ISS 35

ICOM
International Council of Museums
ICOFOM
International Committee for Museology
Comité international pour la museologie
Museology and Audience
Museologia y el Público de Museos
Edited by Hildegard K. Vieregg, Munich/ Germany
ICOFOM
Preprints
ICOFOM STUDY SERIES – ISS 35
International Symposium, organized by ICOFOM
Calgary, Canada
June 30 – July 2, 2005
© International Committee for Museology 2005
Editorial work: Dr. Hildegard K. Vieregg, München, Germany
Preface
On the occasion of the Annual Meeting of ICOFOM 2004 in Seoul/ Corea, the ICOFOM
Board decided to create a “Triennial Working-Programme (2005 – 2007) for ICOFOM. Subsummed under the “umbrella” “Museology – A Field of Knowledge” - different topics were
elaborated: “Museology and Audience” (I/ 2005), “Museology and History (II/ 2006) and
“Museology and Natural Sciences” (III/ 2007).
In this concern the interdisciplinary aspect – involving Audience, History as well as Natural
Sciences- was intended to be developed.
Besides, one of the most important ICOFOM projects – “Museum Thesaurus” – an
undertaking related to definitions and terms of the Museum is going on in an excellent way –
particularly promoted by the Chair of this project, Prof. André Desvallées (Honorary
President of ICOFOM/ France) and by François Mairesse (Board Member of ICOFOM and
Director of Musée Mariemont in Belgium).
The “Transition Project” – particularly mentioned in ISS 33 final version – is under the care of
the Honorary President, Prof. Dr. Vinos Sofka/ Sweden, and is at the moment particularly
promoted in Siberia/Russian Federation.
The Working Program 2005 – 2007 is intended to clarify different subjects:
Museology and Audience (2005)
“The audience is the most important aspect of a museum. New museology emphasizes that.
Yet theoretically we have not advanced very far in developing and promoting this point of
view. Our knowledge is superficial about why people visit museums and downright lacking in
why they do not. We know little about how people visit museums, although we are slowly
acknowledging that there is more than one way and that no one way is exclusively the right
way. We hear more and more about performance measures for museums but we literally do
not know what to measure, so we still rely on that oh-so-blunt tool of attendance. The lack of
theory is exacerbated when we add the layer of community relevance and community
involvement. The 2005 ICOFOM Calgary Conference will start to address these big
questions.”
The theme “Museology and Audience” asks how museum visitors make sense of their
museum experiences. We will examine theoretically free-choice or informal learning and
behaviour. The conference will not focus on visitor studies, demographics and statistics.
Rather, departing from Falk and Dierking writing in Learning from Museums, we will ask do
visitors to museums learn and if so what do they learn and how do they learn? How do
visitors make meaning in museums? The theme works with and departs from people, visitors
and non-visitors, rather than museum.
The theme may be parsed into three subthemes covering the broad theory of making
meaning in the context of community and society
- Parsing audiences
- Learning contexts such as personal, socio - cultural and physical audience groups
such as tourists, learning challenged, economically challenged, aboriginal, families,
etc.
- Non-visitors
(Ann Davis)
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Museology and History (2006)
Museology and History is the second part of the “Trilogy”. It can be related to all periods of
time and worked out related to the historic approach of all types of museums. Therefore
“Museology and History” takes not only the intended ideas and scientific progress of
Historical Museums into consideration. Rather all other types and matters on Museums –
included the development of Museums and the status at the moment and in future, the
contents and originals as well as the purpose of the Museum at all - can be analyzed in
regard to the different spaces of time.
If we are considering works of performing art e.g. in an Art Museum we can ask after the
historical background: What are the circumstances in which this work of art originated? How
did the spirit of the times influence the artist? Are there historic events that leaded the artist
to create precisely this work of art? What about the philosophical background?
Not only this: Museums of each type can be examined in relation to both Museology and
History.
Museology and Natural Sciences (2007)
Museology and Natural Sciences is also a broad field of research. To tell anything definite I
would relate to Museums and environments of Techniques, the History of Techniques,
Botanical Gardens and Parks, Minerology, Palaeontology etc. The most important for
Museology is to check how Natural Sciences influence and return to the theory of Museology
and help to verify the interdependences between both of them.
The readers of this volume will be informed about “Museology and Audience”. The
Fundamental Paper, created by François Mairesse is the basis for both the publication and
the Annual Meeting. François undertook great effort not only in regard to the definitions but
also to the explanations that promise the understanding of “Museum and Audience”.
If you study the articles contributed by experts world-wide you will realize the variety on the
way of tackling “Museology and Audience” and be astonished about the scientific perspective
and creativity of ICOFOM members.
Hildegard K. Vieregg, June 2005
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Contents
Preface ………………………………………………………………………………….
Fundamental Paper:
Mairesse, François (Belgium)
La Notion de Public (French)……………………………………………………….
Summary (English)
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7
I Museology and Audience
Chung, Yun Shun Susie (USA)
The Adoption of Jean Piaget’s Concepts of Child Cognitive
Development to Object Awareness in South Korean Museums (English) ……
La Adopción de los conceptos de Jean Piaget sobre el desarrollo cognitivo
del niño en relación con el conocimiento de los objetos en los museos
de Corea del sur (Spanish) ……………………………………………………………
Summary (English)
Resumen (Spanish)
Davis, Ann (Canada)
Assumptions, Expectations and actual Gallery Experiences (English)……….
Conjeturas, Expectativas y Experiencias Actuales en las Galerías (Spanish)..
Decarolis, Nelly (Argentina)
Museología, Interpretación y Comunicación:
El Público de Museos (Spanish) ……………………………………………………….
Museology, Interpretation and Communication:
The Museum Audience (English) ………………………………………………………
Desvallées, André (France)
Quels musée pour quels publics? (French) …………………………………………
Résumé (French)
Summary (English)
Devine, Heather (Canada)
Towards a Critical Pedagogy for Museums (English) ……………………………..
Summary (English)
Gorgas, Mónica – de la Cerda, Jeannette (Argentina)
A Diferentes Denominaciones, Diferentes Ideologías:
Pero Siempre se Trata de la Gente (Spanish) ………………………………………
Harris, Jennifer (Australia)
The Emerging Role of the Museum in the Era of the Collapse
of Linear Communication Models of Audience Learning (English) …………….
Summary (English)
Resumen (Spanish)
Le Marec, Joëlle (France)
Confiance et maletendus: le public au risqué du musée… (French) ……………
26
31
37
41
46
51
55
61
69
75
80
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Maranda, Lynn (Canada)
Museology and audience: In Search of Applause (English) ………………………
85
Schärer, Martin R. (Switzerland)
Spectator in Expositions (English) …………………………………………………….
Espectator en Expositiones (Spanish) ………………………………………………..
89
92
Scheiner, Tereza C. (Brazil)
Museums and Museology: On the Other Side of the Mirror (English) …………..
97
Shah, Anita B. (India)
Museums and Audience (English) ……………………………………………………..
102
Tahan, Lina Gebrail (Lebanon)
Bridging the Gap between Museums and their Audiences (English) ……………
104
Vieregg, Hildegard K. (Germany)
The Status of Audience between Museology and Science (English) ………………. 109
Xavier Cury, Marilia (Brazil)
The Subjects of the Museum and the Public as a Subject (English) …………….
115
II Appendix
Shah, Anita (India)
Analyzing Summary – Annual Meeting South Korea, Oct. 2004 (English) ………
124
Truevtseva, Olga (Russian Federation)
The Paradigm of Cosmogenesis and Eschatology in the Mythopoetical
Heritage of the Siberian Peoples (2004) (English) …………………………………..
130
III List of Authors
132
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La Notion de Public
François Mairesse – Belgique
Cet article est la première version de la section « Public » du Thésaurus de muséologie. Il inclut
l’ensemble des notions se rapportant au public des musées, : visiteurs, usagers, audience, études de
publics, etc. Le projet du Thésaurus, initié par l’ICOFOM depuis une dizaine d’années, devfrait
comprendre une vingtaine de sections, rassemblant l’ensemble des notions les plus importantes de la
muséologie. Cette section sera bien entendu réécrite en fonction de l’ensemble des articles
rassemblés et débattus lors de congrès de Calgary.
This article is the first version of the section devoted to the “public” in the Thesauerus of museology.
This section includes notions such as visitors, audience, visitor surveys, etc. The “Thesaurus project”
has been developed by ICOFOM (André Desvallées0 for more than ten years. It should consist of
around twenty sections such as this one, in order to present the main museological themes. The
section will of course be developed in function of the contributions and discussions that will be held
during the symposium in Calgary.
PUBLIC. Terme français (lat. : publicus). Equival. en. : public, audience ; sp. : público ; it. :publico ;
ge. : publicum, øffentlichkeit.
Définition : Etymologiquement, « public » vient du latin publicus qui dérive lui-même de populus :
peuple ou population.
L’adjectif « public » signifie que l’établissement muséal est ouvert åa tous ou qu’il appartient a tous,
qu’il est au service de la société et de son développement. Ce principe le conduit à exercer son
activité sous l’égide de l’État ou du moins à être (partiellement0 pris en charge par celui-ci, ce qui
l’amène à respecter un certain nombre de règles dont découle son administration ainsi qu’un certain
nombre de principes éthiques (voir ces termes).
Comme substantif, le « public » désigne l’ensemble des utilisateurs du musée (le public des musées)
mais aussi par inférence de sa destination publique, l’ensemble de la population à laquelle chaque
établissement s’adresse.
Dérivés : publicité, grand public, non-public.
Corrélats : audience, people (les gens), le peuple, fréquentation, attendance, visiteurs, communauté,
consommateurs, regardeurs, spectateurs.
Présent dans presque toutes les définitions actuelles du musée, le public occupe une place centrale
au sens de l’institution muséale : le musée est « une institution : […] au service de la société et de son
développement, ouverte au public » (ICOM, 1974). C’est aussi une « collection […] dont la
conservation et la préservation revêtent un intérêt public en vue de la connaissance, de l’éducation et
du plaisir du public’ (Loi sur les musées de France, 2002), ou encore « une institution […] qui possede
et utilise des objets matériels les conserve et les expose au public selon des horaiares réguliers »
(American Association of Museums, Accreditation Program, 1972 ; la définition publiée en 1998 par la
Museums Association a quand à elle remplacé l’adjectif « public » par le substantif « people »).
La notion même de public associe étroitement l’activité du musée et ses utilisateurs, voire ceux qui
sont censés en bénéficier même en ne recourant pas à ses services. Par utilisateurs, ce sont bien sûr
les visiterus – le grant public – auquel on pense en premier lieux, oubliant que ceux-ci n’ont pas
toujours joué le rôle central que le musée leur reconnaît actuellement. Lieu de formation artistique et
territoire de la république des savants en premier lieu, le musée ne s\est ouvert à tous que
progressivement, au fil de son histoire. Cette ouverture, qui a amené le personnel du muée à
s’adresser de plus en plus intensément à à tous ses utilisateurs mais également à la population ne
fréquentant pas les musées, a conduit à la multiplication des axes de lecture de l’ensemble de ces
utilisateurs, dont rendent compte autant de nouvelles applications au fil du temps : peuple, grand
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public, gros public, non-public, utilisateurs ou usagers, visiteurs, regardeurs, spectateurs,
consommateurs, audience, etc.
Le musée comme espace public
L’ouverture au public, ainsi que le caractère public du musée, constituent l’un des principaux critères
que retient Kristoff Pomian pour la différence de ce dernier des trésors religieux et des collections
privées, tout en spécifiant que la notion du public, `l’époque des premiers musées modernes (au
début du XVIIème siècle) est bien différente de celle que nous retenons aujourd’hui pour s’apparenter,
selon les termes de l’Abbé Dubos, à l’ensemble des personnes « qui ont acquis des lumières, soit par
la lecture soit par le commerce du monde. Elles sont les seules qui puissent marquer le rang des
poèmes et des tableaux, quoiqu’il se rencontre dans les ouvrages excellents des beautés capables de
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se faire sentir au peuple du plus bas étage » .
Le caractère public de l’institution muséale, au sens de sa gestion par l’État, doit sa fortune à la
pérennité que celui-ci est à même de garantir, offrant à toute collection, léguée aux pouvoirs publics,
l’assurance d’une certaine durée. Les premiers gestes fondant la notion de patrimoine, la restitution
en 1471 des antiquités du Latran par le pape Sixte IV, le legs en 1525 des antiques du cardinal
Grimani à la République de Venise, ainsi que le legs des collections de livres et de tableaux de l’Abbé
Boisot, en 1694, aux bénédictins du couvent de Saint Vincent et à la ville de Besançon, s’inscrivent
dans la perspective de l’ouverture au public, du moins aux amateurs, mais aussi – et peut-être surtout
– dans l’espoir que l’ensemble formé ne sera ainsi pas dispersé. Certes, la puissance de l’Église
autant que celle des grandes familles italiennes semblent à elles seules garantir une réelle continuité
du patrimoine, encore celui-ci reste-t-il soumis aux vicissitudes de la fortune ou des goûts de leurs
héritiers et successeurs, le musée personnel de Jules II au Belvédère, ouvert aux artistes, est ainsi
fermé par son successeur Pie V. Le cas de l’Abbé Boisot, dont le legs forme ce que l’on a parfois
appelé le premier « musée de France » est plus clair, car c’est bien dans le souci d’assurer à son
terroir natal, par l’intermédiaire du couvent de Saint Vincent et de la ville de Besançon, la conservation
d’une partie de la bibliothèque du Cardinal Granvelle qui avait été dispersée à sa mort et dont il avait
racheté une partie des ouvrages. Le testament de Boisot signale clairement son intention d’ouverture
« deux fois la semaine à tous ceux qui voudront y entrer » et son intention de voir « les dits livres et
médailles aussi bien que les bustes et peintures […] conservés pour toujours », tout en
recommandant, « pour l’avantage des gens doctes », qu’un inventaire soit dressé et qu’une copie en
2
soit remise aux magistrats de la ville de Besançon .
