Photographer: Leonard GrenAre there museums in 50 years time?
Of course there is! But the time for the large narratives is gone by. It is time to tell of new things, put our time into a historical context based on today´s perspectives and subjects. We also have to tear down the museum walls and understand that tomorrow´s exhibitions communicate through more ways than just the direct physical meeting with the visitor. The Museum becomes a starting point for a transborder conversation which contributes to making tomorrow´s exhibitions relevant. Speaking to the girl in the picture.
Relevance seems to be the word of the day. Something you hear more and more often people talking about in Europe. How to make exhibitions relevant to a larger audience. The stories told have to be more up to date, social media has to be woven into the exhibition warp in order to increase the interface towards the audience. Interactivity has to be just that and museums have to become popular meeting places. By putting the audience in the centre, and not just as a confession of lips, the museum educator is turned into the most valuable person in the museum.
One way is to use the collections for new narratives and to give the space a new meaning. To look at artefacts from a new perspective and let a new narrative come forward like that of the Historical museum in Stockholm in “Maria – pictures of woman”. Old artefacts dug out of the collections mixed with new media, adding a deeper context to the old Madonna figures by surrounding them with contemporary expressions and narratives. “Hot spot” in Malmo is another way of giving the museum a new meaning. The latter a way to increase the relevance of the museum and turn it into a meeting place, a place where people can meet. The subjects based on the wishes of the audience. A social grinding of thresholds. K21 in Düsseldorf arranges a nightclub in the gallery every now and then. Is this a way to go? A fourth way is to make the exhibition larger than just the physical expression in the museum or the gallery. Weave a web with social media for a continuing discussion about the exhibition´s questions, offer the web as a possibility for a deepened conversation and reflection. Only fantasy sets the limits!
Future Exhibitions is also the name of a magazine Swedish Travelling Exhibitions published some weeks ago. It´s a publication in English and Swedish where we are searching our contemporary world looking for signs what is to come. Participation and relevance summarizes the first edition where visionary persons are interviewed, people of power, artists and people working with exhibitions from different perspectives are given a platform from which they can whisper or shout in the megaphone. It can be ordered through our website.
Of course there will be museums in 50 years, but in order to be relevant to the girl in the picture a new story has to be told.
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Hi Goran
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking a lot recently about the potential for galleries and museums to experiment with different forms of social interaction and to negotiate some new boundaries.
The rules of engagement for some other art forms are much clearer - if you go to the theatre for example, everyone sits quietly and watches the play and there is not really any other viable alternative.
But in a gallery space, there are lots of different ways of being - silent, loud, quick, slow, etc. It so happens that one method of being has dominated for a long time - being silent and slow! If, as you say, we need to make galleries and museums more relevant for a wider audience, I think we need to facilitate a sharing of the space that allows for different ways of being and engaging, without alienating one audience in favour of another.
There are lots of interesting things happening around concepts of shared space that i think we can learn from, to see if we can change the potential of the gallery space as a meeting place for a wider range of people.
See you in Italy
Polly
Polly Gifford
Head of Education
De La Warr Pavilion
Bexhill, UK
Hi Polly and thanks för your contribution!
ReplyDeleteTime is a very interesting factor when we speak of meeting the visitor. Usually we´re so pre-occupied with the room and what is going to take place there that we forget about time. I´t´s also usually set in advance to an afternoon or whatever.
As you say, contemporary time sequencing is usually fast due to the media tempo. On the other hand art is a slow media. How to combine?
Firstly I know there is a need with the younger audience to slow down and explore det+pths rather than surface.
Secondly I think new communicative media can function to serve both ends. You can enlarge the exhibition in room and in time and "keep" visitors for a longer time than just when they are in the gallery or the museum.
Let´s continue this discussion in Italy!
Göran