Reinventing the Museum Part 1

All of the readings this week gave insightful information into the many struggles that museums are undergoing in the 21st century, but what stuck out most to me was the very last reading, Simon’s “Principles of Participation.”  Her personal experience and breakdown of the potential participants, as well as how participation should be handled within a museum, really connected with me. In the beginning Simon describes the disappointment she met with the final exhibit where the museum allows visitors to create their video response. As she described most of the videos, they were not really worth much, if anything. I’ve felt this same way with exhibits like that. On top of feeling disappointed in the end result of the exhibit, I did not really care if I or either people with me participate in it. I think some of the issues I had with the exhibit came down to the impersonal nature of the exhibit. All you did was make a short video response, outside of that experience you gained nothing. This comes down to both a design choice as Simon explained, as well as how participation is handled, a major difficulty for museums in the 21st century.

In line with my thoughts above, the analysis of who participants actually are and potential ways participation should be handled was very interesting to me. This breakdown of participants into creators, critics, spectators, and so on shows just how much thought has to be put into an interactive exhibit so that hopefully a majority of participants can feel as though the exhibit was both worthwhile and that they and the community have gained something from it. When these exhibits are created, I imagine that one of the most difficult things to determine is the amount of freedom to give people. I know when I have a paper to write, rather the professor gives you free reign or narrows in my topic, I always find difficulties within both.

At the end of the day, many museums will tackle these difficulties of traditional and contemporary concerns in ways they think will be of financial benefit to them, as well as being beneficial to their survival in the community they exist within.