 From https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/learn I promised that I would continue to explore this thing I’m calling Positive Museology, so this blog post is about a concept—well, more of a theory—from Positive Psychology. The Five Pillars of Well-being, dubbed PERMA, stands for Positive emotions, Engagement, positive Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. A bit more detail:
This theory comes from many years of work by Martin Seligman and his colleagues (see https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/perma-model/ for details). According to Seligman (in his book, Flourish) the subject of positive psychology is well-being and PERMA are the five measurable elements that promote happiness within each of us; they are “the best approximation of what humans pursue for their own sake… because these elements are intrinsically motivating by themselves.” No one element defines well-being, but each contributes to it. The goal of this well-being theory is to increase human flourishing by increasing PERMA. So, what does it have to do with museums? I think it is broadly applicable in two ways: to museum work and to museum experiences. Museum work refers to that whole inner sanctum of the museum industry—the work, people, practices, activities, policies, etc.—the things that power the museum (I refer to this as the inner museum). Museum experience refers more to the visitors, their encounters and engagements with museal things and all the associations with those (let's call this the outer museum, although it is only a part of it in actuality). First, consider PERMA for the inner museum. Many museum workers are unhappy—underpaid, overworked, and politics abound. Reports such as this one from the author of Joyful Museums (van Damme, 2015) and books such as Seema Rao's Objective Lessons indicate that something is awry. What if museum administrations were to take a flourishing approach to their own internal culture by using PERMA? How might this affect not only the well-being of the workers, but the museum institution itself? I have not seen anything like PERMA discussed in our various museum communities[1]; if any readers are aware of a museum using PERMA, I would love to hear more! But there are certainly many other kinds of institutions using it, and we would benefit from learning about their processes and approaches. Take a look at this blog post from the University of Calgary for an example. For the outer museum, how could we apply PERMA? This might actually be a bit easier to tackle than trying to infiltrate the inner workings of the museum cold turkey, possibly making it a better place to start. Here's a simple example. At the beginning of the next exhibit planning (if it makes sense for the specific topic), consider PERMA along with the big idea, learning outcomes, and measures etc. What aspects of the exhibit might elicit positive emotions? How might we induce engagement? How can we forge positive relationships or help to cultivate them amongst visitors? What meaning-making would we like to see our visitors make (or how can we set up open-ended encounters to allow for such meaning-making)? And how might visitors leave our museum with a sense of accomplishment? Several museum frameworks allude to many of these elements (eg. Perry’s What Makes Learning Fun?), but none use them outright. Take a look at PERMA and let me know if your institution intentionally uses these or if you have ideas about how to apply them. I see great value in the potential for museum flourishing. References Perry, D. L. (2012). What makes learning fun?: Principles for the design of intrinsically motivating museum exhibits. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Rao, S. (2018). Objective Lessons: Self-Care for Museum Workers (1st ed.). Middletown, DE: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Van Damme, M. (2015) Joyful museums: Together we can make work better. Retrieved from http://www.joyfulmuseums.com/resources/joyful-museums-together-we-can-make-work-better/, originally published in Fall 2015 New England Museums Now. [1] Although I just got my hands on Randi Korn’s new book, Intentional Practice for Museums (2018) and I hope to dig into it soon.
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[Blog post originally appeared on the MuseLab blog January 15, 2019.]
Since time immemorial, the trio of mind/body/spirit have been a subject of discussion in human thought. The term is often used to describe three intertwined components of human existence that, when balanced, signify well-being and health. Typically, it is used as a holistic approach to human being. In museumland, we do mind and body well, but not so much spirit. Why is that? If this persistent trio seems to describe human experience, why would museums ignore one of the major elements of the whole being? In mind, we have the intellect, the learning, the knowing, the interpretation. There is no argument that this is a major component of the museum experience for the visitor. And lately, we've done well on body, acknowledging the importance of touch, smell, sound as well as our more prevalent focus on sight. But when we begin to enter the realm of spirit, things get fuzzy. Despite the fact that a.) most people are spiritual in some way (not necessarily religious) and b.) many exhibits and objects in museums lend themselves to spiritual experience, museums do not regularly consider or include spirit in their programs. Please note that spiritual experiences are not always the same as religious experiences. Anyone can get that feeling of deep connection, transcendence, a powerful feeling, no matter their religious beliefs. THAT is spirit. I will never forget my own experiences with such powerful moments in museums. For example, my encounter with the Pitt Rivers Museum—I’ve talked about it in detail in another blog post (see The Slow Museum Movement) so I won’t go into detail here. Suffice it to say that it was an overwhelming sense of “being in a holy space” for me. The experience was awe-inspiring, powerful, deeply felt, and wholly focused. It allowed me to escape all other things in my life and come to the single moment of this emotional encounter. There were no real words to describe it but as I sit here thinking about it, I can easily recall the feelings and surroundings. In the experience, in other words, I couldn’t identify any separate units called mind or body or spirit; they were all integrated into one. I have heard others’ stories like this as well, such as participants in my research on numinous experiences (Latham, 2013) and Michael Spock’s Philadelphia Stories (Spock et al., 2000) and this amazing video (Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, 2009) made about Philadelphia museums (I cry every time I watch it). In 2002, in a brilliant article called, Taking a wider view of museum outcomes and experiences: theory, research and magic, Lois Silverman asked, “Where is the magic in museums? Where is the Soul?” (p. 7). She was referring to those moments of enchantment, insight, transformation, and deep significance. Expressing frustration that, in museums, we are losing our “divine side of life, of the power of imagination, myth, dream and vision…” (Gablik in Silverman, 2002, p. 23). I believe that museums have the capacity to elicit these deep feelings, the "magic" that Silverman spoke of. In fact, I think we need to raise the magic (i.e. the spirit) in museums to fit comfortably alongside mind and body. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves, however, why do we speak of these three things separately in the first place? That leads us down a complicated epistemological history that I can’t to get into here. Instead, let's look at another culture and how they might see the three terms to make my point. In Japanese, there is a word that connects the three—kokoro (Livni, 2017). It is a difficult word to define in English where we link the three separate words, automatically implying a division that simply doesn’t exist in Japanese. But in Japanese culture, the three aren’t intrinsically connected as one—they are one. The effects of such a conception are enormous. The term is understood as integral and applied to all aspects of life (see examples in this blog), not as separately defined categories. The fact is, however, we are English-speakers and we do and have used separate words for mind, body, and spirit for a very long time. This is hard to undo. Even so, in museums we can intentionally choose to look at all three when we consider our work—from programs to labels to collecting object descriptions and more—and not privilege one over the other. We can ask ourselves what the whole human being brings to this encounter, not just what this intellectual human being brings to this encounter. References: Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. (2009, April 23). Spark. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/OgrH6NwhrFk Latham, K. F. (2013). Numinous experiences with museum objects. Visitor Studies, 16(1), 3–20. Livni, E. (2017, April 6). This Japanese word connecting mind, body, and spirit is also driving scientific discovery. Quartz. Retrieved from https://qz.com/946438/kokoro-a-japanese-word-connecting-mind-body-and-spirit-is-also-driving-scientific-discovery/ Silverman, L. H. (2002). Taking a wider view of museum outcomes and experiences: theory, research and magic. Journal of Education in Museums, 23, 3–8. Spock, M., Paterson, J., McManus, A. E., Bedford, L., American Association of Museums, & Philadelphia Museum of Art. (2000). Philadelphia stories: A collection of pivotal museum memories. Washington, DC: American Association of Museums. [Originally posted on the MuseLab blog November 15, 2018.] In trying to sort out what a Positive Museology might look like (see Blog from August 15, 2018), I am going to play around with different sets of concepts and frameworks out there in other fields and philosophies. The first one is from Positive Psychology, specifically the classification of Character Strengths and Virtues. If you are interested in this, you can find it here. Let’s go over these, and as we do, let’s think of them as a way to study or understand museums. The Classification itself is a handbook developed from many years of work by multiple positive psychology researchers whose intention was to “create a systematic classification and measurements of widely valued positive traits” (Positive Psychology Program, 2016) by providing a theoretical framework to help practitioners in the field. Here are the six classes of virtues and under these are 24 character strengths.  Image from Positive Psychology Program When I first read about this classification, I noticed that it rang true for me, but the ringing wasn’t just personal or psychological. It was ringing bells in my museological thinking. Look these over and you’ll start to notice that all of the Virtues are areas that we talk about in museum work and theory, whether it is about the purpose of the museum or the content of a program of some sort.
The first Virtue: one cannot argue that museums are about some sort of knowledge, and in some cases, wisdom. In this Virtue category, we find creativity (yes), curiosity (of course!), judgement, love of learning and perspective. We’ll need to dig further into those in another blog. For now, let’s move on to the other virtues. Courage might seem like an odd one to include in museological thinking but, in this case, let’s focus on the character of the museum itself: bravery, persistence, honesty, zest. Why shouldn’t a museum have these strengths? Why not aim for it? Bravery could refer to doing what is right versus “being safe” (we’ve seen lots of examples of those in the past). And certainly, I would hope all museums aim for honesty. The third Virtue is Humanity, another one that seems obvious for museums as this is a large part of what museums aim to represent. This Virtue is made up of three simple, but powerful strengths: love, kindness, and social intelligence. Imagine the world that could be if our museums aimed for love and kindness. Even in the midst of telling difficult stories, if there is an intention of love and kindness always threading its way through, how might this affect museum visitors? The fourth Virtue is my personal favorite, Transcendence: appreciation of beauty, hope, humor, gratitude, and spirituality. For me, this is the area in which I would class my research (another reason I like this framework is to help guide research on museums). If you gave me this Virtue alone for a museum, I would be satisfied. Many museums are about the appreciation of beauty; not necessarily beauty itself but the appreciation of it (beauty is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but the ability to see it is an amazing gift). I firmly believe that we need more humor in most things, and especially in museums. This could manifest in the outer museum (exhibits, programs, front line, visitor services) but also in the inner museum, with staff who should enjoy their work, have fun doing it, and play around with ideas and each other. Spirituality in museums is something I have a bit of experience with and am working on fervently in my recent research. I take this word “spiritual” to not be religious but to mean, as Matthieu Ricard says, “something to do with the mind, dealing precisely with the mind and the way you experience the world” (On being podcast, date). Why have we veered away from the museum as a sacred space? The Virtue Justice seems to be to be a hot one these days in museums so I doubt anyone would argue against its relevance to museum work. Just look at the strengths that make this up—teamwork, fairness and leadership—all things we have been doing in museums for a long time. The final Virtue, Moderation, which includes forgiveness, modesty, prudence, self-control may seem more difficult to fit. But I am willing to work on this, in the interest of doing an exercise, one that works our way towards a Positive Museology. You’ll see more of these brief meditations on positive and contemplative models from me in future blogs. References Positive