Il n’en reste pas moins que la plupart des établissements qui existent, à cette époque (soit au plus une
e
trentaine) sont essentiellement destinés à un public restreint. Jusqu’à la fin du XVIII siècle, le public
des musées se résume essentiellement aux connaisseurs, aux savants, aux amateurs et aux artistes,
à qui la plupart des établissements, qu’ils soient privés ou publics, semblent généralement ouvrir
aisément leurs portes. L’entrée au musée est considérée comme un privilège, pour reprendre la
3
formule de Kenneth Hudson , ce qui se comprend aisément pour les collections privées mais
s’observe également au sein des premières collections publiques. Ainsi, si le décret de 1753 fondant
le British Museum signale que « toutes les personnes studieuses et curieuses y auraient libre accès »,
l’entrée demeure interdite aux enfants et nécessite, pour les visites du public, une procédure longue et
complexe, ne laissant entrer qu’un nombre très peu élevé de visiteurs, étroitement surveillés et invités
à quitter les lieux au plus vite. La question d’une plus grande ouverture au public semble alors hors de
propos, les risques qu’entraîneraient la venue des masses au sein de l’établissement semblent trop
considérables pour le bénéfice moral que celles-ci pourraient en retirer : « Si les gens ordinaires
prennent goût à cette liberté […] il sera très difficile par la suite de les en priver ; il est donc bien
1
th
POMIAN K., De la collection particulière au musée de l’art, in The Genesis of the Art Museum in the 18
Century, Stockholm, National Museum, 1993, p. 9.
2
1694-1994 Trois siècles de patrimoine public – bibliothèques et musées de Besançon (catalogue d’exposition,
15 octobre 1994-30 janvier 1995), Besançon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1994, p. 16.
3
HUDSON K., A social History of Museums, London, Macmillan, 1975.
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préférable de ne pas les admettre du tout et de n’admettre que ceux qui, selon toute probabilité, se
4
conformeront aux règles et ordres qui pourraient être édictés à cet effet » .
Cette situation n’est cependant pas identique dans tous les musées. Ainsi, certains établissements
sont-ils amenés, essentiellement pour des raisons financières, à ouvrir plus largement leurs portes au
public. Le traitement du responsable de l’Ashmolean Museum, depuis sa fondation, semble dépendre
des droits d’entrée payés par les visiteurs, ce qui amène à moins de sévérité dans la sélection des
visiteurs, ainsi, un visiteur étranger, Conrad von Uffenbach, signale en 1710 sa surprise de voir que
« les gens touchent à tout sans ménagement, à la manière des Anglais », et que « même les femmes
sont admises pour 6 pences : elles se précipitent ici et là, mettent la main à tout, et ne s’attirent
5
aucune remarque du sous-garde » .
Si l’Ashmolean Museum est rattaché à l’Université d’Oxford, d’autres musées sont fondés comme de
véritables entreprises commerciales dont l’ouverture au public apparaît, elle aussi, comme nettement
plus marquée que celle de leurs collègues reliés aux pouvoirs publics. Aux États-Unis, l’entreprise de
Charles Wilson Peale, ouverte à Baltimore à partir de 1786 prospère à tel point que plusieurs
succursales sont lancées par ses fils, dont la plus importante s’établit à Philadelphie. A Londres,
l’établissement fondé par Sir John Ashton Lever, en 1773, fonctionne selon les mêmes principes, ce
qui n’empêche pas ce dernier de s’inquiéter de la composition de son public et de tenter d’en
restreindre l’accès: « le public est informé que, étant las de l’insolence des gens ordinaires que j’ai
admis jusqu’à présent à visiter mon musée, je suis arrivé à la décision d’en refuser l’accès aux basses
classes, sauf si elles viennent munies d’un billet émanant d’un Monsieur ou d’une Dame de ma
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connaissance » . L’information laisse percevoir, à l’époque, une réelle ouverture de certains musées à
l’ensemble des publics, en ce compris les classes les moins éduquées. Ces précurseurs du Musée
Barnum (qui rachète une partie des collections de Peale, une fois la faillite de son musée déclarée)
constituent aussi les ancêtres directs des dime museums ou musées de foire, expositions de
sauvages, de monstres vivants ou de cires anatomiques, lointains héritiers de la part maudite des
cabinets de curiosité. Ces attractions parfois itinérantes (tel le Musée Spitzner) payantes et lucratives
s’adressent à un public essentiellement populaire. Dès cette époque donc, l’institution muséale
s’ouvre largement à tous les publics, même si les établissements qui les accueillent ne peuvent se
concevoir comme appartenant au même univers. Les différences de classes restent très marquées,
de même que la séparation des lieux dans lesquelles celles-ci évoluent. Les idéaux égalitaires de la
Révolution française vont, pour un temps, tenter de faire voler en éclat ces différences.
Des musées et des publics
L’ouverture du Louvre, en 1793, semble amener un changement radical de la conception du public
des musées. La date du premier anniversaire de la suspension du Roi a été choisie pour faire entrer
le public au sein de son ancien palais. Le patrimoine auquel le Muséum central des Arts rend
hommage appartient à la nation, soit qu’il ait été acquis par elle, soit par ses anciens tyrans, soit par
les conquêtes de ses soldats. Il est donc l’œuvre de tous les citoyens, « libres et égaux » en droit,
donc libres de visiter les musées. « La différence essentielle d’avec les collections de l’Ancien Régime
porte moins en vérité sur le principe même de l’ouverture aux curieux que sur les modalités réelles de
sa visite, qui rompent avec le caractère collectif et rapide du parcours traditionnel dans la demeure
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aristocratique, l’exhibition des trésors du propriétaire par un cicérone à sa solde» . La véritable
« révolution » du musée démocratique, selon Poulot, serait celle de « l’autonomie du visiteur, et son
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corollaire, une éthique de la visite personnelle » .
4
John Ward, conservateur du British Museum, cité par MAC GREGOR A., Les Lumières et la curiosité. Utilité et
e
divertissement dans les musées de Grande-Bretagne à la fin du XVIII siècle, in POMMIER E. (Ed), Les musées
en Europe à la veille de la Révolution, Paris, Klincksieck et Musée du Louvre, 1995, p. 498.
5
Cité par SCHAER R., L'invention des musées, Paris, Gallimard, 1993, p. 34.
6
MAC GREGOR A., Op. cit., p. 504.
7
POULOT D., L’invention du musée en France et ses justifications dans la littérature artistique, in POMMIER E.
(ss. la dir.), Les musées en Europe à la veille de l'ouverture du Louvre. Actes du colloque, 3-5 juin 1993, Paris,
Klincksiek, 1995, p. 84.
8
Ibid., p.85. C’est au moins le cas pour les grandes collections d’art. Mais il est à mon sens fort probable que,
dans les plus petites collections et dans certains cabinets de sciences naturelles, notamment l’Ashmolean
d’Oxford, la visite était laissée autonome.
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L’ouverture du Louvre marque, pour un temps, l’entrée des masses laborieuses au musée dont on
peut apprécier l’ampleur du phénomène à travers les récits de ses visiteurs. « Les jours où le public
est admis, on peut y voir des personnes appartenant à toutes les classes, dont le mélange n’est pas
sans intérêt. Le rude plébéien brûlé par le soleil, que les événements politiques ont pendant
longtemps rendu étranger aux nobles sentiments que la religion et l’humanité inspirent, s’attendrit, les
bras croisés, devant les efforts et les souffrances des hommes menacés du déluge, ou ressent une
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émotion religieuse devant le Sauveur crucifié » . Peut-être est-ce véritablement à cette occasion, dans
des conditions qu’il est difficile d’apprécier à notre époque, que le musée devient véritablement
« espace public », lieu de promenade et de rendez-vous. Mais cette situation entraîne inévitablement
une réaction de régulation de la part des autorités chargées du maintien de l’ordre. Les deux classes
sociales qui avaient le moins de chance de fréquenter les musées prérévolutionnaires étaient les
classes laborieuses et la bourgeoisie. Très vite, cette dernière entend régenter l’entrée des premières.
e
Jusqu’au XVIII siècle, le musée est essentiellement dépendant du pouvoir religieux et aristocratique,
non seulement depuis son invention – le Mouseion – mais aussi lors de l’ouverture des grandes
collections d’Allemagne ou d’Italie. La Révolution Française, amenant avec elle un courant de
réformes qui se dissémine dans l’Europe toute entière, ouvre la voie à la fin de la prééminence de la
noblesse et du clergé. La mort effective du Roi et celle proclamée, de Dieu, ouvrent des perspectives
dans lesquelles le musée semble appelé à jouer un rôle de remplacement. Il va devenir
progressivement palais et temple, porteur de sens, exposition de valeurs.
Son architecture est entièrement imprégnée par les deux références à la Couronne et à l’Église, tels
les Musées d’Oxford, le Rijksmuseum d’Amsterdam ou le Natural History Museum de Londres,
cathédrales à la gloire de la Nation ou de la Science. Mais de telles infrastructures sont amenées à
s’ouvrir, au même titre que l’Église, à l’ensemble des composantes sociales de la Nation afin de les
amener à communier dans la même foi, et cette ouverture n’est pas sans poser de nouveaux
problèmes. Les propos mentionnés plus haut d’un des conservateurs du British Museum illustrent
l’effroi du personnel des musées par rapport aux masses laborieuses : leur entrée dans le temple sera
dès lors étroitement surveillée, l’architecture des édifices l’illustre, par ses galeries et postes
d’observations ou de surveillance mutuelle, rappelant les familistères, les grands magasins, les parcs
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publics et d’expositions . Le phénomène de surveillance au sein du musée ne représente que
l’aspect pratique d’un programme plus vaste, centré sur une certaine religion du beau et du vrai. Ainsi,
pour Ruskin, la première fonction du musée consiste à « donner l’exemple d’un ordre et d’une
élégance parfaite, dans le vrai sens du terme, au peuple qui vit dans le désordre et ignore le
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raffinement » . Le peuple est ainsi convié dans ces institutions pour sa propre édification, dans
l’espoir de le voir s’attacher aux œuvres de Raphaël plutôt qu’aux pompes de stout ou de guinness.
C’est dans cette même perspective et non pour des raisons de profit, de manière à assurer au public
une journée aussi agréable que profitable, que les premiers restaurants sont installés au sein des
musées, notamment au Victoria & Albert Museum peu de temps après son ouverture.
L’ouverture au public, dans les grands musées, n’en demeure pas moins encore relativement
restreinte et, pratiquement dès l’ouverture, une séparation nette est effectuée entre les véritables
utilisateurs du musée d’une part – les savants et les artistes – et le reste du public de l’autre.
L’ouverture du Louvre (comme celle de la plupart des musées d’art) n’est effective, pour tous les
publics, que deux jours par semaine, les autres jours étant réservés aux artistes et aux étrangers. Le
Muséum central des Arts, ainsi que l’ensemble des dépôts d’œuvres disséminés en France et reliés
aux Ecoles centrales (voire gérés par celles-ci) puis aux Académies, présentent clairement l’image
d’une institution liée à l’enseignement des arts. Une certaine quiétude y est exigée, à l’instar des
bibliothèques, afin de respecter le travail studieux des copistes ; l’entrée du public, dans ces
établissements dont on a parfois tendance à oublier les forêts de chevalets qui encombraient les
galeries, peut constituer une gêne réelle pour la concentration des artistes. La question de
e
l’instauration d’un droit d’entrée – abordée tout au long du XIX siècle – est révélatrice des conceptions
de l’institution muséale face à ses publics. Le droit d’entrée, lorsqu’il est appliqué certains jours de la
semaine (par exemple dans plusieurs musées nationaux britanniques) est essentiellement destiné à
préserver la tranquillité des utilisateurs réels du musée, soit les artistes et les savants. Mais lorsque
l’on souhaite généraliser l’entrée payante à la presque totalité des jours du musée (nombreux sont
9
Sir John Carr, 1803, cité par GALARD J., Visiteurs du Louvre - Un florilège, Paris, Réunion des Musées
Nationaux, 1993, p. 32.
10
BENNET T., The Birth of the Museum, London, Routledge, 1995.
11
EVANS J. (Ed. by), The Lamps of Beauty - Writings on Art by John Ruskin, Oxford, Phaidon, 1959, p. 323.
