Museums go big on format thinking (MuseumNext 2024 summarised)
How a few creative constraints can become a formula for success.
Behind every long-running TV show, gym fad or weekly column are a set of rules that make that series special. Endless stories emerge from these carefully selected creative constraints.
Desert Island Discs has a weekly guest share emotional reflections on three records. Hot Ones is similar but different, showing how popular quirky interview formats can become (13.5m subscribers). The magic is how the particular constraints — e.g. answer questions whilst eating spicy food! — generate a unique ‘brand’ of storytelling.
Meanwhile at MuseumNext…
One of the world’s best communities for arts, culture and science organisations was packed with examples of format thinking. Here are some highlights from the conference (June 11–13, 2024).
Protest Banners! Artist Aram Han Sifuentes provides a gentle framework (material, typographical templates, sewing tips) for community groups around the world to create their own. So successful, it organically spawned the Protest Banner Lending Library — check out one of the growing collection of banners.
Staff t-shirts! This format from the Museum of Communication in Bern provides two simple constraints — black t-shirt; white lettering front and back — and staff decide their own statement and language. Whether philosophical rumination or wry self-commentary, these tees convey both organisational brand and the individual character of each member of staff. Beautifully simple.
Short video formats. COSI in Columbus, Ohio has won 6 Emmys for their video work and “Dr B in 3” is a short, animated format narrated by their energetic CEO Dr Frederic Bertley. Their archive of videos, covering topics from COVID and Stress to AI, has become a popular asset. What’s your short video format?
The unofficial, official museum tour. The best bit about Rijksmuseum’s escape game, created by Sherlocked, is the locker takeover. Find the secret knock and the locker, which looks like any other locker at the coat check, will spit out your next clue. The performative elements of onsite game formats like this directly drive ticket sales from curious visitors. See Breadcrumbs, Museum Hack and Capture The Museum for related experimental museum tour formats.
Unexpected Museum in Bagging Area! The Migration Museum has made a mighty success of their temporary home in a Lewisham shopping centre, embracing the conventions of mall life, from changing window displays to permanently open doors. There they created a dynamic, welcoming space rich with human stories. In embodying a migratory approach by making-do with the spaces it finds, the Migration Museum can claim to be utterly authentic in its mission. With a permanent home slated for 2027 in a shiny commercial development near the Tower of London, many questions remain about how they’ll maintain what has become a wildly successful format — the museum in unexpected places.
Unexpected Item in Museum Bagging Area! This collection of formats (my title) is about breaking museum traditions with new programming. For example music-based events at FOMU in Antwerp or High Frequency Fridays in Atlanta. Though denigrated by some as “just a club night at the museum”, these formats have been inviting new audiences to engage with art on their own terms. Linda C. Harrison of Newark Museum of Art talked about hanging black art in the preserved homes of old white dudes and using the obvious tension to have proper conversations about the history of black America. Dina Jezdic talked movingly about active decolonisation and the work of artists like Rosanna Raymond, Pati Solomona Tyrell and the FAFASWAG collective. That these formats can be considered abnormal is damning but their being programmed is progress.
Nature-based formats! Like Growing Community in Washington DC, A Growing Story in Belfast and even NHM’s new garden scheduled to open in July (though at last look — June 14th — there is some way to go before it even remotely resembles the lush artist’s impression)
Co-design structures! From teen councils and fellowships to emerging artist residencies and community dinners, each has their own structural quirk. Some small and intimate, others exploring scale and greater reach. The big lesson is that proactive inclusivity and youth engagement requires putting structures in place (building formats, in other words) that facilitate genuine, collaborative design.
Formats for action! We unpacked the Critical Action Lab in a workshop for 30 delegates. This growing program for teens currently features four partner museums. Their job is to provide the space, structure and support for young people to experiment with new ways of taking action together in their local community. Over the years we’ve developed a series of video, game and live event ‘formats’ that feed into one another to drive audience growth.
And that’s your lot! For more musings on museum, technology and play, subscribe to my newsletter.
With many thanks to the inimitable StoryThings for their great work exploring the power of formats. Here is some game-based format unpacking I did for them.