Psychology Program. (2016, August 30). What is the classification of character strengths and virtues. Retrieved from https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/classification-character-strengths-virtues/ [Originally posted on the MuseLab blog September 15, 2018.] The Slow Museum Movement. It sounds lovely, doesn’t it? Images of peaceful and serene spaces and calm experiences abound at the mention of it. I'm not sure this movement actually exists in museums as a whole yet, but there is certainly a trend in art museums (see for example, the Slow Art Day project). Dubbed the Slow Art Movement which follows other Slow trends such as slow food, slow space, slow exercise, slow professor (Berg & Seeber, 2017), and more, the idea is to focus on experience and observation and to enjoy the moment rather than racing on to do and see everything (Honoré, 2004),. When I was growing up, I used to visit the Detroit Institute of Arts regularly. It became a comfortable place to go, a familiar place. And it was quiet and peaceful. I looked forward to my regular, quiet and personally meaningful visits. Ironically, it is that very peace that has somehow been taken for elitism in art museums (see a recent Washington Post article on this, Kennicot, 2018). For nearly two decades now, museums have become more and more frenetic, with blockbusters and masses of people coming to check a particular famous artwork off their list or to get a selfie with a well-known iconic object. In other words, museums have succumbed to the “mall” syndrome so famously described by Gopnik (2007) nearly 10 years ago.  I miss the peaceful museum. I am saddened that these potentially contemplative and transformative spaces are becoming a circus—loud, busy, and impersonal. Case in point, I finally saw the Mona Lisa this summer. I know, it's crazy that a museum scholar (who works overseas a lot) has not yet witnessed this work of art. I've even facilitated an exhibition around her (see MLX4). But the first time I went to the Louvre, many many years ago, the gallery to the Mona Lisa was closed, so I was not able to see it. This year while I was in Paris, I put it on my "checklist," but interestingly enough, I was not excited to see it. I knew well about the crowds, about the impossibility of actually getting anywhere near the painting. But I wanted to experience it, crowds and all. And I had another goal. To turn around and look at what the Mona Lisa was looking at. Latour and Lowe (2010) wrote a fabulous article (you should read it!) about Benjamin’s notion of the “aura” and the relationship between originals and copies. In it, they focused on Veronese’s La Nozze di Cana, a HUGE painting taken from a Venetian monastery and installed in the Louvre. Recently, a full-scale digital replica was made and installed in the painting’s original location in Venice. It is the original painting—that was removed from its home many years ago—that the Mona Lisa looks at day after day. And it is this painting, that few pay attention to when they visit the far more famous painting across the room.   My adventure began by trying to find the Mona Lisa in the massive labyrinths of the Louvre (not very good wayfinding there, phew!). When I finally stepped into the stream that was clearly the "way to La Jaconde," I smiled the whole way. The increase in crowds made me laugh out loud; it was so extreme that it was funny. And of course, I got there, and couldn't get anywhere near her. The crowd was thick, the glow of the phones bright. But that didn't matter to me. I took pictures of people taking pictures of her. I wondered, was anyone actually looking at her? Could anyone be having a calming, transformative experience with her? I don’t think so. Maybe the awakened Buddhist monk could have focused on her, but it was a madhouse and for me, there was no way to have a peaceful experience. I purposefully spent time facing the Mona Lisa, before I turned around, giving my full attention to La Nozze di Cana. It took my breath away. The space in front of it was nearly empty. I imagined the tale of the copy told by Latour and Lowe and tried to visualize that giant painting in its original home in Venice, with its tall ceilings and natural light (as opposed to the hideous drop ceilings and canned lighting in the Louvre gallery). I tuned out the crowds and imagined standing in the monastery, feeling the grandness of this huge painting. Even though the crowd was still on the other side, it felt quieter when I was looking at La Nozze. Overall, it was a much nicer experience than the one with the Mona Lisa. [I even sent the MuseLab a postcard from the Louvre with this painting as a focus.]  I tell this story as a reminder that looking, observing, and just sitting are ok things to do, especially in museums. We have become so accustomed to busy-ness that we seem to forget that we need quiet-ness as well. Thankfully, some museums understand this need. The Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, for example, offers a series of workshops, focused on slowing down—using the senses, silence, poetry, and looking at one single object. And, for many years, museum educator, Annie Storr has been developing her technique for attentive looking in (mostly) art museums, called Exercises for the Quiet Eye where slow looking is often paramount. Art museums are on to something and all kinds of museums would benefit from trying out some slow practices and offerings. Outside of art museums, the examples are thinner but still quite good. For example, the Manchester Museum in the UK, a university natural and cultural history museum, has been offering quiet morning hours for several years now. Initially developed for families with autistic children, the have now launched the Museum of Calm for visitors for find the noisy and busy conditions in the Museum not conducive to engagement.
There is value to slowing down, and the museum can be a particularly good site for such activity. In fact, the issue gives us pause, an opportunity to consider what we expect from a museum experience. Think of a time when you visited a museum that left you feeling rejuvenated, calm, peaceful, and gratified. What was that visit like? Who were you with? What was happening around you? What facilitated your positive experience? References Berg, M., & Seeber, B. K. (2017). Slow professor: Challenging the culture of speed in the academy. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press. Gopnik, A. (December 01, 2007). The Mindful Museum. Museum News, 36. Honoré, C. (2005). In praise of slow: How a worldwide movement is challenging the cult of speed. London: Orion. Latour, B., & Lowe, A. (2010). The migration of the aura, or how to explore the original through its facsimiles. In T. Bartscherer (Ed.), Switching Codes (pp. 275–297). University Of Chicago Press. Smith, J. S., & Zimmermann, C. (2017). The sanctuary series: Co-creating transformative museum experiences. Journal of Museum Education, 42(4), 362–368. https://doi.org/10.1080/10598650.2017.1371520 [Originally posted on the MuseLab blog August 15, 2018.]