10
ceux qui souhaitent le voir appliqué en France, dont les musées sont pour la plupart gratuits durant
e
tout le XIX siècle), c’est notamment pour en chasser les vagabonds et les indigents, sensés utiliser les
musées comme chauffoirs publics, de même que pour faire payer les touristes visitant sans bourse
12
délier les trésors rassemblés et entretenus par l’État . Durant les périodes d’entrée libre, les gardiens
chargés de vérifier les entrées semblent avoir utilisé, à certaines époques, les mêmes règles
discriminatoires (basées sur le code vestimentaire) pour refouler les visiteurs que celles encore en
vigueur dans nombre de cercles privés.
Assez rapidement, il apparaît que ces premières cathédrales ne semblent pas à même de
communiquer à tous, de manière optimale, le culte de l’art et celui de la science. Les habitants trop
éloignés de la métropole se plaignent que ce sont seulement les plus riches qui sont capables de se
déplacer pour admirer les trésors des musées centraux. Le développement du culte passe ainsi par la
dissémination des musées sur l’ensemble du territoire. La constitution en 1801 de 15 musées de
province, en France, par le préfet Chaptal, participe de cette première volonté de décentralisation de
l’éducation au musée et institutionnalise les déjà nombreuses initiatives se développant un peu
partout dans les provinces. Décentralisation d’une part, spécialisation de l’autre : la nouvelle
considération pour la diversité des visiteurs engendre une multiplication des musées en fonction des
besoins du public. Ainsi, un certain nombre d’institutions nouvelles sont crées, destinées à des
e
catégories spécifiques de la population. Le XIX siècle est sans aucun doute celui qui a, de la manière
la plus large, créé des types de musées en fonction de catégories de publics : pour les prolétaires et
les plus humbles, pour les enfants, pour les ouvriers, pour les commerçants.
Est-ce pour mieux éloigner le peuple des grandes institutions ou pour lui donner les connaissances
nécessaires afin de l’amener à les apprécier, que plusieurs projets de musées destinés
e
spécifiquement aux masses sont développés dans la seconde moitié du XIX siècle ? Le concept de
« Musée Populaire », imaginé dès les années 1860 par le futur bourgmestre de Bruxelles, le libéral
Charles Buls, a pour mission explicite d’éveiller le désir d’apprendre, de mettre à la portée de tous les
moyens d’acquérir facilement les sciences, répandre des idées claires et précises dans tous les
domaines des connaissances humaines : « Le laboureur qui traversera les galeries du musée ne peut
manquer d’en sortir pénétré d’un certain respect pour la masse des connaissances possédées par les
savants; mais ce seront moins les objets eux-mêmes qui devront le frapper que l’ordre et la science
13
apportés à leur classification, à leur groupement » . En France, c’est l’institution des musées
cantonaux, fondée par Edmond Groult, qui entend relever le défi du musée à destination des classes
populaires. « Les Musées cantonaux, comme leur nom l’indique, s’adressent principalement aux
populations laborieuses et honnêtes de nos campagnes, trop négligées jusqu’à ce jour. […] Ils sont,
dans chaque canton, le résumé plus ou moins complet des connaissances pratiques indispensables
14
dans le siècle où nous sommes ». On trouve, dans ces établissements dont le local a souvent été
mis à disposition par la municipalité, des renseignements sur l’anthropologie, l’hygiène, l’agriculture,
les industries, l’histoire, la géographie ou l’histoire naturelle du pays. On y remarque les reproductions
des monuments du canton, des notices biographiques sur tous les hommes illustres de
l’arrondissement ; le tableau d’honneur des soldats et marins du canton morts pour la Patrie. Le
premier musée cantonal est ainsi inauguré à Lisieux en 1876. L’idée se répand en France, tandis que
des initiatives similaires se propagent en Suisse, en Belgique, en Russie, aux États-Unis ou en
Angleterre (on parle alors d’educational museums, ceux-ci étant destinés à diffuser une formation de
15
base dans toutes les villes et villages ). Si, la plupart du temps, les organisateurs de ces musées
proviennent essentiellement des élites locales, ce sont parfois d’humbles représentants de ces
« populations laborieuses et honnêtes » qui, eux-mêmes, s’emploient à créer de tels établissements,
16
notamment à Batz, en Loire inférieure, où un musée est créé en 1878 par un cordonnier illettré .
12
MAIRESSE F., Le droit d’entrer au musée, Bruxelles, Labor, 2005.
BULS C., Un projet de musée populaire, in Revue de Belgique, 6, t. XVII, 1874, p.47. Ce projet ne verra jamais
le jour.
14
GROULT E., Institution des musées cantonaux. Lettres à Messieurs les délégués des sociétés savantes à la
Sorbonne, Paris : Impr. Motteroz, 1877, p. 4
15
HUTCHINSON J., On educational Museums, in Museums Association, Report of Proceedings with the papers
read at the fourth annual general meeting held in London, July 3 to 7 1893, York and Sheffield, Publ. By the
Association, 1893, p. 49-63.
16
GROULT E., Propagande patriotique cantonale, La France des musées cantonaux en 1904, Caen : Impr. Valin,
1904, p. 15.
13
11
Des impératifs similaires entendent fournir au peuple l’instruction nécessaire pour développer de
nouvelles habitudes face à certains fléaux sociaux tels les épidémies, se propageant par l’ignorance
et le manque d’hygiène. Si certains dime museums de foire insistent, cires anatomiques à l’appui, sur
les fléaux causés par les maladies vénériennes, plusieurs établissements de santé créent de
véritables musées d’hygiènes destinés à sensibiliser les populations « à risques » des dégâts
provoqués par de mauvaises conditions de vie, ainsi que les moyens de les éviter.
Les couches sociales les plus basses ne sont pas délaissées par l’institution muséale, mais ce sont
cependant surtout les classes laborieuses, ouvrières, qui sont visées par celle-ci. Le développement
e
de l’économie constitue, dès la fin du XVIII siècle, un leitmotiv participant à la création de nombreuses
collections publiques. Le Conservatoire national des Arts et Métiers est destiné au développement de
l’industrie, et donc à la familiarisation des ouvriers ou des apprentis (une école lui est adjointe) avec
les inventions et les perfectionnements de l’industrie. De même, la plupart des musées industriels ou
musée d’art décoratifs et d’industrie sont créés non seulement pour les antiquaires, mais aussi – et
peut-être plus encore – pour les ouvriers d’arts, afin que ceux-ci puissent y puiser leurs sources
d’inspiration pour la création de nouveaux modèles. « Le Musée national a pour but de faciliter aux
savants l’étude des arts et de l’histoire, de procurer aux artistes et aux ouvriers d’art des idées et des
types pour leurs créations. Par le moyen du dessin, esquisses et moulages, il donne la possibilité de
s’instruire et de donner des leçons dans les ateliers d’art et d’industrie », stipule le Musée national
17
bavarois de Munich, en 1880 . Autres publics, autres musées : celui des commerçants et des
e
exportateurs pour lesquels l’institution des musées commerciaux se développe entre la fin du XIX
siècle et la Première Guerre Mondiale : « Le Musée a pour but de renseigner nos manufacturiers et
nos négociants sur la marche des affaires dans les pays étrangers, et de leur faciliter en même temps
18
les transactions commerciales avec les consommateurs et les producteurs de ces contrées » ,
décrète le Musée commercial de Bruxelles, fondé en 1881 et considéré comme l’un des meilleurs de
sa catégorie.
Autre catégorie pour laquelle des établissements spéciaux sont créés : les enfants et surtout les
écoliers, lesquels ne sont pas toujours les bienvenus dans les grands musées – le British Museum,
par exemple, leur interdit l’accès pendant les premières décennies de son activité. Durant la plus
e
grande partie du XIX siècle, l’éducation, au musée, est destinée à des catégories spécifiques (les
artistes, artisans, les adultes suivant des cours au Muséum, etc.) et non à l’enseignement scolaire.
L’utilisation des musées par la jeunesse ou le grand public en général, pour des motifs éducatifs, est
cependant déjà soulignée dès 1853 par Edward Forbes, lequel remarque que si de nombreux
établissements sont affectés à l’éducation professionnelle, la plupart ne sont pas destinés au grand
public (general public) et surtout pas aux enfants, qui pourraient pourtant s’y former de manière
19
efficace par l’étude des objets . Les propos sont repris avec plus d’insistance par William Flower,
précisant qu’outre les savants et les étudiants les plus avancés, il est un autre public auquel le musée
se doit de s’adresser, soit une partie de plus en plus importante de la population qui, « sans avoir le
temps, l’opportunité ou la possibilité de faire une étude en profondeur de l’un ou l’autre des domaines
de la science, s’intéresse cependant à ses progrès et souhaite posséder quelques connaissances du
20
monde qui l’entoure et des principaux faits qui lui sont associé […] .» Les musées se tournent ainsi,
progressivement, vers un public plus large et moins socialement ou professionnellement structuré,
amenant une réflexion plus importante sur le rôle de l’éducation au sein du musée (voir ce terme). Les
premiers services pédagogiques pour le grand public sont mis au point dans les musées à partir de la
e
21
fin du XIX siècle , un certain nombre d’institutions particulières ou, plus précisément de collections
17
VACHON M., Rapport à M. Edmond Turquet, sous-secrétaire d’État, sur les musées et les écoles d’art
industriel et sur la situation des industries artistiques en Allemagne, Autriche-Hongrie, Italie et Russie, Paris,
Typographie de A. Quantin, 1885, p. 90.
18
MUSEE COMMERCIAL (Royaume de Belgique), Le Musée commercial – son but et son organisation,
Bruxelles, Weissenbruch, 1882, p. 3.
19
Forbes E., cité par GREENWOOD T., Museums and Art Galleries, London, Simpkin, Marshall and Co, 1888, p.
30-31.
20
FLOWER W., Essays on Museums and Other Subjects Connected with Natural History, 1888, reprint, New
York, Books for Libraries Press, 1972, p. 14.
21
Il est difficile de signaler une date précise pour délimiter ce phénomène. Des visites guidées sont organisées
depuis longtemps dans de nombreux musées, soit en partenariat avec des écoles (les visites sont données par
les professeurs), soit par les conservateurs eux-mêmes. Voir TUBBS Mrs, The Relation of Museums to
Elementary Education, in Museums Association, Report of Proceedings with the Papers read at the Eight Annual
general Meeting held in Oxford, July 6 to 9, London, Dulau, 1897, p. 69-73, ainsi que LOW T.L., The Educational
Philosophy and Practice of Art Museums in the United States, New York, Columbia University, 1948, qui donne le
12
spécifiques sont créées, au sein des établissements scolaires ou universitaires eux-mêmes, dans une
optique résolument pédagogique. Les liens entre le musée et l’université sont anciens, l’Ashmolean
Museum en témoigne ; ceux entre l’institution muséale et l’école se construisent essentiellement
e
durant la seconde moitié du XIX siècle, pour se généraliser à la fin de celui-ci (bien que certains
cabinets de curiosité aient existé dans des écoles tenues notamment par des congrégations
religieuses, comme à Halle ou à Bruxelles). L’institution des musées scolaires, a priori pratiquement
inexistante en 1850, devient ainsi un lieu commun un demi-siècle plus tard. Le concept des « leçons
de choses », pédagogie fondée sur l’observation des objets, déjà envisagée par Thomas d’Aquin ou
Francis Bacon, devient l’un des piliers de l’enseignement jusqu’à la Première Guerre Mondiale, un
peu partout dans le monde. Le système scolaire initié par Jules Ferry, en France, systématise ce type
d’enseignement : lors de l’Exposition universelle de 1878, 148 établissements méritent le titre de
musée scolaires ; en 1889, ce nombre est de 13.034 ! Ces musées, situés à l’intérieur des bâtiments
scolaires, sont uniquement destinés aux enfants – essentiellement ceux de l’enseignement primaire –
et ne sont pas destinés à être visités par d’autres publics. De manière relativement similaire, quelques
musées destinés prioritairement aux enfants, tels le Children’s Museum de Brooklyn, ouvert en 1899
22
ou celui de Boston dont l’activité débute en 1913 .
e
Le monde des musées, à la fin du XIX siècle, présente ainsi une sectorisation souvent très poussée,
sans doute à l’image des clivages entre les classes sociales persistant en Europe. Ainsi, le directeur
du Musée d’histoire naturelle de Belgique, en 1914, stipule encore que « les explications [du musée]
doivent être adaptées à un type unique de visiteurs. [...] Il est clair que ce ne peut être la catégorie la
plus nombreuse de la population : celle du citoyen, de tout rang social, dont l’instruction ne dépasse
pas le degré des études élémentaires. Car le Musée, instrument de recherche et de centralisation
scientifique, ne peut descendre à ce niveau enfantin de la connaissance sans compromettre
l’accomplissement de sa fonction et sans sacrifier les besoins, plus élevés, de la Science et des
catégories de citoyens mieux partagées au point de vue de la culture générale. [...] Il s’adresse donc
au visiteur lettré, d’une culture intellectuelle supérieure, mais non spécialisé en science, et il s’efforce
23
de répondre aux besoins de renseignement de cette importante catégorie de citoyens » . De tels
propos justifient la constitution de nouveaux types d’établissements destinés spécifiquement aux
catégories de la population non prises en charge (même si elles y sont parfois tolérées) par les grands
musées : musées cantonaux, populaires, scolaires, etc. Il est vrai qu’à cette époque, le suffrage
universel est loin d’être généralisé, le suffrage censitaire prévalant encore dans la plupart des pays,
les musées semblent refléter, de manière assez cohérente, la conception que seule, une partie du
peuple a le droit de diriger les affaires du monde et, dès lors, de bénéficier des institutions conçues
spécifiquement pour ses propres besoins. Cette conception d’une séparation des publics n’est
cependant pas partagée par tous les musées de manière identique. La plupart des établissements
américains témoignent d’une ouverture nettement plus grande vers l’ensemble de leurs citoyens : « ils
prétendent faire du Musée une institution véritablement démocratique qui, comme l’Église, la Maison
du peuple ou l’École, soit un des foyers où se concentre et s’épure la vie de la cité. [...] C’est ce souci
24
constant de l’éducation populaire qui constitue la principale originalité des Musées américains » ,
signale Louis Réau dès 1909. Cet intérêt pour le public s’explique peut-être autant en fonction de
principes pédagogiques que pour des raisons pratiques : les musées ne seront valablement financés,
tant par l’État que par les mécènes, que s’ils prouvent leur utilité à la communauté dans laquelle ils
sont implantés. C’est essentiellement aux États-Unis que se développe le principe du lien entre un
musée et la communauté qu’il dessert (voir ce terme), celle-ci ne constituant pas pour autant
l’ensemble de la population. Si, en Europe, quelques voix s’élèvent pour demander que les musées
Musée de Boston comme premier musée (d’art) aux États-Unis à avoir instauré un service pédagogique, en 1907
(p. 54-57).
