Play in the Contemporary Art Museum
This past month, I led a presentation and workshop at the Stedelijk Museum on play, participation, and learning in the museum. I have given this presentation on play, participation, and learning before, but the workshop/activities-based side of it was new and a great learning experience for me (as well as for the Stedelijk educators, I hope!).
What I Learned
- I should have taken pictures and notes during our activities in the galleries(!)
- I am better at presenting when I am not reading from my notes word-for-word
- Thinking about the practical possibilities for my research is really fun and eye-opening
What We Did
First, I gave a 20-minute presentation on my research concerning play in the museum, how it encourages (social) participation, and how this can lead to a learning experience. Then, we tried out a few of the play-based activities that I prepared specifically for the Stedelijk Museum: I will admit that some of these activities worked better than others.
For Example…
I think one of our most successful play activities was one that I decided to call ‘Sketching Possibilities’. In this activity, we separated into pairs and spread throughout the galleries. Each pair was instructed to find an object and imagine that it was part of a trio. The activity was to imagine what the two other objects in the trio would look like.
One of the pairs found a Malevich painting and decided that there was a soccer ball in the painting, so they imagined how the game was going in the other two ‘objects’ in the imagined triptych.
Some of the pairs discussed together what they thought about the object and how they would imagine its two other partner objects beforehand, whereas others had each person do her own thing and then discussed afterward. I found that each of these techniques worked well.
The point of this activity is to encourage the use of imagination in the galleries as well as to validate visitors’ own personal interpretations of the objects. Obviously, in this activity, there is no right and wrong, so it allows visitors the freedom and agency to interpret and imagine without the limitations or fears of being incorrect.
Furthermore, with discussion afterwards, the interpretations of these objects can reveal a lot about the objects themselves. In the Malevich example, for instance, we could guess that the pair probably felt a lot of gravity or motion in the painting, or that they assumed that some of the figures in the painting were meant to portray people. These play-based activities can be a starting point for a deeper discussion of the museum object itself.
Key Takeaways
The most important aspect of using play-based activities in the contemporary art museum, in my opinion, is allowing visitors to use their imaginations, encouraging social interaction, and opening up the possibility for interpretation.
I find this especially important for adults visitors. From my own experience, children are much more capable and willing to imagine and throw out ideas while adults are typically more nervous about being wrong. Additionally, according to recent research conducted between the Vrije Universiteit and the Van Gogh Museum, adults and children view artworks differently: adults tend to get the ‘gist’ of a painting rather than looking at all of the details.
The study goes on to speculate about adults’ reactions to abstract art: ‘Perhaps this helps explain why so many adults are resistant to abstract art. If our impulse (whether learned or innate) is to place an image in context from the first glance, and we find that difficult, anxiety is a more likely outcome than appreciation.’
Lately, I keep returning to Elliot Kai-Kee and Rika Burnham’s essay on ‘interpretive play’ (this essay is in their book Teaching in the Art Museum). Although their theorization of interpretive play is not based on play theory — there are a few points in their essay that do not align with play theory — , the idea of interpretive play rests on the idea that visitors and docents should engage in interpretation together without necessarily knowing the endpoint of this interpretation beforehand. Essentially, interpretive play allows for structured reflection and interpretation, but also the unknown revelation of insights or interpretations throughout the process.
Play is governed by rules, but that also means that, if/when we incorporate play in the gallery space, that we can alter the rules of the museum that adults are typically accustomed to. We can change the rules so that adults do not have to feel nervous about being right, or so that adults are encouraged to take a closer look at more details and aspects of the objects in front of them.