Over the past year, I have been digging deeply into more positive approaches to everything—from business to psychology to personal meaning-making (mindfulness). I am still at the beginning of this journey but I sense there is something really good here for museums and museum studies. I thought I would take a moment to see how I might answer my own question: What might the positive museum look like? In that vein, then, I am working towards answering a bigger question: What is Positive Museology? Let’s start by looking at other fields that have taken a positive (not positivist) turn. Starting the trend is Positive Psychology, the scientific study of human flourishing, an applied approach to optimal functioning of human beings. It is the first field to re-direct its traditional approach to human functioning through a positive lens. Other fields are following suit, such as positive education, positive neuroscience, positive sociology, positive organizational theory, and positive (constructive) journalism. All of these focus on strengths and virtues that enable individuals, communities, and organizations to thrive (Gable & Haidt, 2005; Sheldon & King, 2001). And all are clear that they are not there to replace traditional versions of their disciplines, but rather to complement them. All use language and concepts (and conduct research) that focus on positive approaches to the world. Some examples of these are: optimism, gratitude, resilience, grit, character strengths and virtues, emotional agility, slow thinking, and authentic happiness. Interestingly, all of these were reactions to deficit models of human functioning. How can museums (and museum studies) build on this positive movement? Do we in museums (and museum studies) have a deficit approach? That is, do we have a dominant negative approach hidden under the surface? I don’t know that we have gone that far, but I do see two things that show we might need to rethink our approach or at least, reflect on our views a bit. The first is the health of workers in museums; they are not happy. Museum professionals have the coolest jobs on earth yet I rarely hear that workers are satisfied. Something is awry. The second is more subtle but present nevertheless. Our talk amongst ourselves—about visitors, exhibition content, collections choices, and more—is full of angst:
It’s no wonder our visitors are not entirely happy all the time. Like it or not, these internal conversations filter their way to our most important customers, our visitors. Our angst comes through. Can we turn these things around and talk about them in a different way? If we were to take an intentionally positive approach to doing our work, to doing museological things, what would that look like? Maybe a better question would be how do we create a flourishing museum? What would a flourishing museum look like? In order to talk about it, let’s first imagine the museum as two intertwining parts of a larger system, the inner museum and the outer museum (Latham and Simmons, year), with the inner representing the activities that go on daily, behind the scenes, and are often hidden from the public and the outer museum as the museum that most people think of as the museum, the activities that are visible to everyone. A flourishing inner museum would be healthy, with its workers content and satisfied with the work they do, the relationships they have at the museum. A flourishing outer museum is one that provides a place for people to find joy, compassion, connection, understanding, personal growth, and self-efficacy; positive museums will be a place to enable people to thrive. What this might consist of, I am not yet sure. Does it mean creating exhibitions that show the strengths and virtues of a people, place event rather than the more negative aspects? Do we intentionally create slow offerings, provide a place for contemplation and quiet inspection? Or does it mean that the museum’s goals are more positively oriented (language and goals are shifted) and so the flourishing is awash over all things done in the museum? Does it mean we provide opportunities for gratitude and compassion, for oneself and for others? Positive Museology then, focuses on human flourishing in museal contexts, that is, in those spaces and places where humans and objects interact in meaningful ways. Using positive concepts, theories, approaches, applications and intentions, we can work towards making the museum a place for people to flourish, for well-being, mindfulness, compassion, gratitude, resilience, strength of character. The bigger question now is, how can we use the good work that is going on in these other positive fields to create a flourishing museum? That in particular, is what I will keep working on in the near future. I want to end this post with the introduction found on the Center for Positive Organization’s website. See if you can fill in “positive museology,” “museum,” “museum studies” or another related word where applicable (I’ve highlighted some suggested places) and if you think this might be a something we should be doing: Welcome The Center for Positive Organizations is a community dedicated to positively energizing and transforming organizations and the people who lead them through Positive Organizational Scholarship. The study and perspective of Positive Organizational Scholarship is committed to revealing and nurturing the highest level of human potential, and it strives to answer questions like: What makes employees feel like they’re thriving? How can I bring my organization through difficult times stronger than before? What creates the positive energy a team needs to be successful? Positive Organizational Scholarship has become a major focus for organizations and empowers leaders to create positive work environments, improving the culture of their workplace and helping them discover what is possible with their employees and within their organizations. By bringing empathy, compassion, and energy into the workplace, leaders are able to enhance engagement and performance, and inspire their employees to innovate, find opportunity, and strive for excellence. Positive Organizational Scholarship principles create a generative business setting and act as a catalyst in the discovery of human potential. [Originally posted on the MuseLab blog June 1, 2018] During spring semester I was on sabbatical and with that freedom to think deeply, I took the opportunity during an overseas trip to northern Europe to visit a heck of a lot of museums, 36 to be precise, in 32 DAYS! Why did I do this? Am I crazy? Was I in a contest? Do I really love museums that much? (yes, but that’s not entirely why I did it). The answer is: research. Here’s the backstory: In 2016, I began a partnership (through a Norwegian grant called KULMEDIA) with my colleagues in Norway to investigate various effects of digital media and practices on cultural heritage institutions. My group, based in Tromsø, Norway is quite diverse in their interests, and mine, not surprisingly, falls on museums. I am still in an exploratory phase but I can give you the gist of what I’m looking at, at least right now in the early stages of my research. My research questions keep evolving, but at the time of the visits in March, I was looking for digital mediators in museum settings. What is a digital mediator you ask? Well, that was part of my “visiting research.” About a year before my whirlwind tour, I started working with the Cleveland Museum of Art’s (CMA) ArtLens Gallery and Studio (formerly GalleryOne) where the use of digital technologies is at a very high level. To make a long story short, the CMA recently shifted their perspective on using digital media to this: from using digital in the foreground of artworks to using the artworks in the foreground of digital. In conversations with CMA staff, the notion that they were now more focused oncreating relationships between people and art was of great interest to me. I found this notion very provocative and wondered about the use of digital media as connectors between people and things (this matches a lot of other research I’ve done over the years), and in particular, wanted to know more about this goal to help create more (and deeper?) relationships between visitors and the collection. So, I began with the notion of a digital mediator, that is, the use of digital media to mediate between people and things (collections/documents/art/artifacts). That study is in process and evolving even as I write. But, in the context of the grant partnership, it made sense to seek out another museum for comparison, preferably in Scandinavia (since the grant is funded by Norway). And that is what brought me to my 36 visits in such a short time. I was already going to the region for a doctoral defense and a conference (where I presented a poster on this topic), so in between, I museum-ed. Like crazy. Here is the list of museums I visited, seeking digital mediators (you may have seen my posts on the KSU museum studies Facebook page in March: Norway Oslo: The National Gallery, Nobel Peace Center, The National Museum - Architecture, The Historical Museum, Akershus Castle (parts), Armed Forces Museum, Norway's Resistance Museum, Natural History Museum, Munch Museum, The Kon-Tiki Museum, Norwegian Maritime Museum, The Viking Ship Museum (a favorite) Bergen: Leprosy Museum, The Hanseatic Museum, Bryggens Museum, Håkon's Hall, KODE 1,2,3. Sweden Uppsala: The Uppland County Museum, Uppsala Cathedral Museum Treasury, Uppsala Art Museum, Gustavianum, Evolutionmuseet (paleontology) U.K. Manchester: Manchester Museum Sheffield: Millennium Gallery, Chatsworth House Netherlands Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, Rembrandt House Museum, Anne Frank House Haarlem: Teylers Museum, Archaeological Museum Haarlem Leiden: Boerhaave Rijksmuseum (a favorite) The Hague: Mauritshuis, Gemeentemuseum Den Hague  Digital mediator at the Boerhaave Museum in Leiden. The actual Leiden Sphere, behind it the Sphere in motion, with short explanations as it moves.  