Museums: let go of authoritative exhibitions
Provocative title? Maybe. And this is a bit of a haphazard post. But I’m essentially proposing that museum exhibitions should stop trying to be the sources of authoritative information to the public. Maybe they aren’t best placed to do this anymore?
I made a little table — very broadly, what sorts of things are museums better/worse at than the digital realm?
(It’s perfectly possible to debate these broad brush strokes of course.)
Regarding ‘accuracy’ and ‘challenge-ability’ — i would suggest that the most effective communication is always a humble one, building from empathy in a community of voices. And museums simply aren’t set up for that. They are an academy, building knowledge. It’s a good thing. But it does mean that it is very difficult for the museum to present multiple contested truths effectively. The bedrock — the prime motivator to visit — are the galleries and they are expensive to make and slow to change. They do not lend themselves to comment threads, to video responses. And, as @BenjaminGammon tweeted yesterday, most museum pros simply don’t recognise how little time visitors spend with any one object or exhibit.
As to audience ownership. Museums aren’t very good at this and i’m starting to wonder if this is actually a feature. Art galleries are unashamedly elitist — curators choose what is displayed and how it looks — and it seems to be working.
So — and this is the radical idea — simply stop trying to be what you’re not. Do not place the peak aspiration of the exhibition to communicate information, knowledge, facts and truths.
What is the museum best at? Well, it has the real thing. It has other people, interacting in meatspace. It’s a tactile experience — a designed space that you move through, an embodied multisensory space. And it’s experienced in a non-linear fashion, under the whimsical command of each individual. And it’s unique and unrepeatable— for those reasons.
It seems a trend that the contemporary art galleries and museums are doing very well, in visitation and reputation. Better than social history, science and natural history museums. I wonder if this suggests why?
If i simply ignore wall panels and labels — as many do — my experience of art is all that the museum medium is best at. I don’t have to know, i don’t need to have an authoritative truth — i simply experience. If i’m inspired, if i want more — i have google in my pocket.
The intersection between the challenges of my new employer and my notes on Michael Peter Edson’s code:words essay Dark Matter (leafing through old notebooks is great!) has led to a new perspective for me. ACMI’s subject remit covers all aspects of the moving image, and so embraces youtube mashups and avant-garde media art. And within that mix is a primacy given to affect — my colleagues take emotional impact as their start point in considering ‘content’ and ‘design’ of spaces. That’s not to say there isn’t knowledge involved — but developing our audience’s knowledge is not really why we make exhibitions. (There are other outputs for that)
So in conclusion this is a suggestion. Museums, if you want to be primarily a source of knowledge, stop making exhibitions and go where the viewers are: get into the digital realm and begin producing content like all the pioneers Edson cites in his essay. But if you want be really useful and re-shape the world, do it by using your spaces and your stuff to build make exhibitions that focus on empathy and connection.
