Week 2: Museum Experiences (9 Apr)
(a) Canter Arts Museum:
I am really not an enthusiastic museum go-er and the last museum experience (other than Canter Arts Museum) was too long ago to remember. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the recent experience of the Canter Arts Museum. I spent a whole afternoon there alone. What struck me were the
(i)differently themed rooms with exhibits from one region of the world in each room; (ii) the spacious layout of the exhibits; (iii) the broad overview of the exhibits in each room displayed prominently near the entrance to the room; (iv) the finer-grained information of each individual exhibit -- some of these include subjective comments about the exhibit other than the more factual information (v) the very useful incorporation of "exhibits on the move" (like the "In the American West" and "Bare Witness") which adds a new variety to the existing collections.
Some thoughts:
A delicate balance needs to be found where the use of space is concerned. Too few exhibits and too little information misses learning opportunities while too many exhibits clutter the space and too much information turns readers away. Deciding what goes into that little information piece beside each exhibit can be a very challenging task!
(b) Exploratorium @San Francisco:
We brought our son to the Exploratorium at San Francisco last Sunday. My six year old was completed fascinated by many of the exhibits we saw. We love the fact that all the exhibits are child friendly as well as entertaining and educational even to adults. Anyone could just touch and manipulate the exhibit, explore and experience.
As parents, we are always looking for teachable moments to share with our son. My son approached each exhibit with his hands while we tend to read the instructions first then figure out the manipulation. The challenge I faced was that by the time I finished reading, figured out the interactions and effects, identified the scientific concept I can try to explain to him, he is already off to another exhibit. No doubt he would have explored and experienced something, he is unlikely to have picked up the intended learning outcomes of each exhibit. It could be that at the age of 6, his level of cognition and short attention span pose some limitations to learning. However, this sets me thinking about whether museums should design learning spaces in ways which maximizes learning opportunities for different age groups.
Deb Kim Thank Sun Sun for the engaging illustrations of your very different museum experiences. You made some keen observations that may become design principles for future spaces: You mentioned how closely or distanced exhibits were, deciding what goes on the small plaques of information next to exhibits and how they shape a visitor's experience. Also from your Exploratorium visit, I appreciated that you noticed the tension between the adults reading of the concepts and your son just diving right in to interact and then move on. These and many more thoughts will be discussed in the Allen article. I hope it adds to your authentic experience in the museum as a parent.
Jason Weeby Great observations, Sun Sun. Your comments about the subjective comments accompanying the displays raises a lot of interesting questions about the extent of engagement for which the museum and visitor should be responsible. It would be interesting to see a successful melding of the Exploratorium and and Cantor.
Annie Adams You make a good point that museum spaces as with most spaces in society are designed with a particular age group of consumers in mind: an art museum tends towards an older, mature crowd and a science museum or exploratorium to youth. In designing spaces, one maximizes effectiveness when focused on a core subset of people. Thus, each exhibit is deigned for a preschooler/adult/teenager/etc in particular, but and then differnet exhibits collectively target opporunities for multiple groups.
Sonia Geerdes Hey Sun Sun. How did you get your page organized into different topics? (week 1, week2, museum...) Just wondering. Okay, now to the assignment. I found it interesting that you don't consider yourself a "museum go-er", and I don't really see myself that way either. I always feel when I travel, especially to places far away, that I SHOULD go to the museums, but I never really do. I wonder if it's because of the social expectations of museums - there's that sense that you're supposed to act a certain way and be thinking certain things and reflect on certain ideas - I don't really like feeling like I'm supposed to do anything. :) Interestingly, though, it seems that your son doesn't yet feel that pressure. He didn't really care that he didn't get all the information or have to worry about looking smart - he was just exploring and playing. I wonder what that means about learning. Can't learning be exploring, too?? -sg.
Sun Sun Thank you Jason, Annie and Sonia for your reactions and comments. I guess what I am thinking is that different museums do have different target groups to cater to and that is very reasonable and sound. It is interesting to think about the melding of Exploratorium and the Cantor and about the idea that different exhibits collectively target opportunities for multiple groups. What I envision for an ideal museum is one which has a place for everyone to learn something, young or old, expert or novice. I think this can be achieved through many different ways, like having a children's corner in a fine arts museum which allows children to touch the sculptures? Coming to think of it, i think the Exploratorium has done a great job catering to adult learners like me who tend to be more visual and read first before any manipulation, as well as catering to kids who are so enthusiastic and fearless that they'd do anything they like with the exhibits. I really enjoyed the article by Allen which gave some insights about the design of the museum and exhibits and how they should facilitate learning through mainly hands-on exploration. I also think that a carefully deliberated and articulated ideology should underpin all museum designs as that would guide the successive design iterations of exhibit presentations.
Sonia's comments related me to the second reading this week on the Display of Cultural Knowledge. I guess the fact that I am not a museum goer might possibly be attributed to the fact that as a child, I did not have many meaningful and sustainable kinds of participatory experiences in museums. From young, I have been "trained" by family and teachers that you have to read the instructions before you start on anything and especially vivid is my childhood training that if you don't know how to operate something, you better don't try, otherwise you might spoil it. Hence, though I would say I have a rather strong science background, in a science museum, instinctively, I still will read the instructions before I engage in the hands-on. This is how I see culture has influenced my "display of knowledge". Also, I never really seriously thought about going to a fine arts museum because I have this mindset that I will not be able to either learn or appreciate much from it since I do not have any background in this area. On the other hand, I am more keen to go science museums as I have a science background and so i feel i could appreciate things much better and learn more. As for my son, he has no prior experiences and is just plain curious about anything. I just wonder how much influence culture and life experiences as well as expectations have on us...
by the way Sonia, I just learnt how to set the pages up from Yeong Haur at the last lesson and I can show you tomorrow :)