinction of being the world’s capital of both evolution and extinction.
Q: What are your top short- and long-term priorities/goals?
A:Our No. 1 priority is to reinvest in and expand our knowledge core, which when fueled, drives all of our other initiatives and serves our Hawaiian, Pacific, and global community with information, knowledge, resources, much of which are primary source materials.
We are also highly focused on strengthening our partnerships and building our base of support, both of which are necessary for us to increase our resources and capacity.
Critical to achieving our short- and long-term goals is communication. Bishop Museum is unique, vital, and irreplaceable. It is not a “nice to have” luxury. Simply put, without exaggeration, Bishop Museum is a “must have” foundation for the long-term perpetuation of our natural and cultural heritage, which is our future.
If Bishop Museum were to go up in flames, we would lose our collective memory as a culture, and Hawaii’s (and the Pacific’s) “archive of life.” Reference points and primary source material for language, cultural practices, and understanding environmental changes would be gone. Nowhere else does this exist. While we are of international stature and serve the broadest and most diverse set of audiences and organizations, we are funded as if we are a small regional museum. This must change.
Our long-term goal is to build our knowledge core and importantly, make it broadly accessible. Built into this goal must be the economic security and sustainability of Bishop Museum.
