Benefiting from visitor-contributed programs
- By Jenny Parker
- March 17, 2008
We recently posted comments from participants in the Delaware Art Museum’s Art of Storytelling project. But it isn’t just visitors who reap rewards from participatory programs. In our Art of Storytelling paper, we explore how museums benefit, but here it is in a nutshell:
Participation unleashes a museum’s greatest strength. No, a museum’s greatest strength isn’t in its collections. It is in the ability to connect visitors to that collection in a transformative, meaningful way. Theorist Hilde Hein calls such connections the “museal gaze,” saying that they inspire in the visitor, “the occasional and momentary feeling that things are right with the world.” It is hard to pin down in words, but we’ve all felt it (we hope!), and it is what museums of all kinds strive to inspire in their visitors. Yes, it might happen with passive viewing. But our research suggests you can be more confident it will happen if viewing is made active by asking visitors to contribute their own point of view and actively engage with what they are seeing.
It connects visitors to museums: Ninety-two percent of Delaware Art Museum’s Art of Storytelling participations said they felt more connected to the museum because of the participatory project, and nearly two-thirds said they felt more connected to art museums in general. And although we cannot know their prior habits, a whopping 94 percent said they have visited an art museum since participating in the Art of Storytelling. With museums constantly seeking new audiences, this is very promising feedback.
The very future of museums may depend on it. Digitally organizing information – searching, tagging, sharing – isn’t just a trendy pastime. It is how we construct and organize knowledge in a media-saturated world. Ignoring this fact will leave museums in the dark. But put to use, these technologies give museums a world of new connections waiting to be made with their audience.
Your visitors will talk. The fact is, your visitors are going to talk about you. And if you don’t create a place for this discussion, they’ll have it elsewhere. Creating a digital forum gives visitors a place to respond, vent, and debate. Museums then get feedback directly, while their visitors can create a “community” around their experience. Have a controversial exhibit? Don’t shy away from discussion: This is when a forum is especially critical.
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