So what’s next for museums?
I've been on the cultural conference circuit for a while now. But I decided 2015 was the year to try out Museum Next for the first time. Primarily to take some time away from the office for reflection (as part of my own professional development). But also because the core conference question (what’s the future of museums?) is an important one to ask. Cultural organisations (and I would say not just museums) need to start addressing their purpose for a 21st century audience. Although my work isn’t only with museums (I freelance with different types of art form,) I wanted to see what the sector had to say for itself. But I also wanted to join in the conversation with people from all over the world.
And for me, that’s where Museum Next was an absolute triumph. By the end of the first night I’d spoken to museum, design and digital professionals from Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Tokyo, USA, Brazil, Barcelona, Finland and the UK. I’d discovered new approaches to audience development, marketing, business planning and curation before the main conference had even started (who knew that the UK Government has an ‘Experience Economy’ team, exporting the work of creative businesses to partners abroad?). And I’d found out some common, and distinctly different areas of focus in our museum work to mull over.
So a big thank you to the MuseumNext team for arranging the first-timers networking event. It made a huge difference to the rest of my conference experience, and has set me up with possible museum friends for life, Sybille and Mie.
One of the common themes of discussion with fellow delegates was that of relevancy and the opportunity (or urgency) we have in being ‘agents of change’ in our communities. And the opening keynote debate (chaired by Matt Caines) reflected just this.
A panel of Gail Dexter Lord, Roger Mayou, Erik Schilp, Tony Butler and Jake Barton considered the biggest challenges facing museums today including how to move museums from ‘sleeping giants’ to places for social and economic change in our communities. How can we drag museums into the 21st century and make them relevant for those who live and work next to them?
I've never heard such a proactive call for audience development at a conference in the last thirteen years.
“Museums can’t sit back any more. It’s not about visitors it’s about audiences. Leave your front door, find partners and those who are not coming to you.” Erik Schilp
Plus, I’d not expected so much of an upbeat ‘we need to do this’ call-to-action from the opening keynote. It made a nice change to the doom and gloom of other recent events, papers and conferences.
The panel argued that museums should be more engaged in the places where they are situated, that we need to look at what’s happening outside the walls of the museum building to make the inside more relevant. How can we invite more people to participate? Why should they participate? And where did we suddenly lose the point at which museums raised aspirations?
“Go where the people go and connect them with your story.” Erik Schilp
As with most conferences there were highs and lows when it came to the sessions I attended. But I'm going to focus on three stand-out speakers.
Give your collection a purpose.
Seb Chan, Director of Digital and Emerging Media at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum talked about their amazing Pen project. Rather than the museum ‘just being about beautiful things’, the team wanted to actually use the collection to inspire people to create their own, better designs or ideas. This was great. Not just because it’s a prime example of how museums should question what their collection is for, but also I love the idea of giving everyone something like a pen (even if it’s not such a whizzy one) as soon as they come into a museum. As Seb said, the pen doesn't have a script. So it gives people the permission to be a creator without us museum folk doing any prescribing.
“We have a role in showing that you could also become a designer — it’s not just about showing great design.” Seb Chan
Seb also described a great approach to remixing collections. By taking their wallpaper collection and giving it a new lease of life, visitors were able to design their own wallpapers (often in collaboration with others). This kind of sociable activity has so much added value and extension— think about how visitors could share this with friends, print a wallpaper sample for their homes, or create their designs into some kind of purchase in the museum shop in real time.
“We have a social contract with our communities.” Seb Chan
The overall theme in both of these cases — that is, how to create purposeful, sociable encounters through combining excellence in both the physical environment (cx) and digital user experience (ux) — stayed top of my discussions in the conference break outs. Whilst not so keen on the coined ‘phygital’ expression from physical + digital approaches (too close to fidget for my liking), it was a neat way of remembering the blend.
It left me thinking about how smaller organisations (with little budget) could draw on similar creative approaches, just on a lesser scale, to create this kind of purposeful, sociable museum. And could this approach be equally as workable for audience development in different types of art form, like theatres?
Involve your audience in storytelling
Jake Barton, Founder of NYC-based Local Projects, in the Digital Showcase demonstrated that the power of museums comes from involving visitors in your story. He showed us a section of the 9/11 memorial museum where visitors can record their own statements about 9/11. These are then automatically looped and appear next to other pre-recorded films from high-profile personalities, like President Clinton. What’s interesting here is that this type of interactive interpretation means this is not a ‘finished’ museum. It’s ever-evolving. The archive keeps on growing as visitors add their own statements and memories. They become part of the story. I loved the way Jake said we could turn a museum into a storytelling platform itself. But he was right to draw caution around future proofing content— are we writing into digital archives that we may not be able to access in the future?
“We’re more likely to remember experiences we reflect on.” Jake Barton
Jake’s work on the facial recognition artworks at Cleveland Museum is also pretty cool. And you can watch his TED talk here.
Make it personal. Get agile.
After stupidly getting comfortable in my chair at the wrong venue, in the wrong session, I found myself feeling somewhat more cheery once Shelley Bernstein from Brooklyn Museum took to the stage. She talked about agile (recommended approach of the year already — both at conference and in my fellowship with the DMA) and Brooklyn’s Bloomberg Connects Ask project — which aims to personalise the museum experience for visitors. After various chunked-up stages of prototyping, visitors can now ask questions (by messaging on ipod touches) to a team of curators in real time during their visit. The curators respond, and pose more questions through a dialogue in response. iBeacons (unknown to the user) allow staff to see where visitors are located, which helps steer their responses and means they can point out other works nearby for comparison. It’s interesting how visitors (evidenced through observation and exit interviews) don’t feel the technology is automated (it definitely feels personal) or is overly intrusive (in fact they’re more engaged). There’s a lot of chat in the sector about whether using digital technologies (such as wearables) can detract from the experience. Here, Shelley’s team have found that it makes visitors more active. Visitors look at a work in more detail because they want to ask a question to the live panel. It’s also a great way to create an ‘active’ research test bed, improving and enhancing interpretation from visitors directly (with discussions tagged by object and aggregated each day). Another great example of ‘phygital’ blending to improve the overall experience design.
I haven’t been able to mention half the sessions, including the great playification/gaming workshop, the Southbank Centre’s open web Glass Box project, or CogApp’s Agile workshop.
So check #museumnext for other links, comments and resources. Or try Chris Unitt’s rather fine list of takeaways and presentations from the conference.
