Interview with Mark Ryan

VP of Collections and Registration Plains Art Museum, Fargo, North Dakota
2007 Nancy Hanks Memorial Award Recipient

In a decade long career that has brought him to a wide array of places such as Wyoming, Texas, New Hampshire, Alabama, North Dakota and back again, Mark Ryan has found a home at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo.

As the Vice President of Collections and Registration, Mark has been able to take a pragmatic approach to preserving history by getting his hands dirty in the day to day operations and future planning of the museum.

When he was first offered the job, Mark admits that he was, “blown away at an incredible opportunity to be part of the community.” He has certainly made the most of it and has kept the Plains Art Museum an essential and vital cultural anchor to the surrounding communities and outlying rural areas of North Dakota and Minnesota.

In 2007 Mr. Ryan was awarded the Nancy Hanks Memorial Award for Professional Excellence by the American Association of Museums. The award was, “extremely satisfying [and] a great surprise” for Mark who remains humble by adding that it, “lends credence to my passion.”

Tapping in to this passion seems to be the key in keeping Mark focused on the continued success of the Plains Art Museum which, like many community-based museums, faces innumerable challenges in the 21st century as their communities become increasingly reliant on technology, digital media and the idea of having a world of information at their fingertips.

Mark suggests that museums like his need to reexamine the core values of, “education and preservation that are the reasons why museums exist in the first place.”

He adds that the largest challenge is, “remaining grounded in these principles while staying relevant to the community.”

“We can’t get caught flat footed. We need to keep pace with increasing technology and information, but we also need to keep the museum as a structure and a physical place, a sanctuary, a place for contemplation and education.”

One of the many unique aspects of the Plains Art Museum is its “museum on wheels”; a concept that is committed to outreach and the importance of bringing people and art together. The Rolling Plains Art Gallery is essentially a semi trailer that is carefully packed with original exhibitions and let loose on the roads of North Dakota and Northern Minnesota for three month long stretches.

This type of innovative outreach is coupled with the museum’s original programming that strives to involve the local area’s population in an open and ongoing dialogue that combines community and culture.

In a series of joint symposiums with North Dakota State University, Minnesota State University-Moorhead and Concordia College, Mark is hoping to create exhibitions, discussions, lectures and an, “excitement and level of activity” that will become an established tradition not just for the museum, but for the community at large.

Mark’s commitment to, “be innovative and stay ahead of the curve” may just be the key in taking his museum’s exhibitions and special programming to the next level, not by fighting technology but by partnering it with the values and services we rely on traditional museums to provide.

If the relevancy of museums seems mired in the juxtaposition of preserving history and embracing the high-tech future, it seems Mark Ryan has found a unique answer in the resources of his own backyard in Fargo.

Mark Ryan holds both a BS in Biology & BA of History from the University of Wyoming as well as a MA in Museum Science from Texas Tech University.