Digital mediators at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo. This exhibit allows the visitor to interact with Nobel Prize winner in a very interesting way. Did I find any? Well, not many. I found this piece and that piece, but not like the scenario at CMA (with a couple exceptions, the Boerhaave in Leiden and Nobel Peace Center in Oslo). But more than not I did not find much digital mediation, I did however, begin to see a pattern, something that is very interesting and of great use to me. On this trip, I found that I could group the digital components I saw overall into two categories: digital mediators and digital labels (or support). Digital mediators where those that used the digital to connect, they were more integrated and intentional and their presence was woven into the whole exhibit and topic of interest. Digital “labels” or supports where sort of like text labels, or what a web search might serve, providing more information on something related to something nearby. This finding was helpful and maybe a little surprising to me. From my vantage point as a museum studies educator, there is a lot of chatter about “the digital” in museums. Now, there are many ways this can be applied, of course, but I expected to see a lot more (and better) use of digital media in galleries based on the extensive discussions in the field. Instead, the bulk of what I saw was of the digital label type, which feels very much like an add-on much of the time. Indeed, it is good to provide the opportunity to dig deeper for those who want more, so I am not disparaging this approach. What was disappointing was how often this was used instead of the more integrated approach. It’s not often that we get to see 36 museums in 32 days and this kind of viewing allows patterns to be seen more quickly and more obviously. I feel fortunate to have had this opportunity. But now, this is where I stop to mull, to do more literature research, to think more about this phenomenon and see how it might play into my more formal research study. I would love to hear from others about this so please comment if you have something to say. What do you think of my two groupings? What have you seen out there in museum-land? Let me know.  An example of a digital mediator at the Nobel Peace Center, a "book" to look through about Nobel's life. A video of the Anatomy Theater at the Boerhaave Museum, an example of a digital mediator.  An example of a digital label (or support) at the Nobel Peace Center. You can look up everything written by any of the Peace Prize winners.  An example of a digital label (support) at the War Museum in Oslo. QR codes and a screen that lets you dig deep down into the details of several Norwegian historical battles. [Originally posted on the MuseLab blog March 1, 2018] What does meditation have to do with museum studies? It may seem like an odd thing to ask. What does one have to do with the other? Meditation is a spiritual exercise, a practice that is personal, inward and quiet. Museums, on the other hand, are social places and are about knowledge, not religion or spiritual matters. Aren’t they? Yet, more and more, in my studies I am seeing the relationship between the two. It began with my own doctoral research on numinous experiences with museum objects. My interest in this came from a deep curiosity about this reported phenomenon in the museum context (Cameron & Gatewood, 2003, 2012 and Gatewood & Cameron, 2004). I myself had had such experiences, and of course, that’s where my curiosity began. Numinous refers to deeply felt, often spiritually perceived, experiences and my study was about these intense encounters with museum objects. What were they like? Was there an “essence” (is it a shared occurrence with notable features)? I have spent many years now with this topic and it still intrigues me. And then one day a few years ago, I visited a museum that has since come to be known as my “favorite museum in the world.” Those of you who know me or have taken a class from me, will know what museum this is. It is a very small, but intensely packed, beautiful place called the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, UK. When I walked into this museum for the first time, I burst into tears; heaving, sobbing, unstoppable, tears. I couldn’t explain my reaction. I had an overwhelming sensation that I was “in church” (yet, I do not attend church)—but there was no doubt, this encounter was a spiritual one. When I look back on that day to try to figure out what transpired, there is no logical or objective way to explain it. Granted, I knew about the Pitt Rivers Museum before that visit, as I had studied it many years earlier as an anthropology undergraduate and then again as an academic in museum studies. But how can this account for my uncontrollable, and highly unexpected, outpouring of emotion? It was a profound experience and one that has stayed with me, even guided me, in my academic pursuits. In the years since my doctoral work and encounters like this one, I have increasingly come to see the museum as a rich source of potentially deeply felt experiences, as a site of meaning-making--beyond education or instruction. My sense, many years ago, was that museums are first, sites of meaning-making and that the more popular function of learning is a part of that, but only a part. In fact, the focus has for many years been intensely on museums as sites of learning; so if learning is only one part of the meaning-making function of museums, then what else is there? Over the years, many museum writers have pined for the museum as a site for transformation (Carr, Gopnik, Silverman, Janes, Packer, Storr, and others). Many museums today burst with activity, sound, energy. Busy-ness and noisy-ness are lauded; quiet, contemplative spaces are considered traditional and old-fashioned. Today’s emerging professionals are often taught that success involves quantitative goals, socializing, and experiential products rather than smaller, local, more qualitative encounters. But today, several writers continue to ask, why can’t museums be about transformation and meaning-making rather than solely focused on learning? What might a transformative museum look like? What would a spiritual experience in a museum consist of? Can museums help with well-being? To use terminology from positive psychology, how can museums help people flourish?  Recently, I have decided to focus more fully on the profound and pleasurable in museum contexts (see Kari & Hartel, 2007 for an excellent description of this area of study in LIS). Specifically, I am investigating the intersection of Contemplative Studies (CS), positive psychology (eg. Seligman, 2012; Langer, 1989), and museology. Recent articles in museum journals hint at the turn we are taking towards this area of interest in museums (see for example, one at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum [Echarri & Urpi, 2018] and one about a Rothko painting [Smith & Zimmerman, 2017]). For some, the museum may be taking the form of a secular site for spirituality. This sounds highly oxymoronic, but the tangled web that is now Contemplative Studies (Komjathy, 2018), an emerging field, along with the quickly accruing work in museology on health (eg. Dodd & Jones, 2014), well-being (eg. Chaterjee & Noble, 2013), mindfulness (eg. Janes, 2010, Gopnik, 2007), and more (eg. Carr, 2003, 2006; Kaplan, et al., 1993; Packer & Bond, 2010) shows that something is clearly going on (and I want to know more!).
