Day Three: Going in Blind at the Brooklyn Museum

So far, I’ve been wondering about the different ways that museums engage in communication, whether expressed through the arrangements of objects on exhibition or the types of public programs to spread the museum’s knowledge to a wider audience. It goes back to the shared, foundational purpose of museums (as well as zoos, aquaria, parks and preserves, historic buildings): educating the public.

Yet what happens when one avenue of communication is removed? Obstructed? Absent?

That’s the main question that went through my mind as I reflected on our blind exploration of the Brooklyn Museum. The panel and lecture style of the sessions these past two days led me to expect similarly for today’s visit. So I was in for quite a surprise when we explored Infinite Blue and were tasked with drawing out themes and narratives from the exhibit without reading any label text.

“An efficient educational museum may be described as a collection of instructive labels, each illustrated by a well-chosen specimen.” — G. Brown Goode (ichthyologist, Assistant Secretary, Smithsonian Institution)

What do I do about an artwork that IS COMPRISED OF TEXT??? (Pictured: Joseph Kosuth, 276. (On Color Blue), 1993. Neon tubing, transformer, electrical wires. Brooklyn Museum).

How do I function without labels to give me context? To lay out the themes that I can use to interpret artifacts, artworks, specimens that I would otherwise overlook? Oftentimes, I visit museums expecting to be taught something new or to revisit an old topic I once learned. I gravitate towards familiar and recognizable objects that act as my anchor points for ideally exploring the rest of the exhibit. Without labels to guide me along, I felt hobbled.

Disclosure: I saw a display of blue-on-white pottery like this through the glass doors as we waited to enter. That already gave me the preconception that these displays would talk about the multicultral uses and exchanges colored blue. I remembered listening to Neil MacGregor’s History of the World in 100 Objects, learning that blue-on-white pottery originated in Persia, before heading to East Asia, then to be copied by Europeans with a taste for Chinese goods.

I remembered what my supervisor often reminds me as we go through drafts of label copy: not everyone pores through labels as thoroughly as we do. Visitors all have their own interests and motivations for visiting, to reiterate this foundational tenet of informal education. It reminded me that there are other ways of seeing an exhibition, to communicate information apart from a well-worded instructive label. Keeping things open-ended can, to borrow a phrase from one of my peers, enable visitors to “feel empowered to make their own assumptions,” and “confidently ask questions, question answers, and understand the world around them” (Exploratorium, Vision Statement).

After Infinite Blue, I explored to the Egyptian galleries, and saw a display about gods and animals. Drawing from memories of picture books and hours spent playing Assassin’s Creed: Origins, I thought this would be Hathor, the cattle-horned deity of joy, feminine love, and motherhood. Yet, it was described as Iset, the consort deity to Osiris (pictured to right). Instead of calling it a closed case, I pondered (and pored over Wikipedia) why. Even skipping a little bit of label text can provide seed for future revealing questions.

Sometimes, it also does show what does a museum value and consequently, what does the museum expect visitors to value? Such was the question raised by Monica Marino, Manager of Adult Learning Programs at the Brooklyn Museum. I resonated, as a docent, that we often ask “What do you see?” when we interpret. It’s so deeply embedded in our language and our museum visiting habits. But what about those whose vision is impaired or lost? How then can they learn? Even if Braille or audio guides are included, it does not fully fill in the sensation of seeing. And so it also involves the issue of accessibility.

Perhaps in this activity, I was blinded not merely by having no label text at my disposal to draw from. Instead, it was a series of habits from my own expectations of what museums are about, that blinded me from assuming the perspectives of other visitors, and hobbled my own imagination from seeking new connections.