Museum stories from the road. Visitor engagement and self-guided activities

Since I mentioned that my internship experience this summer is a "donut", lest it seems that I didn't actually do anything in the middle, here is a brief recap of what I saw and learned in the meantime that is related to museum education and can be useful as an idea to others.

After I left Dallas, I traveled to Helsinki, Finland, to participate in the InSEA regional congress for the European region, hosted by Aalto University. A partner in the conference was the EMMA, Espoo Museum of Modern Art that has not only some amazing exhibitions and collections, but also a great education program.

What I was most impressed with in EMMA's programs was the self-guided activities - those activities that are designed to happen without the presence of a museum educator, or the need to sign up for them. As I have been recently reading the book The Multisensory Museum by Nina Levent and Alvaro Pascual-Leone (https://www.amazon.it/Multisensory-Museum-Cross-Disciplinary-Perspectives-Memory/dp/0759123543), I was especially interested in those that use senses other than vision, such as touch, because they aid greatly in the perception, enjoyment and learning experience of visitors, of which the EMMA had a rich variety. For example, as it was currently hosting a very large exhibition of the work of surrealist Meret Oppenheim and her circle of artist friends, I was thrilled to find, at the end of the hallway of the exhibition, an array of masks and other hand-held devices hung next to a few mirrors that invited visitors to take a selfie using the masks, following the aesthetics of surrealists just seen. I thought this very brief activity that doesn't feel like purposeful learning to be very engaging and fun while combining touch and photography and embodying some pieces from the museum.

Also, another interesting tactile experience of museum was the transition between sections of the exhibition. Visitors had to brave (use their hands to make a space for themselves) some beaded curtains of the kind that you see on doors to keep flies out. The curtains gently hit visitors on their bodies and so physically prepared them for a different section with a different feel.

In this example, the museum designed a wall around a row of display of surrealist sculptures that only allowed for a small openings. Visitors simply had to approach the openings and put their eye to it - they were intrigued by the mystery - and paid close attention to that small section of the sculpture that their attention was supposed to be drawn to.

Although  these elements are mostly in the area of the exhibition design team rather than the responsibilities of the education department, I can see a collaboration between the educators and curators of the EMMA that works together to engage visitors in the most productive way.

After these enlightening visits, I kept thinking how to embed self-guided activities or features that don't feel like learning but engage the senses. I happened to be in this cathedral in Italy in which I saw a meridian, a line embedded in the floor of the cathedral that indicated the path of the sun of a specific day and time that was for some reason important for the history or liturgical life of the church.

I saw three visitors who read the information and then walked the meridian, debating and demonstrating among themselves how it worked. They were very lively in their discussion and moved around to figure out the meridian. Admiring their enthusiasm, I thought what would take to translate this kind of engagement in an image-based art display that will physically challenge visitors to include them in a process of learning and enjoyment. What if we recognized and put into practice that visual art is not necessarily or only visual? If visitors are required to look only, now wonder they will spend a few seconds in front of each artwork before they moved on.

 

This last example, from the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan, showed me how this could be easily and effortlessly achieved. The museum's collection has Renaissance paintings, but also material culture objects ranging from lace to watches. The lace is placed in frames, organized in a structure similar to a vertical filing cabinet, vertical drawers or a like a bookcase. If visitors wanted to see the displays they had to pull each frame and then slide it back to check out the next one. I had no intention to spend time at the lace department at all, but the curious structure and the mystery of the hidden objects practically forced me to keep pulling drawers after drawers to see what the next one was hiding. I could decide by myself how much time I was going to look at each of them. This made me realize that if the lace was simply displayed on the wall, I would not even glance at it, but instead, the hand-held engagement made me slow down, get excited and look closely at it.  

What hand-driven or tactile engagement processes have you seen at your museum in the summer? Please let me know, either here or when I see you in person, of some interesting models to follow that have been especially effective!