So, as I embark on this new (or at least more concentrated) chapter in my research, I will share findings and discoveries with you along the way. I officially begin my journey this spring at an iConference session in Sheffield, UK. Several other exciting things are planned as well, so stay tuned to this blog and let me know in comments if this topic is of interest to you, what your museum might be doing contemplatively, and your overall thoughts about it. References Cameron, C.M. & Gatewood, J.B. (2003). Seeking numinous experiences in the unremembered past. Ethnology 42(1), 55-71. Cameron, C.M. & Gatewood, J.B. (2012). The numen experience in heritage tourism. In The cultural moment in tourism, L. Smith, E. Waterton, & S. Watson, eds. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Carr, D. (2003). The Promise of Cultural Institutions. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Carr, D. (2006). A place not a place: Reflection and possibility in museums and libraries. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Chatterjee, H. & Noble, G. (2013). Museums, health and well-being. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Dodd, J. & Jones, C. (2014). Mind, body, spirit: How museums impact health and wellbeing. Leicester, England: Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. Echarri, F. & Urpi, C. (2018). Mindfulness in art contemplation. The story of a Rothko experience. Journal of Museum Education, 43(1), 35-46. Gatewood, J.B. & Cameron, C.M. (2004). Battlefield pilgrims at Gettysburg National Military Park. Ethnology, 43(3), 193-216. Gopnik, A. (2007). The mindful museum. Museum News, (Nov. ⁄ Dec), Janes, R.R. (2010). The mindful museum. Curator: The Museum Journal, 53(3), 325-338. Kaplan, S., Bardwell, L.V. & Slakter, D.B. (1993). The museum as a restorative environment. Environment and Behavior, 25(6), 725–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916593256004. Kari, J. & Hartel, J. (2007). Information and higher things in life: Addressing the pleasurable and the profound in information science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(8), 1131-1147. Komjathy, L. (2018). Introducing contemplative studies. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley Blackwell. Langer, E.J. (1989). Mindfulness. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. Packer, J. & Bond, N. (2010). Museums as restorative environments. Curator: The Museum Journal, 53(4), 421–36. Seligman, M.E.P. (2012) Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Smith, J.S. & Zimmermann, C. (2017). The sanctuary series: Co-creating transformative museum experiences. Journal of Museum Education, 42(4), 362-368. [Originally posted on the MuseLab blog December 1, 2017] If you hadn't heard, I'm in Croatia (Hrvatska) for about 5 months on a Fulbright scholarship. While I'm here, OF COURSE, I am seeing as many museums and museal sites as I can. Instead of blogging on about this in the traditional way, I will tell you where I have been, give you a few highlights and post a bunch of photos (when I was allowed to take them). At this point, I have not figured out any kind of pattern about Croatian museums specifically, so perhaps I will save that for another later post, after I have been here a little longer. I'm going to only list the sites I have gone "in" because I have seen far more places by just walking by them everyday. I have, so far, been to museums in Zadar (where I’m living), Zagreb, Split, and the surrounds of each of these. So, here is my postcard. Well, more like a letter, but postcard sounds better. Zadar: Museum of Antique Glass: Apparently a newer museum, but inside a renovated older building (I think it was a palace). It truly was full of antique glass! It is amazing to think how old the making of glass containers is (and how delicate some of them are). The most intriguing thing I heard about this museum though comes from outside of it, a rumor of sorts, that the centralizing of this museum on glass and not on a particular time period or more traditional topic is controversial amongst academics (I might have some of these details wrong but this is what I gathered). I have no pictures because it is forbidden. Archaeological Museum: Right on the Forum (which is right on the water) in Zadar, it occupies a very prominent place in the old town. The building is new so it makes me wonder what used to be there (Zadar suffered heavily in their recent war for independence as well as in WWII). But the literature on it says the museum was purpose-built in 1974, even though it opened in 1832). The museum is three floors and all are pretty nice but I really like the top floor, the oldest stuff, which goes back to Paleolithic times. I'm fascinated with the Illyrians and they too were featured here (specifically the more local, northern Dalmatia, Liburnians).  The Church of St. Donat: This seems to be the icon of Zadar. You see photos of it every time you look up Zadar, so we went into it first thing. It's just a big empty building now but you can see all the cool layers upon layers of history, one building period upon the other. It was (first) built in the 9th century, but it has had many lives. This is a perfect place to see the way people over time re-used previous structures (this happens A LOT in Zadar). Today it seems they use it for concerts, which we saw the remnants of (sound gear) on our visit. Very few places had free admittance but the cost was usually very low (about $1.50 to $5 to get in). St. Mary's Treasury: What do you get when you cross a museum with a convent? No, I'm not telling a joke—but seriously folks, this is a fascinating place! It is quite literally the treasures kept (and saved from various threats) by this church over many, many years. The nuns sell the tickets, run the gift shop, probably set up the exhibits, everything. Not only were the contents incredible (some of the coolest arm and bust reliquaries I've ever seen) but I cannot get over the fact that the nuns have turned their sacred relics over to the tourists in this way. I mean, I'm not naive, I know this happens all the time but something about the set-up of this place made it all the more palpable. The Forum: Not technically a museum but such a big musealized space, it deserves a mention. On our walking tour we found out which pavements are actually Roman (in situ) and there were far more than we realized. You see, the forum is heavily used by tourists and locals alike, with kids climbing on the antiquities (more like an antiquities park, as they are clearly placed there more recently), cafés located on it, and activities held there. Some fun elements of this space are: The Pillar of Shame (look it up), St. Donat’s Church (see above) built on the same spot, and the odd collection of carefully arranged column and sculpture fragments (we secretly refer to this as the outdoor storage for the museum). Rector's Palace: This museum only just opened a few weeks before we arrived. It has undergone extensive renovation due to the damage incurred during the war of Independence in the 1990s. They call it an integrated space because they have visual things like exhibits but also musical concerts and more Not-so-ironically the first exhibit we saw there was a photography exhibit from the days in 1991 when Zadar was bombed. We saw this well enough into our visit that we recognized many of the structures and sites that had been reduced to rubble. It was very moving and I’m so glad I was able to see this show; it makes you realize what the people of this city have been through.. Natural History Museum: Very small, most likely a university educational facility more than a public museum. It was all in Croatian (first clue) and it was very specifically focused on local wildlife, mostly from the sea. It had very limited hours as well (second clue). But I always like seeing these smaller places. Gallery of Art: Situated in the same building as the Natural History Museum, we expected this to be just as small but it was such a surprise! Big spaces, tall ceilings, bright rooms and really wonderful local art. I enjoyed this small-ish museum very much.  