22
Les premiers « children’s clubs » ou « clubs de jeunes » liés au musée sont fondés, aux États-Unis, durant le
e
premier quart du XX siècle (il s’agit de la Charleston Natural Historical Society, Junior Branch, Charleston ; les
clubs suivants sont fondés à Toledo, Brooklyn, Worcester, Boston). Voir WATERMAN MAGOON E., Children’s
clubs in connection with museums, in Museum Work, 2, Nov. 1918, p. 49-55.
23
GILSON G., Le musée d'histoire naturelle moderne - Sa mission, son organisation, ses droits, Bruxelles,
Hayez, 1914, p.84-85.
24
REAU L., L’organisation des musées - Les musées américains, in Revue de synthèse historique, 1909, t. 19,
p.158-159.
13
s’occupent non seulement de leurs usagers habituels, mais aussi de « l’homme de la rue », les
25
réactions générales s’avèrent plutôt hostile à l’égard de ce dernier .
La Première Guerre mondiale marque la fin de la plupart de ces découpages mais aussi celle de
nombre d’institutions qui, progressivement, disparaissent du fait de leur inadaptation aux
e
bouleversements initiés dès les débuts du XX siècle. Les révolutions artistiques secouent le système
académique et le rôle joué par la copie des maîtres dans la formation des peintres, les grands musées
d’art voient ainsi disparaître une partie de leur public le plus assidu, tandis que l’industrie, poussée par
la nouveauté, ne cherche plus avec autant de ferveur ses modèles dans la tradition, amenant une
remise en cause radicale du rôle de la plupart des musées d’art décoratifs et industriels. Les modes
d’enseignement fluctuent elles aussi, la presque totalité des musées scolaires sont remisés dans les
combles, avant de disparaître définitivement ; la plupart des musées commerciaux ferment leurs
portes, cédant leur place à d’autres institutions mieux outillées pour aider les exportateurs.
Les grands musées, malgré l’abandon d’une partie de leurs publics spécifiques, ne sont pas pour
autant prêts de disparaître. L’entre-deux-guerres marque en effet une double révolution qui influe
sensiblement sur le rapport du musée avec son public. D’une part, le suffrage universel se propage de
manière importante, résultante d’une conception sensiblement plus vaste du public aidée en cela par
la diffusion des conceptions américaines du musée en faveur de la plus grande ouverture ; d’autre
part, le développement des congés payés marque le début d’un tourisme de masse, influençant
sensiblement la fréquentation des musées. Bien que le terme ait été utilisé par Forbes dès la moitié
e
du XIX siècle, ce n’est qu’à partir de cette époque qu’est véritablement pris en compte de ce que l’on
26
appelle alors le gros public , les masses, puis le grand public, à savoir « la masse des gens dont les
goûts et les idées ne sont pas très précis, qui manque généralement de culture et de finesse
d’esprit », selon les Trésors de la langue française. Ce public ne constitue cependant pas une masse
informe, la plupart des conservateurs savent qu’il se répartit en un certain nombre de catégories,
chacune fréquentant l’établissement pour des raisons spécifiques. Murray, au début du siècle,
distingue les étudiants, qui viennent pour un but spécifique et pour obtenir certaines informations, les
débutants cherchant à reconnaître ce qu’ils ont appris dans les livres, le plus grand nombre n’ayant
27
pas de but précis, mais tous cherchant à savoir quels sont les objets qu’ils regardent . Au début des
années 1920, les conservateurs du Muséum du Havre différencient « la foule de visiteurs ordinaires ;
l’enfant dont il faut éveiller l’esprit d’observation ; l’enfant curieux par lui-même des choses de l’histoire
28
naturelle ; l’étudiant ; l’homme de science », chacune de ces catégories attendant un service
spécifique de la part du musée. Ces catégories n’en demeurent pas moins fondées sur la seule
expérience des conservateurs, l’analyse du public ne repose que sur un fond d’appréciations
sommaires émanant des conservateurs et non sur une étude systématique partant des visiteurs euxmêmes.
Le visiteur comme objet d’étude
L’intérêt croissant pour des catégories de publics de plus en plus large va de pair avec le désir de
mieux le connaître. Des études de plus en plus précises sont ainsi progressivement mises en place
afin de mieux comprendre le comportement du visiteur au sein du musée, les raisons de sa visite, et
surtout pour tenter de saisir le bagage intellectuel qu’il en retire, ou plus prosaïquement de tenter de
mesurer l’aspect éducatif du musée.
25
MANTON J.A., A rambling dissertation on museums by a museum rambler, in Museums Association, Report of
Proceedings with the Papers Read at the Eleventh Annual General Meeting, Held in Canterbury, July 9 to 12,
1900, London, Dulau and Co, 1900, p. 65-80.
26
« le public était gênant et, peu à peu, le conservateur, sans s’en rendre compte, a cherché à le déshabituer de
ses visites au muséum. Le muséum est devenu scientifique, il est devenu une nécropole d’échantillons
n’intéressant plus le gros public » LOIR A., LEGANGNEUX H., Précis de Muséologie pratique, Le Havre,
Muséum d’histoire naturelle, s.d. (1922 ?), p. 4.
27
MURRAY (D.). 1904. Museums, Their History and Their Use, Glasgow : James Mac Lehose and Sons, 3 vol.
Reprint, Staten Island : Pober Publishing, 2000, vol. 1, p. 262.
28
LOIR A., LEGANGNEUX H., Op. Cit., p. 25.
14
29
Bien qu’il existe un certain nombre d’expériences antérieures à cette époque , il n’est pas étonnant
de remarquer que l’étude du public ait été essentiellement initiée aux États-Unis. L’une des premières
analyses qui rencontre un certain retentissement n’est cependant pas liée à l’éducation. L’article de
Benjamin Gilman sur la « fatigue des musées » montre, photographies à l’appui, les difficultés
30
ressenties par un visiteur pour examiner des œuvres d’art . Le Secrétaire du Museum of Fine Arts de
Boston, farouche adversaire des « musées-écoles » et partisan d’une approche essentiellement
esthétique du musée, souligne ainsi qu’il ne se désintéresse pas pour autant du public.
Selon Daifuku, c’est en 1924, au cours de la réunion annuelle de l’American Association of Museums,
que le développement des études du public dans les musées prend son véritable essor. « Clark
Wissler déclara que, faute de données vérifiées, on ne pouvait affirmer que les expositions et les
programmes organisés par les musées à l’intention du visiteur moyen étaient satisfaisants. Il ajouta
qu’à son avis, les conservateurs n’étaient pas qualifiés pour étudier de façon scientifique le « visiteur
31
du musée » » . Suite à ces déclarations, l’association engage un psychologue de l’Université de
Yale, Edward S. Robinson, afin de prouver l’utilité du travail muséal. Les travaux de Robinson comme
ceux de son assistant Melton, menés dans plusieurs grandes institutions américaines, débouchent sur
32
la publication des premières études sur les visiteurs . Celles-ci sont fondées sur la tradition des
psychologues behavioristes, courant dominant à l’époque. Ce n’est pas tant l’aspect éducatif que le
comportement des visiteurs dans l’exposition qui est étudié, sans que ceux-ci soient pour autant
interrogés. Et pour cause, si l’aspect éducatif est fortement revendiqué par les musées, il n’est pas
encore présent – de manière durable, par la création de services éducatifs – dans la plupart de ceux33
34
ci . Car s’il existe quelques analyses sur la validité ou l’efficacité des programmes éducatifs , le
contenu de la plupart des premières études se rapproche de celui de l’article de Gilman et porte sur
les méthodes de disposition des objets ou l’ordre de parcours des salles, afin d’améliorer les
conditions de visites. Différentes expériences muséographiques sont proposées au public/cobaye
dont le temps d’arrêt devant les objets est chronométré. Les chercheurs parviennent ainsi à
déterminer le temps d’arrêt maximum en fonction du nombre d’œuvres et de leur disposition, de
l’existence ou non de cartels, d’un livret commentant les oeuvres, etc. Ces enquêtes illustrent une
première prise de position des musées sinon en faveur de leurs visiteurs, du moins une certaine étude
de leur comportement. C’est à cette même époque qu’apparaissent les premiers résultats d’enquêtes
statistiques décrivant les caractéristiques socioprofessionnelles du public des musées. Les visées de
ces statistiques, sont aussi très différentes. Il ne convient plus de démontrer que le musée est
35
fréquenté par un public nombreux, mais « que les collections sont à la portée de tous » , c’est-à-dire,
aussi bien des hommes d’affaires que des ouvriers ou des fermiers. Les statistiques permettent en
outre de révéler la provenance du public, les moyens de locomotion utilisés, les raisons pour
lesquelles les visiteurs sont venus et ce qu’ils ont préféré durant leur visite.
C’est seulement au sortir de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale que le rôle pédagogique des musées, mis
en exergue par l’ICOM, connaît son véritable essor. Les succès éducatifs obtenus dans les musées
36
des anciens pays totalitaires (Italie, Allemagne) ou du bloc soviétique, dont l’américaine Wittlin
souligne les performances, constituent peut-être le facteur le plus stimulant du rôle d’éducation
démocratique auquel les musées souhaitent participer. Au discours pédagogique classique, partant
des œuvres d’art ou des objets de musée, vient s’adjoindre une nouvelle vision du musée comme
29
Entre autres l’étude de FECHNER G.T., Vorschule der Aesthetic, Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1897, que Daifuku
cite comme premier exemple d’étude sur les visiteurs (DAIFUKU H. Le musée et les visiteurs, in UNESCO,
Administration des musées, conseils pratiques, Paris, Unesco, 1959, p. 79-86).
30
GILMAN B.I., Museum fatigue, in The Scientific Monthly, 12, 1916, p. 62-74.
31
DAIKUFU H., op.cit., p. 80.
32
ROBINSON E.S., The Behavior of the Museum Visitor. Washington D.C., American Association of Museums.
New Series, 5, 1928; ROBINSON E.S., Exit the typical visitor, in Journal of Adult Education, 3(4), p. 418-423,
1931 trad. fr. in Publics & Musées, 8, juillet-décembre 1995, p. 11-19. MELTON A.W., Some behavior
caracteristics of museum visitors, in Psychological Bulletin, 30, 1933, p. 720-721. MELTON A.W. Problems of
Installation in Museums of Art. Washington D.C. : American Association of Museums, New Series, 14 (269),
1935. Trad. fr. partielle in Publics & Musées, 8, juillet-décembre 1995, p. 21-45.
33
LOW T.L., The Museum as a Social Instrument, New York, American Association of Museums, 1942.
34
Voir par exemple BLOOMBERG M., An Experiment in Museum Instruction, Washington DC., American
Association of Museums, New Series, 8(40), 1929; COOKE E., A survey of the educational activities of fortyseven american museums, in Museum News, june, 15, 1934. p. 4-8.
35
KIMBALL F., Musée d’art de Pennsylvanie. Statistique des visiteurs d’après leur profession, in Mouseion, 16,
1930, p. 41.
36
WITTLIN A.S., The Museum, its History and its Task in Education, London, Routledge, 1949.
