The advantage museums and galleries have over other attractions such as amusement parks, shopping malls and games arcades is the extensive knowledge, talent, and cultural relevance that their academic base, collections and network provides, but these are also obstacles.
During the last century, museums acquired a reputation as places that were cerebral, elitist, disconnected from regular life, dull and stodgy. In general, they weren't seen as particularly invigorating, inspiring or fun. Fortunately, contemporary curators are re-imagining the museum. At museums and heritage sites around the world, spectators will now find a number of important changes.
Outside the Curio Cabinet
In the late 1970s and 80s, displays were re-envisioned to group artifacts or movements according to their cultural or chronological context. A typical cultural grouping might be a selection of Plains Indian artifacts like mocassins, weapons and hunting tools, and beaded pouches displayed together. A chronological arrangement would be one that puts everything in an orderly time sequence anywhere from prehistoric to present day. While this was a marked improvement to the old methods where, for example, that Plains Indian cultural grouping would've been lumped in random unrelated indigeneous populations like the Maori, the Inuu, or the Tutsi [Eric Harvie collection; Glenbow Museum, Old Courthouse location; Calgary, AB, Canada, early 1970s], the limitations of this presentation style are significant:
- It is a visual medium only, and cannot engage the sight impaired or small children whose sightlines are too low to see the object in its entirety (cases are usually designed for adult sight ranges.)
- Information about the object and its function or context must be extrapolated from external written or spoken texts, which eliminates those visitors whose learning styles do not conform and anyone under about eight-years-old.
- It just sits there.
The old "curio cabinet" style of display case is slowly being relegated to the background. Yes, various treasures and their labels are still being displayed behind glass barriers—must, in fact, be displayed that way for their protection—but museums, galleries and historic sites are now introducing more kinetic, interactive displays and workshops that engage all the senses.
Hands-On Activities
Volunteer demonstrations of crafts like blacksmithing, sugar-skull sculpting for Day of the Dead celebrations, weaving and gardening invite audience participation so visitors are immersed in the experience of actually making things. Equipment and machinery, whenever possible, are run to demonstrate how they work. When that is impossible, a looping video of their function is displayed as part of the presentation. Hands-On Activities provide:
- a tactile experience of the presentation for visitors who are sight/hearing impaired.
- a direct means of understanding function, context and methodology.
- large, seemingly incomprehensible actions are reduced to the individual level where a person's singular actions produce a visible result.
Live Performance Elements
Interpretation has evolved into fun, fascinating careers. Interpreters are almost theatrical impressarios now, utilizing creative nonfictional skits, music, dance and stagecraft to entertain and teach. Instead of a park ranger's eye-glazing "1-hour lecture on the life cycle of the pine beetle", visitors enjoy, for example, a short satirical re-enactment of tectonic plate movement interpreted as a badly dubbed kung-fu movie. The involvement of writers, actors, musicians, dancers and stage production technicians not only generates a more lively and memorable event for visitors (who will never forget what a subduction zone is after that), but establishes a supportive, interactive arts community.
Historical re-enactments are other important live performances. These tend to be more popular in old battlefields. An amazing number of mild-mannered history buffs like to transform into Roman legionnaires or British Red-coats during their long weekends, run around old archeological digs, and shoot powder rounds out antique muskets. The lengths they go to for historical authenticity are quite amazing, but historical re-enactment clubs don't have to be limited to military conquest. This form of 'fan cosplay' is effective for other legendary events like Galileo's Inquisition, the Suffragette Movement, the Trial of 'Emperor Pic' Picariello.
Participants usually have more fun than observers, but the advantages this community outreach style is that it connects directly with the people who see the value of supporting museums. Also, it doesn't require a lot of expensive multimedia equipment. Fans provide their own materials. All the museum staff provide are examples of artifacts, information about how they were made, and data about the events which will be re-created.
New Paradigms for Selection and Arrangements of Displays
"The new Art Gallery of Ontario has sprung forth with many engaging combinations, for example, Betty Godwin's (1923 – 2008) Falling Figure (1965) hangs beside a small Inuit sculpture of a Shaman in Flight ca. 1500 — a time span of 500 years and vastly different cultural contexts. In viewing this pairing, my experience of both was expanded and made more memorable. While artistic merit must always remain a priority, this contemporary approach leaves the viewer to experience artistic and cultural expression through a thematic lens rather than a chronological one. It might be argued that this move away from the traditional presentation of art and "isms" in art is a move towards a re-engagement with history in a way that is more inclusive, more universal, and this has a broader audience. In a global culture, this might be both an interpretive innovation and a necessity." — Deb Thompson, curator, ROW: Reflections On Water; Touchstones Museum, Nelson, BC, Canada; October, 2009.
Lastly, curators are re-designing exhibitions along nonlinear, thematic lines, and commissioning artists, historians and others to prepare installations and select artifacts based on those themes, engaging them as guest curators. This utilizes items that already exist in the collections but which might not be seen because they are single pieces or not valued according to the usual trade standards. It also presents a new, multi-layered perspective to visitors.
Read more in Simone Keiran's article, "Museum Re-Design: Cultural, Historical Relevance."
Simone Keiran - Simone Keiran’s book A Brief History of Western Sculpture, Quantum Books, was released at the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair. Her articles ...
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