Gallery of Art , Zadar Plitvice Lakes: Not really “near” Zadar at all; we had to drive nearly 2 hours each way to get there, but it was worth it. It is the second oldest natural park in Croatia (I think?), opened in the 1940s. They actually moved everyone who lived there out so the park would be "natural." It's stunning. There are no words for it. Look it up, you'll see what I mean. We walked about 6 miles through it. Other places I’ve visited in or near Zadar: Paklenica National Park (near Zadar)  Paklenica National Park, Stari Grad Kornati National Park (the islands off Zadar)  Kornati National Park, Zadar Archipelago Ethnographic Museum Park of Queen Jelena Madio Park- Perivoj Vladimira Nazora—the place with my favorite label Split: Diocletian’s Palace: Surprise! You don’t “go in” this palace in the way you think; rather, the old town of Split IS THE PALACE. After many years of use and re-use, Diocletian’s original palace has become the city itself. Just like Zadar, you can never really tell what part is from what time period or culture, they all morph together. It is so fascinating and for someone like me who wants to know origins of everything I see, it is a lesson in letting go. Simply enjoying the fact that what was once an exclusive Roman palace has become a thriving, living, changing home for so many different people over time.  Diocletian's Palace, Split Ethnographic Museum: One of those places now inside of the palace, this is a GREAT museum. We did a walking tour of the entire space that was the palace and I believe the tour guide told us that this museum is where Diocletian’s apartments were situated. In any case, the museum is beautifully done and the local costume of the Dalmatian region is spectacular. But our favorite part of all was the secret little stairs we were told to go to by the front desk assistant. They led up up up to the top of everything, so we got a 360 degree view of Split. Absolutely breathtaking—the water on one side, and the palace and mountains on the other.  Ethnographic Museum, Split We also went to: City Museum of Split Zagreb: Museum of Broken Relationships: I have so many things to say about this museum that I might reserve it for its own blog post. I think I took about 100 photos. If you have never heard of it, please take a look at their website and other social media. The entire thing is crowdsourced. So cool.  Museum of Broken Relationships, Zagreb Krapina Neanderthal Museum (near-ish Zagreb): This was the most special museum of all for me. Eons ago, I studied this site, even did my honors thesis on it. We were fortunate to have the founder not only drive us there but show us around the entire museum, even behind the scenes. He told us all the background and reasoning behind each decision for the museum. Very impressive.  Krapina Neanderthal Museum, Krapina  Nikola Tesla Technical Museum, Zagreb In June, I participated in the triennial conference, Conceptions in Library and Information Science (CoLIS) in Uppsala, Sweden. I arrived in Stockholm a couple of days ahead of time so, of course, I went to museums! Whenever I go to new places, I purposefully don’t look up sites ahead of time; I wait until I arrive and look from the place itself. I was surprised by how many museal things originated in Sweden, especially in Stockholm and Uppsala. I began to notice, as I went through museums and sites, that I kept seeing “the first…this n’ that” over and over. One of the things you’ll notice quickly in any study of museum history is that there are multiple firsts of everything. For instance, it is not clear what is the “first” museum. Is it the first publicly shared collection? Or is it the first institution intended to be a collection to show objects? Was it private or publicly owned? And on. For that reason, I am skeptical with “first” claims. However, whether these were actual firsts or not, there is no doubt that the history of museums and collections runs deep in Sweden. Some of the “firsts,” seconds, and onlys (not all are technically museums, but they are museal) are below. First Diorama—The Biological Museum, Stockholm “The pioneering educational aspect of the museum was the use of the diorama for the first time on the grand scale in order to present the natural habitat.” www.biologiskamuseet.com/
This was probably my favorite find of the trip. Hidden in plain sight (because it is mixed into a whole island of museums, Djurgården), this beautiful building (12th century Norwegian-inspired) was built in 1893 and is claimed to be the first diorama of its kind. The woman who sold us our tickets told us it was a “museum museum” as the whole structure and contents themselves are untouched since it was first built. The diorama is 360° and lit only by skylights. While many things are faded due to this set up (the albino beaver is NOT albino, she warned us!), the feel of being in the center of the created environment from all sides is spectacular. First Open Air Museum in the World—The Skansen, Stockholm Skansen is the world's first open-air museum, founded in 1891. I happened to be there on Midsummer’s Eve so things were a bit crazy in the village. Because of the holiday, I didn’t really get to experience the site as it normally would be, but I should note that it is HUGE and very popular. It is also situated on the top of a large hill on the island, Djurgården, so it has great views of the rest of Stockholm (across the water). First Botanical Garden in Sweden: Linnaeus’ Home and Garden, Uppsala, Sweden
It’s a first because the garden was founded in 1655 by Olof Rudbeck the elder in the same location. Linnaeus came a bit later and created what is now interpreted as his home and garden. Linnaeus, in case you don’t know, is the man who first invented the binomial system of nomenclature that we still use today (mostly). For me, someone who studied systematics and taxonomy for many years, seeing this garden every morning I woke up in Uppsala (my hotel room window looked out on it) was like a dream. There’s just so much to say about this site (and Linnaeus himself) that I can’t do justice to it here. Take some time; it’s worth looking up. Unique: A museum dedicated to a single object, The Vasa Museum “Today Vasa is the world's only preserved 17th century ship and the most visited museum in Scandinavia.” http://www.vasamuseet.se/en  Opened in 1990, after decades of recovery and preservation, this museum is built around the warship Vasa which sank in its launching harbor on its 1628 maiden voyage. As a result of the discovery, an immense amount of work and preservation has been done around the waterlogged vessel. It is a VERY popular place! Third Oldest University with Second Oldest Anatomical Theatre- Gustavanium at University of Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden.