15
système de communication. Si la prééminence du message véhiculé par les vraies choses (kinetifacts
compris) conduit à un nouveau type de muséologie – une muséologie de l’idée, s’opposant à celle de
37
l’objet, selon les propos de Cameron – ce principe amène une réelle prise en compte plus du
récepteur, soit le visiteur, et donc une étude plus attentive de sa perception des messages diffusés
par le musée. A ce premier développement vient s’ajouter le formidable essor que prennent les
expositions temporaires. Les méthodes d’évaluation, de plus en plus nombreuses, s’adaptent à ces
transformations. Les expositions temporaires, notamment internationales, sont analysées au niveau
de leur « impact », leur succès. Plus que le comportement du visiteur, ce sont l’ensemble des
informations relatives au public qui sont examinées, ainsi que les connaissances acquises au sein de
l’institution muséale.
On attribue généralement à Abbey et Cameron la mise au point des premières études systématiques
38
sur les visiteurs formant le public ou l’audience d’un musée . Si ces études ne sont pas les premières
en leur genre, leur appareil méthodologique ainsi que la rigueur scientifique surclassent les tentatives
précédentes. Le glissement de l’étude du comportement du visiteur vers l’analyse de l’audience
amène immanquablement l’étude plus précise de nouveaux paramètres, non seulement directement
liés à l’expérience du musée ou à la caractérisation du visiteur, mais aussi aux moyens de transport et
39
aux sources d’information utilisées ou aux réactions par rapport à la politique tarifaire de l’institution .
L’arrivée de Chandler Screven et Harris Shettel, au cours des années 1960, apporte un renouveau
significatif à la pensée évaluative. Leurs principes se basent sur une philosophie précise : l’exposition
constitue une forme de media éducatif dont les objectifs sont définis ; l’évaluation estime son
40
efficacité, sa capacité à atteindre les objectifs . Cette évaluation centrée sur les objectifs (goal
41
referenced approach ) jouit d’une longue tradition dans les milieux éducatifs. Développée depuis les
années 1930 par Ralf W. Tyler dans le cadre de ses études nationales, elle a suscité de nombreuses
42
modifications, notamment dans le sens d’une « orientation vers le consommateur » . Cette dernière
approche, proposée par Michael Scriven, amène l’évaluateur à produire un jugement de valeur sur le
choix des solutions possibles. Il n’existe pas une seule proposition à tester, mais un ensemble de
possibilités pour lesquelles il convient, du point de vue du consommateur (du visiteur), de rechercher
la solution la plus efficace. Scriven définit deux fonctions pour l’évaluation : celle-ci est d’abord
« formative » (formative approach), consistant à guider les concepteurs d’un projet en leur procurant
un feed-back continu sur les réactions des consommateurs potentiels. Ensuite, l’évaluation se fait
43
« sommative » (summative approach) une fois le projet réalisé, afin de juger si les résultats obtenus
dépassent les réalisations antérieures et permettent de justifier les dépenses supplémentaires
44
nécessaires à leur mise en oeuvre .
Screven et Shettel introduisent les premiers, aux États-Unis, l’approche formative/sommative dans le
cadre de l’évaluation muséale. En Grande-Bretagne, les travaux pionniers de Roger Miles, suivis de
ceux de Alt et Griggs au British Museum (Natural History) adoptent également – en la transformant –
la démarche de Scriven. Il n’est pas inutile de rappeler que ces premiers travaux appartiennent au
courant « éducatif » des musées, comme le rappelle Alt, critiquant cette vision : « Shettel appartient
fermement à l’école croyant que le rôle principal de l’expôt muséal est éducatif, dans le même sens
que la télévision scolaire, les livres et le matériel pédagogique. Ce cadre de référence semble exclure
de plus vastes enjeux éducatifs, et Shettel se concentre intégralement sur les fonctions
45
didactiques/pédagogiques de l’expôt muséal » . Si la réponse de l’évaluateur incriminé nuance
37
CAMERON D., The Museum as a communication system and implications for museum education, in Curator,
11, 1968, p. 33-40.
38
ABBEY D.S., CAMERON D., The Museum Visitor : I. Survey Design, Toronto: Information Services of the
Royal Ontario Museum, The Royal Ontario Museum, 1959.
39
CAMERON D., ABBEY D.S., Museum audience research: The effect of an admission fee, in Museum News,
41/3, 1962, p. 25-28.
40
SHETTEL H.H., BITGOOD S., Les pratiques de l’évaluation des expositions, in Publics & Musées, 4, mai 1994,
p. 9-25.
41
SCREVEN C.G., Exhibit evaluation: a goal reference approach, in Curator, 19/4, 1976, p. 271-290.
Il semble que cette référence soit la première pour laquelle le concept soit utilisé.
42
Sur cette tradition, voir STUFFLEBEAM D.L., SHINKFIELD A.J. Systematic Evaluation, Boston/Dordrecht,
Kluwer-Nijhoff Publishing, 1985.
43
« Sommatif » est la traduction généralement retenue pour caractérister la summative approach.
44
Le texte de référence de SCRIVEN M. est : The methodology of evaluation, in Perspectives on Curriculum
Evaluation, Chicago, Rand McNally, 1967.
45
ALT M.B., Evaluating didactic exhibits : a critical look at Shettel’s work, in Curator, 20/3, 1977, p. 248.
16
46
quelque peu ces propos , le jugement de Alt répercute avec pertinence les débats sur la nature du
musée dont l’incidence au niveau de l’évaluation n’est pas à négliger. Cependant, si la discussion de
fond, sur les objectifs de l’évaluation, n’est pas totalement ignorée, l’essentiel du débat porte
prioritairement sur les méthodes et les techniques.
Le perfectionnement de la méthode, adaptée au jugement des expositions, tend assez rapidement (en
l’espace d’une génération) à former une structure reconnue par la presque totalité des chercheurs.
Ainsi, l’« évaluation préalable » (front-end evaluation) est établie lorsque l’exposition en est au stade
de projet. Elle vise à recueillir des informations sur des expositions précédentes, sur les publics
potentiellement visés par l’exposition, sur le contenu de l’exposition et la manière de l’exploiter.
L’« évaluation formative » (formative evaluation) intervient durant la phase de réalisation de
l’exposition. Elle vise à confronter les réalisations en cours (exposition sous forme de maquettes ou de
réalisations partielles, en laboratoire ou sur le terrain) avec les réactions du public, afin d’y apporter
les modifications nécessaires. L’« évaluation sommative » (summative evaluation) est entreprise une
fois l’exposition terminée, et confronte celle-ci avec les réactions du public. Cette dernière forme
d’évaluation peut intervenir – pour d’autres expositions – durant la phase préalable. Cette procédure
en trois volets, parfois accompagnée d’un quatrième dénommé « évaluation corrective » ou de
remédiation (utilisée afin d’améliorer l’exposition une fois celle-ci en place), ou d’un cinquième intitulé
« évaluation de l’évaluation », de portée plus épistémologique, est utilisée par la majorité des
chercheurs actuels.
A l’approche centrée sur les objectifs, constituant le courant principal de l’évaluation des expositions,
s’oppose l’« évaluation naturaliste » (naturalistic evaluation), représentée par Robert Wolf. Prenant
appui sur le système judiciaire américain, il propose une évaluation plus large autorisant la
confrontation des objectifs avec leurs partisans et leurs adversaires, en sélectionnant les témoins et
en examinant leurs arguments. Wolf poursuit sa réflexion dans le cadre des expositions muséales, en
rejetant a priori tout objectif défini à l’avance. Les hypothèses ainsi que le plan d’action de l’évaluation
se formeront au cours de l’évaluation, en fonction des interactions entre les différents protagonistes de
47
l’exposition : public, chercheurs ou conservateurs . Contrairement à l’option centrée sur les objectifs,
qui adopte cette position seulement durant l’évaluation préalable, l’évaluation naturaliste conserve une
ouverture au changement tout au long de la mise en oeuvre de l’exposition; une position plus ouverte,
mais nettement plus complexe à gérer.
Les méthodes ou techniques employées par les différentes approches évaluatives dérivent toutes des
techniques employées en sociologie, en psychologie, en ethnologie (pour la technique d’enquête) et
en statistique (pour le contrôle des résultats). L’objet de l’analyse demeure identique : le public (ou le
non-public). Les premières techniques ont trait à l’échantillonnage de l’objet d’étude. Il s’agit, bien
évidemment, de définir la population qui sera analysée, c’est-à-dire le nombre de personnes ainsi que
la manière de les sélectionner. Un deuxième type de techniques porte sur les procédés de mesures.
Celles-ci sont nombreuses et varient selon les objectifs de l’étude. Les mesures d’observation sont
utilisées pour analyser le comportement des visiteurs. Les enquêtes par questionnaires, les entretiens
particuliers et les entretiens de groupe (focus group) sont conçus pour interroger directement les (non)visiteurs. La distinction qualitatif/quantitatif intervient pour l’ensemble de ces techniques.
Généralement, les grandes enquêtes sont quantitatives, utilisées pour questionner (de manière
fermée) l’audience potentielle ou effective des expositions. Les enquêtes qualitatives formulent des
questions plus ouvertes mais pratiquées sur un nombre restreint d’individus. Ces dernières sont
utilisées afin de vérifier les connaissances acquises ou explorer les connaissances préalables des
visiteurs, d’étudier leur comportement dans l’exposition ou de mieux connaître leurs réactions et leurs
sentiments face au musée.
Parmi les tendances relevées et les recommandations formulées par un comité américain chargé
d’explorer le futur des musées, l’ouverture à toutes les couches de la population ainsi que la tâche
éducative, réaffirmée comme prioritaire, entraînaient la nécessité pour les musées d’approfondir leurs
48
recherches sur le public et le non-public de ces institutions , renforcent considérablement le rôle des
évaluateurs. Ce phénomène, s’il se manifeste particulièrement en Amérique du Nord et en Grande-
46
SHETTEL H.H., A critical look at a critical Look : a response to Alt’s critique of Shettel’s work, in Curator, 21/4,
1978, p. 329-345.
47
WOLF R.L., A naturalistic view of evaluation, in Museum News, 58/6, 1980. p. 39-45.
48
BLOOM J.N., POWELL III E.A., Museums for a New Century. A Report of the Commission on Museums for a
New Century, Washington, American Association of Museums, 1984.
17
Bretagne, rencontre un écho de plus en plus fort sur le reste des continents américain et européen. Le
développement incessant des contributions sur l’évaluation a conduit progressivement ce secteur à se
reformuler sous le concept de visitor studies (études de visiteurs). Ce nouveau concept se définit par
son objectif d’interface (d’avocat, selon les termes de Bitgood) entre les visiteurs et les musées.
Incluant les techniques d’évaluation, il comprend également des études prospectives, sorte de
recherche fondamentale sur les visiteurs, se voulant plus rigoureuse et plus scientifique que les
résultats directement applicables des évaluations. Les visitor studies ont bénéficié d’un numéro
spécial de la revue Museum International, possèdent leurs propres congrès et associations (Visitor
Studies Association), des périodiques qui leur sont entièrement (Visitor Studies – actes des
conférences annuelles, Visitor Behavior, Current Trends in Audience Research and Evaluation, ILVS
Review – qui publie périodiquement une bibliographie), ou partiellement consacrés (Publics &
Musées, puis Culture & Musées).
Si le développement des études de publics conduit, à partir de la fin des années 1980, au
développement d’un véritable champ de recherche centré sur le public, ses attentes et ses réactions
face à l’univers muséal, le mouvement n’en est pas pour autant partagé par tous les membres du
personnel du musée. La plupart des spécialistes de la discipline (Allaire, Bitgood, Davallon,
Gottesdiener, Loomis, Screven, Shettel, Shiele, Zavala,...) sont universitaires ou indépendants et
œuvrent en dehors de l’institution muséale, parfois pour le compte de celle-ci. Quelques unités
d’évaluation existent au sein de grandes institutions (Musée de la Civilisation à Québec, Natural
History Museum de Londres, Galerie de l’Evolution à Paris, etc.). Souvent isolés dans leurs
recherches, nombreux se plaignent du manque de dialogue au sein du musée. Les évaluations ne
sont pas suivies des corrections demandées, les avis ne sont pas toujours répercutés au sein de
49
l’établissement . La conception d’un public actif, dont les avis induiraient – via l’évaluation – des
changements au sein du musée, n’est pas acceptée par tous. De manière globale, cependant, les
enseignements tirés de ces études et évaluations conduisent à une perception plus fine du public,
notamment dans le chef des concepteurs d’expositions. Sans doute cette perception ne résulte-t-elle
pas toujours directement d’évaluations préalables ou sommatives liées à l’exposition, mais plutôt d’un
ensemble de lectures ou d’enseignements tirés conjointement de l’expérience directe du contact avec
les visiteurs, d’études précises et de lectures des rapports d’enquêtes.
50
L’expérience du musée, résumée par Falk et Dierking , est emblématique de cette nouvelle
perception des visiteurs et des enseignements qui peuvent être tirés des études de leurs
comportements et de leurs réactions. Ainsi, les auteurs, sur base de leurs analyses, dressent un
tableau très hétérogène de l’expérience du musée, chaque visiteur apprenant différemment,
interprétant l’information en fonction de ses connaissances, de ses expériences et de ses croyances.