While it’s not a first, it is pretty darn close and therefore worth mentioning. The University of Uppsala is the third oldest university (behind Bologna and Padua), opening in 1477! I visited the oldest building on campus, The Gustavanium, which is now used as a museum. Not only does this museum house the second ever anatomical theater (built by Olof Rudbeck the elder), but to my surprise (remember, I don’t look beforehand on purpose) it holds the only “curiosity” cabinet I have ever seen that contains its original contents! Wow! The Augsberg Cabinet, produced between 1625 and 1631 in Germany, is something to behold. Situated in the very center of the large space, surrounded by glass, but visible all around, the cabinet was roughly three feet taller than me (I’m 5’6”), topped with a spectacular arrangement of past sea life, so-called naturalia mountain. Stunning. Surrounding the cabinet on all sides of the room were cases full of the contents from the cabinet. The way everything is lit adds to the majesty of it. And the list goes on.  Before I end, a couple of other things are worth mentioning. Just outside of modern day Uppsala is Gamla (Old) Uppsala, an incredible mass of ancient burial mounds from as early as 2000 years ago; the Old Uppsala church, mid 12th century; and an Odinsborg, a restaurant opened in 1899 (where I had mead). And, my blog wouldn’t be complete without mentioning that the Uppsala hotel I stayed in is said to be the first dorm with bathrooms at the university.
[Blog post originally appeared on the MuseLab blog April 1, 2016.] In March, I was fortunate to be a part of a new conference, organized by the Liebniz Research Alliance, “Historical Authenticity,” on exploring authenticity in museums. Called “Museums- Places of Authenticity?” The conference drew more than 150 people from around the world to come talk authenticity-turkey. I myself presented a paper, “Visitor perceptions of 'The Real Thing' in museums,” about my ongoing research on ‘The Real Thing’ in museums. It was a lot of fun commiserating with so many experts focused solely on a specific concept. I’ve never been to a conference where the use of Benjamin’s “aura” is just a given and no one needs to explain it. While I was there—as in any of my conference adventures—I took it as my duty to explore local museums. I visited seven museums and heritage sites in Frankfurt and Mainz, as well as other heritage sites along the Rhine river valley. I stayed fairly local to southwest Germany, mostly Frankfurt and Mainz. The museums I went to were: Frankfurt-- Archäologisches Museum Natural History Museum Senckenberg Museum für Kommunikation Frankfort Städel Museum (art) Mainz-- Gutenberg Museum Marksburg Castle Museum für Antike Schiffahrt (Ancient Shipping) Below I will share with you just a few memorable tidbits from my exploration. The Museum für Kommunikation Frankfurt was a fantastic museum. It was modern, yet housed everything you could imagine on the development of communication methods over time— from the telegraph to the computer. Interestingly enough, this museum about a very slippery not-so-physical concept—communication—was loaded with physical objects. This image above is among my favorite of their exhibits. It was one of two interactives where you use one of the telephones to call someone on one of the other three phones and watch the machine in the background do all of the work—the dialing, the ringing, the answering—fascinating! The one pictured was manufactured in or around the 1970s, but the other, similar, interactive nearby utilized technologies from much earlier, but following the same concept. The two interactives were set right next to each other so that visitors could quickly compare the change in technology over time. It was a little hard to do alone because I had no one to pick up the receiver on the other end, but I still found it to be very effective and engaging. The temporary gallery (which was a whole floor!) of the Museum für Kommunikation was about the advertising industry and how it communicates to the public. As part of this, museum visitors were invited to make requests to the advertising industry. The museum asked the question: “What requests would you like to put to the ad-makers who help influence our buying choices now and in the future?” They then made a “wall” of the responses—a beautiful yet simple design. It was a nice example of infusing participation and design. Continuing the theme about advertising, the exhibit also had this interactive using marketing technology that was supposed to “read” features about you at the moment you reacted to the exhibit. This entire museum only offered German language so I am not entirely sure what it was about, but a good test that an exhibit is communicating it’s main message is that if I still understand their point(s) without any comprehensible labels, they must be doing something right. I had fun with this one. Now I have to figure out why I’m so high on Erstaunt (which I later found out means, “astonished”). At the Senckenberg, an eclectic mix of a very modern approach alongside some very traditional methods, I came upon this tiny little corner of an exhibit. Hidden away (but not as hidden as I think it would be if found in the U.S., where it would likely not even be shown), this exhibit showed the stages of human development from conception to birth. The reason I was surprised by it is because all the boxes you see here contained real fetuses (be warned that there is a photograph of this below). It was beautiful to see the process so lovingly put together in this very effective (information-wise) exhibit. In this natural history museum, I can imagine it might be a stop for (older?) school kids; this is in a university museum and I could hear all the school groups in the halls while I was there. It made me question some assumptions I have (and didn’t realize I had until I saw this) about U.S. museums and particularly: would we even do an exhibit like this? It was concise, yet powerfully effective. More at the Senckenberg—I think this was a travelling exhibit but it had all the earmarks of the participatory process. Visitors left comments (above photo) about multiple topics and there was a green screen where you could insert yourself into pictures with “wild” things, like this beetle. Scary! I only just escaped his pincers. In a safer zone, I also got to be the stamen (or maybe I was a pistil?) of a flower. I am a lover of all things medical history as well as giving visitors behind-the-scenes exposure in museums. This exhibit at the Senckenberg hit both of those; it was a recreation of natural history storage in a museum from the “old days” (again, all in German, so I’m not certain on the time period). All of the specimens were real and interesting but (to some) gross, wonderfully “gross”. The Städel is a lovely art museum, but very classic in its approach to being an art museum. While walking through the large, colorful galleries, I suddenly found myself in a hallway (or a room afterthought) where there was an entire batch of paintings flipped around. Love! The idea was to show that there can be equally fascinating things on the backs of paintings (not unlike the “Inside Out: Revealing Clothing’s Hidden Secrets” exhibit currently in Kent State University Museum). This was doubled with a lesson on how the objects have been tracked and cataloged over their lives and how museums have cared for them over time. I stayed a long time in this hallway and probably took several pictures of every single one of these paintings. Mentioning the Städel would not be complete without a peek at Warhol’s version of Goethe, Frankfurt’s most famous historical character. The fun part of this is that the original painting, from which Warhol drew his image, stands on the opposite wall from this painting. Cool.
There are so many other photos I could share with you about my experience from this corner of Germany’s museums. It was a delightful experience to see them all and I was impressed with much of what I encountered. I look forward to visiting another region of Germany’s museums someday. From what I heard at the conference, it looks like Berlin is the next place to explore museums. (Hint. Hint. Someone have a conference there please!) |
K.F. Latham
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