Chaque visiteur arrive avec des espérances de visite différentes et personnalise également le
message qu’il reçoit, afin de le rendre conforme avec ses connaissances et sa compréhension des
choses. Falk et Dierking insistent également sur le contexte global de la visite : la plupart des visiteurs
viennent en groupe (famille, amis, visite guidée), ce qui influence radicalement leur perception et leurs
souvenirs, mais l’expérience du musée inclut également les surveillants, les guides, bref, tout le
personnel et le public du musée (ainsi que l’aspect général du musée, ses infrastructures, etc.). Tous
les visiteurs viennent au musée car celui-ci contient des objets hors normes, des vraies choses, mais
leur perception de ces vraies choses est également très différente. Le très grand nombre d’objets ou
d’expériences auxquels ils sont confrontés au sein du musée les incite à en sélectionner un petit
nombre (forcément influencé par la localisation de ces expériences au sein du musée).
Visiteur ou acteur ?
Si la prise en compte des réactions du public est progressivement intégrée par les éducateurs et les
concepteurs d’exposition dans les musées, le rôle joué par les visiteurs reste encore uniquement celui
de destinataire ou d’utilisateur des infrastructures muséales. Son droit est identique à celui d’un
consommateur classique ; le visiteur n’entre pas dans la catégorie du producteur ou du coproducteur,
catégorie réservée aux professionnels du musée. Cette frontière est cependant progressivement
franchie durant les années 1960, au sein d’un certain nombre d’institutions muséales, pour la plupart
49
Shettel donne un bon aperçu de ces problèmes généraux dans SHETTEL H.H., Status report on museum
evaluation: an introspective retrospective, in ILVS Review, 1, 1, 1988, p. 14-23.
50
FALK J.H., DIERKING L.D., The Museum Experience, Washington, Whalesback Books, 1992.
18
51
de taille réduite et se voulant expérimentales, soit sur le plan artistique , soit sur le plan
ethnographique. Dans ce dernier cas, la conception d’un public actif, (co-)producteur d’exposition, est
à la base de l’évolution qui conduira à la formation des écomusées et de manière plus générale à la
nouvelle muséologie.
Ce mouvement prend sa source dans les bouleversements engendrés par la Seconde Guerre
Mondiale et se développe en parallèle à l’émergence d’une nouvelle génération, issue du baby boom
de la fin de la guerre et qui entend jouer un autre rôle au sein de la société, sur la base d’autres
valeurs que celles entretenues par les générations précédentes. La génération précédente semble
pourtant consciente de ce phénomène de décalage, notamment au niveau du musée et de son public.
La recommandation de l’Unesco, adoptée le 14 décembre 1960 en sa onzième session et concernant
les moyens les plus efficaces pour rendre les musées accessibles à tous, présente dans leurs
grandes lignes les solutions traditionnelles visant à remédier à cet état de fait : mesures visant au
développement de la compréhension du public telles que la présentation, cartels, guides, visites
guidées, etc. ; heures d’ouverture des musées, qui doivent tenir compte des heures de loisir des
travailleurs ; amélioration de l’accès au musée et confort des services annexes, développement de
l’entrée gratuite, à tout le moins certains jours et pour les personnes à revenus modestes, les familles
nombreuses, les groupes scolaires, etc. Ces seules mesures ne s’attaquent cependant qu’à la couche
la plus superficielle de l’institution. On sait les mouvements de contestation qui germent à partir de la
fin des années 1960. Ceux-ci conduisent notamment à une remise en question de l’institution
muséale, principalement dans ses rapports avec le public. Le musée est ainsi attaqué de toute part.
Les artistes (Duchamp, Broodthaers, Oldenburg, etc.) critiquent notamment l’autoritarisme de ses
52
choix ; tandis que les responsables des pays anciennement colonisés dénoncent le néocolonialisme de l’institution, « création d’un âge préindustriel, conservé par les tics des littérateurs et
les inhibitions des snobs, le musée est théoriquement et pratiquement lié à un monde (le monde
européen), à une classe (la classe bourgeoise cultivée), à une certaine vision de la culture (nos
ancêtres les gaulois et leurs cousins, tous grands dolichocéphales blonds aux yeux bleus!). Ce monde
est sans doute en train de disparaître, [...] mais le musée demeure encore le lieu de la concentration
magique des obsessions poussiéreuses d’une classe qui croit toujours à l’extension de son
53
pouvoir » .
A cette même époque paraissent diverses études sur le comportement des visiteurs de musées, dont
celle de Bourdieu et Darbel, évoquant les inégalités encore criantes en matière de fréquentation du
musée. « La statistique révèle que l’accès aux oeuvres culturelles est le privilège de la classe cultivée;
mais ce privilège a tous les dehors de la légitimité. En effet ne sont jamais exclus ici que ceux qui
54
s’excluent » . La société offre à tous la possibilité théorique d’accéder aux musées, mais seuls
quelques uns en ont la possibilité réelle : ceux dont le niveau d’éducation est suffisant pour décoder le
langage des œuvres. Le système scolaire, à l’époque, « en faisant comme si les inégalités de nature,
c’est-à-dire des inégalités de dons, et en omettant de donner à tous ce que quelques-uns doivent à
55
leur famille [...] perpétue et sanctionne les inégalités initiales » . Si le système d’éducation n’est pas
repensé, les musées continueront à être des facteurs d’inégalités sociales.
La plupart des réactions à ces critiques insistent sur la nécessité d’ouverture du musée aux publics et
le renforcement des structures éducatives de l’institution. Encore cette ouverture n’entraîne-t-elle pas
automatiquement un changement des méthodes éducatives, la plupart de celles-ci s’inscrivant dans la
tradition d’une relation plus ou moins autoritaire, du maître à l’élève. L’éducation – en Occident –
connaît cependant un réel bouleversement à cette époque. Les horaires de travail et le renforcement
du système social semblent dessiner les contours d’une nouvelle civilisation fondée sur les bénéfices
du progrès, l’augmentation des loisirs, mais aussi la nécessité d’une éducation permanente afin
d’appréhender les mutations technologiques qui la bouleversent continuellement. D’une certaine
manière, encore que bien superficiellement, le programme éducatif tend vers une voie se voulant
51
GAUDIBERT P. et al., Problèmes du musée d'art contemporain en Occident, in Museum, XXIV, 1, 1972, p. 5-32.
MAIRESSE F., Le concept de « musées d’artistes », in Icofom Study Series, 26, 1996, p. 85-95.
53
ADOTEVI S., Le musée dans les systèmes éducatifs et culturels contemporains (1931), repris dans
DESVALLEES A., Vagues. Une anthologie de la nouvelle muséologie, Mâcon, Ed. W. et M.N.E.S., vol. 1, p. 122.
54
BOURDIEU P., DARBEL A., L’amour de l’art. Les musées d’art européens et leur public, Paris, Ed. de Minuit,
1969 (2ème éd.), p. 69.
55
Ibid., p. 107. En Belgique, une étude effectuée à la même époque aboutit à des constats identiques :
MARTINOW-REMICHE A., WERY C., Le Musée interdit. Enquête sociologique sur le fait muséologique en milieu
ouvrier dans la région liégeoise, Bruxelles, Ministère de la Culture française (Documentation et enquête), 1971.
52
19
résolument novatrice, orientée vers une plus grande participation des visiteurs à la définition des
contenus et des méthodes d’éducation. L’andragogie est au coeur de l’évolution de l’éducation
permanente, à destination de tous les publics. Conçue de manière ouverte, l’éducation permanente
s’inscrit dans la civilisation des loisirs, mais surtout dans la perspective de donner à tous les chances
d’acquérir des connaissances et d’ainsi combler le fossé des inégalités sociales. Des voix s’élèvent,
aussi bien au sein du musée qu’à l’extérieur, pour envisager l’éducation muséale dans cette
perspective d’égalité entre le guide et les publics. En fait, il ne devrait pas y avoir de « guides » au
musée, mais des animateurs qui aborderaient l’œuvre au départ des groupes, donc du public, et non
au départ de l’objet. Spécialiste en maïeutique, l’animateur devrait amener les visiteurs à prendre euxmêmes conscience de leurs émotions, de leur compréhension. Le musée devrait s’ouvrir aux
groupements locaux, socioculturels mais aussi politiques. Il devrait être ouvert durant les heures de
loisir et non quand les gens sont au travail. « Dans l’état actuel des choses, ils ne peuvent être visités
56
que par des rentiers, des vacanciers et des touristes » . Ce lieu de discussion, le musée/temple ne le
permet pas ; une fonction de forum, ouverte aux débats publics, doit leur être adjointe, sans pour
57
autant se substituer à celle du temple . Cette revendication du musée comme agent d’éducation
permanente, d’ouverture du musée aux communautés, de son rôle social, de son potentiel de
conscientisation vis-à-vis des problèmes du milieu rural ou urbain, est également au cœur des
principes de la Déclaration de Santiago du Chili, consacrée en 1972 au rôle du musée en Amérique
58
latine .
C’est dans ce contexte particulier que peut être interprétée la position des muséologues rassemblés
au sein d’Icofom autour de la question du public. La constitution officielle d’Icofom, en 1977, soit
quelques années après les événements évoqués plus haut, ne s’inscrit pas dans le contexte d’un réel
intérêt pour le public mais bien pour les objets et pour la muséologie. Si certains muséologues ont pu
estimer, de manière provocatrice, que la muséologie peut se passer des musées, on pourrait
poursuivre en remarquant qu’elle semblerait aussi, souvent, vouloir se passer des publics. Les
principaux thèmes de discussion des premières réunions portent sur la recherche scientifique, les
aspects sociologiques et écologiques du musée, la systématique, l’interdisciplinarité, la formation
muséale, tandis que les deux numéros de MuWop/DoTram n’abordent pas du tout la question du
public. Ces thèmes de travail, familiers aux muséologues de l’Est, semblent contestés par nombre de
muséologues occidentaux, notamment parce que plusieurs d’entre eux souhaitent une théorie du
musée plus pragmatique et fondée sur la réalité du monde muséal, mais aussi parce que ces
réflexions théoriques ne laissent pas de place à l’analyse des problèmes rencontrés par les musées
actuels, notamment la question du musée dans ses rapports avec les publics. De nouvelles
expériences sont évoquées à cette époque, dont la revue Museum (sous l’influence de Georges-Henri
Rivière et de Hugues de Varine) se fait l’écho : écomusée de la communauté du Creusot-Montceau
les mines, musée de voisinage d’Anacostia, Casa del Museo à Mexico, etc. Les réunions de 1980 et
1982, organisées par Icofom à Mexico et à Paris, se terminent dans un certain chaos, plusieurs
muséologues tentant de concentrer la réflexion muséologique sur ces seules questions, ce que ne
59
souhaitent pas les responsables du comité . Les protagonistes décident alors, en 1983, d’organiser
conjointement deux réunions à Londres, l’une sur la formation professionnelle, la seconde – intitulée
Musée-territoire-société – sur l’écologie et les écomusées.
Les contributions à ce colloque qui paraissent dans les Icofom Study Series 2 à 4 illustrent bien le
rapport entretenu par la plupart des muséologues avec le public durant cette période. A la suite des
réflexions de Rivière et de Varine sur les écomusées, les contributions de Mathilde Bellaigue, Gérard
Collin, Pierre Mayrand, mais surtout d’André Desvallées, s’inscrivent dans une voie plaidant pour un
nouveau rapport entre le musée et la population ; le public du musée s’effaçant – d’une certaine
manière – devant des usagers pour qui le musée doit constituer un outil patrimonial de
conscientisation et de prise en main de son avenir. « Certains écomusées procèdent d’une critique
radicale des rapports entre société et patrimoine, du refus de l’élitisme, de la socialisation et de la
valorisation monétaire ; de l’émergence, a contrario, de la priorité donnée aux gestes et pratiques
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quotidiennes, aux valeurs culturelles spécifiques aux classes dominées » . Le constat de Jean-Yves
56
HICTER M., Le musée et les loisirs, in Le Musée et son public, Colloque organisé par le C.N.B./ICOM,
Bruxelles, 8-10 mai 1968, p.135-136.
57
CAMERON D., Museum, a temple or a forum, in Curator, 14, march 1971, p. 11-24.
58
Museum, XXV, 3, 1973, p. 198-200.
59
MENSCH P. van, Towards a Methodology of Museology, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Philosophy, Doctor’s
Thesis, 1992, p. 22.
60
VEILLARD J.-Y., Observations et réflexions, in Icofom Study Series, 4, 1983, p. 9.
20
Veillard souligne la prise en compte, par ces muséologues, de la crise des musées ayant éclaté
quelques années auparavant, remettant en cause le caractère élitiste, sacralisant ou néo-colonialiste
du musée et de son rapport au public. Le terme de « public », dans cette optique, s’efface au profit de
celui d’usager ou d’acteur, dans une perspective de dialogue et de personnalisation des rapports. Les
réponses proposées par la nouvelle muséologie entraînent une réaction généralement négative des
muséologues de l’Est, notamment celle de Zbynek Stransky. De manière générale, la « nouvelle
muséologie » n’est évaluée que comme une réponse possible du musée face à la crise ; l’écomusée
formant une catégorie parmi d’autres. Le rôle de la muséologie, pour Stransky comme pour la plupart
des muséologues de l’Est, est essentiellement théorique et ne peut s’envisager, au sein du comité,
que sur cette base : c’est au niveau de la prise en compte des acquis de l’écologie (comme science)
que la muséologie doit pouvoir fonder sa réflexion, et non à partir de l’expérience des écomusées,
considérés ici plutôt comme un phénomène de mode que comme une évolution véritable. De telles
réactions, mais aussi le refus par le comité d’Icofom de constituer un groupe spécifique sur le sujet
ainsi que le souhait par plusieurs des protagonistes de l’écomusée d’une plus grande reconnaissance,
sur le plan international, conduisent à la formation du Minom, en 1984, entièrement consacré à la
nouvelle muséologie. Un certain nombre de muséologues, tels André Desvallées ou Mathilde
Bellaigue, acteurs au sein de la nouvelle muséologie, demeurent cependant fidèles à l’Icofom,
insufflant l’esprit de la MNES ou du Minom au sein du comité, tentant de perpétuer la prise en compte
du public au sein de la réflexion théorique. Un certain nombre de réunions relatives aux écomusées
sont ainsi organisées par l’Icofom, parfois de manière conjointe avec le Minom, notamment en 1985 à
61
Zagreb, en 1986 à Buenos-Aires, en 1992 à Québec, en 1995 à Stavanger .
Les actes des rencontres d’Icofom de 1986 (Muséologie et Identité, ISS 10-11) et 1994-5 (Musée et
communauté, ISS 24-25) traduisent encore les différences d’approche entre les partisans d’un débat
strictement théorique, parfois abstrait, et les théoriciens de la nouvelle muséologie fondée sur
l’expérience concrète. Ces points de vue entraînent des prises de position fort différentes en faveur du
public ; Isabel Laumonier souligne ainsi, par exemple, l’écart radical entre la perception du Polonais
Wojciech Gluzinski (« le visiteur doit recevoir la connaissance scientifique, qu’il le veuille ou non ») et
celle d’un Bjarne Flou (« la participation de la population locale au sujet de toutes les activités du
62
musée est considérée comme un élément de première importance ») . Sans doute la disparition
progressive de plusieurs représentants de la muséologie de l’Est contribue-t-elle à diminuer les
antagonismes. Toujours est-il qu’en 1995, lors de la Conférence générale de l’Icom à Stavanger sur le
thème des musées et des communautés, les contrastes entre les philosophies du musée
apparaissent avec peut-être moins d’évidences. Certes, des différences subsistent. Comme le
rappelle Marc Maure, « le nouveau musée ne s’adresse pas à un public déterminé composé de
visiteurs anonymes. Sa raison d’être est d’être au service d’une communauté spécifique. Le musée
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devient acteur et outil de développement culturel, social et économique d’un groupe déterminé. »
Mais ce type de relation, central au sein de la nouvelle muséologie, s’est également développé de
manière consumériste au sein de l’ensemble de l’institution. Le pouvoir des communautés, donc d’une
partie du public, voire de l’ensemble du public du musée, a subi une évolution similaire à celle des
mouvements de lobbying au sein des organisations nationales ou internationales, conduisant (surtout
dans les pays anglo-saxons) d’une part aux mouvements de retour de collections patrimoniales dans
leurs milieux d’origine, d’autre part à l’intégration des communautés dans la définition des contenus
d’expositions. En corollaire, le pouvoir du public communautaire, lorsqu’il s’oppose au contenu de
l’exposition du musée, conduit au phénomène du « politiquement correct » ou à la prééminence de la
64
diplomatie sur le contenu scientifique des expositions, comme le suggère alors Lynn Maranda .
Visiteur et consommateur
Cette évolution n’est pas étonnante. Les chocs économiques du milieu des années 1970 ainsi que les
renversements de politique qui s’ensuivent amènent de sérieux changements dans la philosophie du
musée et de son rapport au public. C’est vraiment à partir de cette époque que débute réellement –
avant tout aux États-Unis – l’ère des gestionnaires dans les musées. Insensiblement, le marketing est
appelé à se propager au sein du monde muséal, parce qu’il répond autant à la question d’ouverture
aux publics qu’aux changements du contexte économique qui s’opèrent. La politique de moindre
61
MENSCH P., Magpies on Mount Helicon ?, in Icofom Study Series, 25, 1995, p. 133-138.
LAUMONIER I., La muséologie et l’identité, in Icofom Study Series, 11, 1986, p. 26.
63
MAURE M., La nouvelle muséologie – qu’est-ce que c’est ?, in Icofom Study Series, 25, 1995, p. 129.
64
MARANDA L., Museums and the Community, in Icofom Study Series, 25, 1995, p. 67-71.
62
21
intervention des pouvoirs publics amène les musées à se repositionner : soit ils voient leurs activités
diminuer, soit ils recourent à des sources alternatives de financement, notamment en organisant de
grandes expositions temporaires et en développant les recettes commerciales du musée. C’est
généralement cette seconde alternative qui est choisie, souvent avec succès. Pour un temps, l’ère
des grandes expositions amène donc une certaine euphorie au sein du monde des musées. Non
seulement, certains de ces événements dégagent des bénéfices très importants (se chiffrant en
millions de dollars), mais en outre, l’institution, longtemps décriée comme élitiste, sévère voire
mortifère, obtient ici un regain de popularité manifeste, à en juger par les longues files qui se forment
devant les expositions consacrées à l’or des pharaons ou celui des celtes, les tableaux de Van Gogh,
de Rembrandt ou de Picasso. De très nombreux grands musées voient également leur fréquentation
s’accroître de manière considérable.
La commercialisation, outre ses conséquences potentiellement bénéfiques pour les ressources
financières du musée, joue en outre en faveur d’une certaine conception du musée dans son rapport
au public. La logique commerciale implique que les consommateurs soient satisfaits (sinon ils ne
reviendraient pas). Elle offre ainsi une garantie que les activités du musée reposent sur une
philosophie qui place le visiteur/consommateur au centre de ses préoccupations. De nombreux
responsables de musée en déduisent que, pour asseoir la place du public au cœur du musée, il
importe de développer une attitude de marché. La plupart des établissements développent ainsi
largement leurs activités commerciales de manière à générer des ressources financières (même si les
profits ne sont pas toujours au rendez-vous). Ces fonctions, pour être profitables, nécessitent
évidemment l’attraction d’un large public invité au musée par le biais de campagnes promotionnelles.
Le perfectionnement de cette philosophie implique un large recours à l’écoute des visiteurs
(potentiels), mais dans une optique commerciale, soit celle des études de marché et de l’analyse des
65
besoins du consommateur . De nombreuses études destinées à améliorer l’aspect éducatif des
expositions peuvent ainsi être utilisées de manière plus prosaïque, pour renforcer la fréquentation du
66
musée. Il en va ainsi de l’analyse de l’audience du musée , du prix à payer dans l’exposition, de la
perception par le visiteur des autres institutions culturelles concurrentes ou de la mise au point de
67
« produits à succès » . L’utilisation renforcée, dans une perspective mercatique, des enquêtes
68
d’évaluation contribue à transformer celles-ci en outil pour la gestion des musées . Les tendances du
69
marché sont ainsi analysées, afin de mieux comprendre leur impact sur l’expérience du musée .
L’entrée du terme dans les bibliographies du marketing en milieu muséal confirme les nouvelles
70
fonctions de l’outil évaluatif . Ce passage, en français, de la notion qualitative de public à celle,
nettement plus quantitative, d’audience, marque une étape importante dans la réflexion sur la
71
destination du musée et son intégration par la pensée économique.
72
Ce phénomène de « cancérisation par l’argent » , ainsi que ses conséquences sur les relations du
musée avec le public, a été approché par l’Icofom à deux reprises, lors des conférences triennales de
l’Icom, soit à Melbourne en 1998 – sur le thème de la muséologie et la mondialisation – et à Barcelone
en 2001 – sur le thème de la muséologie, le développement économique et social. Si le rôle de la
globalisation est surtout analysé du point de vue de la construction des identités et des
particularismes, ainsi qu’au niveau de l’évolution générale des cultures, l’effet sur le public des
musées est analysé au travers des changements de politique économique (Desvallées), la
construction de « marques » globales, telles que celle du Guggenheim (Dolan), le développement du
tourisme culturel mondial (Young) et la production de grandes expositions/blockbusters formatées
pour s’adresser au plus large public possible (Vitali et Gale). Cette évolution de la relation entre le
65
SHETH J., GARDNER D., GARRET D., Marketing Theory: Evolution and Evaluation, New York, Wiley, 1988.
MILES R.S., Museum audiences, in Museum Management and Curatorship, 5, 1986, p. 73-80.
67
GRIGGS S., HAYS-JACKSON K., Visitors’ perceptions of cultural institutions, in Museums Journal, 83, 2/3,
1983, p. 121-125; ALT M., GRIGGS S., A theory of product success, in Journal of the Market Research Society,
28, 3, 1986, p. 235-267.
68
LOOMIS R.J., Museum Visitor Evaluation: New Tool for Management, Nashville, American Association for
State and Local History, 1987.
69
CHEN COURTIN D., Current Market Trends and their Impact on the Museum Experience, in Current Trends in
Audience Reserach and Evaluation, 15, American Association of Museums, 2002.
70
LEGARE B., Le marketing en milieu muséal : une bibliographie analytique et sélective, Montréal, HEC, Chaire
de gestion des arts, 1991.
71
DAVALLON J., Nouvelle muséologie vs muséologie ?, in Icofom Study Series, 25, 1995, p. 153-166.
72
DESVALLEES A., Musée et patrimoine intégral : le futur du passé, in Icofom Study Series, 29, 1998, p. 30.
66
22
musée et son public s’observe de manière plus précise à partir de l’angle du développement
économique et social. « Nous sommes en train de constater les effets de la mondialisation
(globalization) qui rend notre nation aussi impuissante ; le populisme fait du tort et nos musées et
galeries d’art sont à présent censés plaire, à tout moment, à la population toute entière de sorte que
73
tout doit être organisé comme un jardin d’enfant (dumbed down) » . Le constat de nivellement lié aux
stratégies de marketing global des grandes expositions et des grands musées, tels le Guggenheim
(Desvallées, Mairesse, Vierreg) est directement lié à la représentation du public visé – soit le plus
grand nombre – dont les études de marché tentent de définir le profil type et les habitudes de
consommation culturelle.
Ce public semble globalement posséder des caractéristiques relativement similaires, observables par
le biais des études effectuées dans la plupart des pays occidentaux : enquêtes sur les pratiques
culturelles des habitants d’un pays, études sur le lieu de visite, dénombrement des entrées.
Ainsi, les faits relevés déjà voici près de quarante ans, notamment par Bourdieu, se confirment au fil
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des enquêtes : les visiteurs de musées appartiennent traditionnellement aux plus hautes classes
sociales et bénéficient d’un niveau d’enseignement élevé, comme cela s’observe pour le public de la
plupart des autres pratiques culturelles telles que le théâtre, la lecture ou l’opéra, (mais à l’exception
de la visite des zoos et des parcs à thèmes). Les pratiques de visite de musée sont souvent
répétitives, ceux qui ont franchi les portes d’un établissement muséal durant les derniers mois ont de
fortes chances de réitérer leur geste dans les prochains mois. Parmi la minorité la plus habituée à
fréquenter régulièrement les musées, les classes sociales les plus élevées sont nettement
surreprésentées, tandis que le profil des visiteurs occasionnels se rapproche plus globalement des
caractéristiques de l’ensemble de la population. En forçant le trait, « on peut considérer que le public
des musées est constitué pour un tiers d’élèves et étudiants, pour un tiers de cadres supérieurs et
75
d’enseignants et pour un tiers des autres catégories de population » . Les raisons invoquées par les
classes sociales les moins élevées pour ne pas visiter les musées sont que ce type d’établissements
ne présente pas d’intérêt ou est ennuyeux, tandis que les non-publics des classes sociales élevées
invoquent le manque de temps ou les difficultés de s’y rendre. Les raisons évoquées pour se rendre
au musée, quant à elles, sont plus difficiles à saisir et dépendent du type d’institution : apprentissage,
distraction, curiosité, esthétisme ou calme, (l’étude, l’éducation et la délectation, selon la formule de
l’Icom) l’expérience du musée se conjugue de manière différente, aussi bien en fonction des visiteurs
76
que de la spécificité du musée visité .
La fréquentation d’un musée demeure cependant une pratique très populaire, plus d’un tiers de la
population en a visité un au cours des douze derniers mois (mais un quart de celle-ci n’y aurait jamais
mis les pieds). Cette statistique s’avère moins élevée que celles relatives à la fréquentation des
cinémas et des bibliothèques, mais dépasse celles des théâtres, des événements sportifs ou des
parcs à thèmes. La pratique du musée est majoritairement familiale ; les visiteurs sont habituellement
accompagnés (d’amis ou de membres de leur famille). La visite d’un établissement muséal est le plus
souvent associée soit à un événement, tel qu’une exposition temporaire, soit à un déplacement
(touristique) dans son propre pays ou à l’étranger ; nombreux sont ceux qui ne visitent que les
musées durant un séjour à l’étranger, tandis que ceux qui les visitent dans leur propre région les
fréquentent également hors de leur pays. Les musées de beaux-arts (qui ne sont pourtant pas les plus
nombreux) attirent le plus de monde, devant les musées de science ou ceux de société. Bien qu’il
existe des types exclusifs de fréquentation, nombreux sont ceux qui pratiquent le panachage.
La progression spectaculaire de la fréquentation des plus grands musées a marqué les médias et
laisse penser à un engouement général du public pour ces établissements. A titre d’exemple, le
Louvre a accueilli plus de 5 700 000 visiteurs en 2003, contre 4 700 000 en 1996, 3 540 000 en 1990,
73
Cameron, cité par DESVALLEES A., Muséologie, patrimoine, changement économique et développement
social, in Icofom Study Series, 33a, 2001, p. 35.
74
Voir par exemple MIRONER L. et al., Cent musées à la rencontre du public, Paris, France édition, 2001 ;
MUSEUMS, LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES COUNCIL, Visitors to Museums and Galleries 2004, London, MLA,
2004.
75
DONNAT O., Les publics des musées en France, in Publics & Musées, 3, 1993, p. 31.
76
EIDELMAN J., Qui fréquente les museés à Paris? Une sociographie des publics des musées de France, in
Publics & Musées, 2, 1992, p. 19-47. Falk et Dierking résument cependant la motivation pour venir aux musées à
l’apprentissage libre (free-choice learning), FALK J.H., DIERKING L.D., Learning from Museums, New York,
Altamira Press, 2000.
23
77
1 590 000 en 1980, 270 000 en 1935, 405 000 en 1923 . Cet engouement s’explique moins par
l’augmentation du pourcentage de la population intéressée par ces établissements (la proportion est
relativement stable depuis une trentaine d’années), mais plutôt par l’accroissement très important du
tourisme international (privilégiant la visite des plus grands établissements), le renforcement de la
fréquence de visite des publics réguliers, ainsi que l’accroissement général de la population et les
transformations structurelles de sa composition (notamment l’augmentation de la scolarisation). Les
touristes, dans les plus grands musées, représentent plus de la moitié des visiteurs (66%,
actuellement, dans le cas du Louvre).
Ce portrait très sommaire des visiteurs des musées laisse apparaître une image relativement connue
du public des musées. Ce portrait est-il réaliste pour autant ? La relation au visiteur, dans le cadre
développé par la plupart des études de public, est sous-tendue par la logique de marché. Cette
logique dont le prototype actuel le plus spectaculaire est peut-être constitué par le Musée
Guggenheim de Bilbao, est évidemment présente dans la plupart des grands musées américains ou
européens, résultante pragmatique aux désirs de développements des musées et aux restrictions
budgétaires des pouvoirs publics. D’où une certaine connaissance du public, attention intéressée, soit
directement pour mieux en évaluer les perspectives de rentabilité, soit de manière détournée, afin de
perfectionner les expositions pour les rendre plus efficaces et plus attractives. Dans la logique du
marché, la relation entre le consommateur et le producteur se termine aussitôt la transaction conclue
(mis à part les garanties de se faire rembourser en cas de défectuosité de l’objet de la transaction – à
quand les expositions « satisfait ou remboursé ? »). Cette logique caractérise la visite d’un grand
musée, le visiteur y demeure aussi anonyme qu’un client de supermarché. Une fois sorti de
l’établissement, la relation se dissout (sauf lorsqu’il s’agit de savoir s’il reviendra visiter le musée et de
dépenser son argent à la boutique).
Quel rapport entre ce portait et l’expérience d’un petit « écomusée » comme celui décrit par Serge
78
Chaumier ? Celui-ci, situé dans une commune rurale d’environ 3000 habitants et animé par un
groupe d’amateurs soucieux de faire revivre le patrimoine local, au gré des animations diverses
organisées tout au long de l’année, attire près de 10.000 visiteurs par an, constituant ainsi une
attraction locale importante dans la région. Une fraction du public de ce musée possède, sans doute,
des caractéristiques plus ou moins similaires à celles d’autres institutions reconnues, mais peut-on
réduire son public à cette image ? Que dire des habitants du village dont plusieurs participent
bénévolement au fonctionnement de l’institution et dont la famille, les amis, les cercles de
collectionneurs constituent les facettes d’un public autrement particulier ? La relation entre ces
catégories du public et le musée est totalement différente de celle qui est entretenue avec des
touristes d’un jour, voyageurs sans attache.
Si, du point de vue théorique, l’écomusée n’accueille pas de visiteurs (« on reste entre soi ») mais des
usagers, quelle relation peut-on tracer entre ce portrait général du public et celui des participants au
projet écomuséal ? Que dire des usagers de la « casa del museo », antenne du Musée
d’anthropologie de Mexico bâtie dans les bidonvilles ? Que dire des publics du Musée de Niamey au
79
Niger, initié par Pablo Toucet, ou de ceux développés au Mali à l’initiative d’Alpha Oumar Konaré ?
Que dire des projets de musées développés par les amérindiens, en Amazonie ou en Amérique du
Nord, afin de préserver le patrimoine matériel ou immatériel en voie de disparition ? A défaut d’étude
des publics, c’est à partir des textes relatant l’expérience et les motivations pour la création de telles
institutions que se révèle un portrait des publics visés, totalement différent de ceux fréquentant les
grands établissements ou les musées « classiques ». On pourrait tirer des conclusions équivalentes
e
pour les descendants actuels des dime museums du XIX siècle, par exemple les musées du sexe et
de l’érotisme, qui fleurissent un peu partout dans le monde. Force est de constater que la plupart des
études de visiteur ne reflètent que le public d’une catégorie spécifique du musée, soit ceux qui sont
77
GALARD J., Visiteurs du Louvre - Un florilège, Paris, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1993 p. 190. Le tableau
comparatif des fréquentations de musées, à l’exposition internationale de 1937, fait état de 280 00 visiteurs
(BOUCHER F. et al., La muséographie à l’exposition internationale, in L’amour de l’art, juin 1937, p. 7). A
l’époque, plusieurs musées dépassent déjà le million de visiteurs, notamment les Staatliche Museen de Berlin
(1,119), le British Museum (1,195), le Musée en plein air de Skansen/Stockholm (1,366) et l’American Museum of
Natural history de New York (1,871). Les autres données proviennent du Journal des Arts (22 mai 1998 et 22
octobre 2004).
78
CHAUMIER S., Des musées en quête d’identité, Paris, l’Harmattan, 2003.
79
TOUCET P., Le Musée de Niamey et son environnement, in Museum, XXIV, 4, 1972, p. 204-207. ; KONARE
A.O., Des écomusées pour le Sahel : un programme, in Museum, 148, XXXVII; 1985, p. 230-236.
24
les plus institutionnalisés et la plupart du temps les plus grands. Sans doute certains services
nationaux, tels l’Observatoire des publics en France, au travers d’études sur des établissements de
moindre importance (qui ne pourraient se payer, seuls, de telles analyses), offrent-ils la possibilité
d’une vue plus large de la relation du monde des musées avec ses publics. Il n’en reste pas moins
que les initiatives locales, mineures, souvent non subventionnées par les pouvoirs publics, bref à la
marge du système classique des musées, ne sont pas prises en compte dans de telles analyses.
e
En ce début de XXI siècle, la relation du musée avec le public demeure éminemment complexe. Si,
d’un point de vue théorique, les musées « sont créés par le peuple, opérés par le peuple et au service
80
du peuple » , cela ne signifie pas que tous les établissements soient destinés à tous. Si l’on part du
courant dominant, classique, du monde muséal – celui formé par les musées les plus
institutionnalisés, les plus grands et les plus populaires – le public reste majoritairement composé par
une certaine élite, souvent cosmopolite et orientée vers le tourisme culturel. De nombreux
programmes existent pour tenter d’amener les « exclus » (les plus pauvres, les moins valides, les
handicapés, les minorités ethniques) à les fréquenter ; l’existence de ces programmes montre, en tout
état de cause, que ces catégories ne considèrent pas comme allant de soi que le musée soit fait pour
eux. La relation entre les grands musées et le grand public ne doit pas faire non plus oublier que de
nombreux établissements continuent à s’adresser aux artistes et aux chercheurs scientifiques, bien
que ces derniers se sentent de moins en moins souvent à l’aise au sein de l’institution muséale et que
les liens entre le musée et l’université ne sont pas toujours faciles (mais les enquêtes manquent pour
vérifier ces assertions). Le public des musées est aussi constitué par des professionnels, de plus en
plus nombreux, l’évolution des statistiques de l’Icom en témoigne. Certes, ces catégories sont infimes
en face de l’ensemble de la population, mais elles participent encore activement à la construction du
rapport entre le musée et les autres publics. D’une certaine manière, les plus grands musées
éclipsent peut-être, par leur taille et leur résonance médiatique, l’ensemble des autres rapports entre
les musées et les publics. Au travers de l’ensemble du paysage muséal, on peut encore observer
l’ensemble des relations qui se sont manifestées durant les siècles qui ont vu se développer
l’institution : il existe encore des établissements destinés seulement aux enfants (les musées des
enfants), aux étudiants ou aux professionnels (musées d’anatomie et de criminologie), aux érudits
(certains musées universitaires ou liés à des sociétés historiques), aux ouvriers ou aux employés
(certains musées d’entreprise), voire aux habitants d’une communauté (certains écomusées). Il existe
des musées réellement participatifs (de nombreux musées locaux, gérés par des bénévoles), au sein
desquels la relation humaine a plus d’importance que l’objet, ce qui amène forcément une autre
attitude vis-à-vis du public. Il existe aussi des musées dans lesquels la présence du visiteur est à
peine tolérée, et bien sûr des musées lucratifs attirant le public des foires, ou des musées privés à
l’usage exclusif de leur propriétaire et de quelques élus. Beaucoup de ces établissements ne
s’inscrivent pas dans le cadre strict de la définition de l’Icom, loin s’en faut, mais cette définition est
loin de circonscrire l’ensemble du phénomène muséal, et c’est à partir de cet ensemble qu’il convient
d’analyser la réception, par le public, de cette relation spécifique entre l’homme et la réalité, passant
notamment par les musées.
80
SHAH A., The museum – a social institution of the community, in Icofom Study Series, 24, 1994, p. 61.
25
The Adoption of Jean Piaget’s Concepts of Child Cognitive
Development to Object Awareness
in South Korean Museums
Yun Shun Susie Chung – USA
____________________________________________________________
Les grandes personnes m’ont conseillés de laisser de coté les dessins de serpents boas
ouverts ou fermés, et de m’interesser plutôt à la géographie, à l’histoire, au calcul et à la
grammaire. C’est ainsi que j’ai abandonné, à l’age de six ans, une magnifique carrière de
peintre... Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c’est fatigant,
pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des explications. - Le Petit Prince
In Europe and America, the “nuclear family” has become an out-of-date word since la fin de ce siècle.
Families now “come in all shapes and sizes, including single-parent families, blended families,
extended families, and co-parented families”(Dierking 1989: 9). However, for East Asia, particularly
South Korea, which I will direct my strategy towards, the extended family still exists and the nuclear
family is a recent phenomenon with strong bonds. The principal issue that is discussed nowadays is
that more and more women are starting to work either to support the family or eagerly to have a career
of their own while the grandmother, the aunt, or even the nursing center or a professional nanny takes
care of the child in their place. The newest phenomenon that is taking place in South Korea is the
single parent family. According to the Korean National Statistics Office 167,096 cases in 2003 and
59,313 of married couples have the tendency to divorce statistics show. Statistics also show that the
number of birth rates has decreased dramatically since 1993 723,934 to 2003 493,471. The Korean
government is supporting a child for food.
Saturdays are usually half-day work. Families generally tend to spend Sundays for family outings. In
most cases, children are the impetus for parents to take them to museums resulting in enjoyment as a
social outing for themselves, too (Falking & Dierking 1992). Usually when there is a blockbuster exhibit
taking place, they will find the time to go together. At nights, you will find them sitting in front of TV sets
conversing about the episode they are watching. Korea is an apartment culture where living space is
limited. The apartment building, itself, has no aesthetic value, but only a functional purpose. Cultural
outings for the family go beyond the visually aesthetic events (which do not only mean everyone
heads toward art museums since the science of aesthetics connotes a meaning beyond art) (Clark
2000).
Education for their children is a key factor since the beginning of Korean society: the road to prestige
has always been through education. Illiteracy virtually does not exist. Anything that will help them to
learn, parents will do, even to move to a better district or if they have the means sending them to a
foreign country for better education. At a very young age, education in reading, writing, speaking, and
creativity is introduced to the child. Sales representatives soliciting diverse kinds of worksheets for
children starting from the age of 18 months that are sent to the homes daily or weekly are found going
from door to door or even playgrounds where mother and child are found taking their daily outing. By
the age of 3 or 4, the child is sent to institutes for learning how to play the piano or some other subject
such as the computer or English as a second language. Cultural education is not distinguished from
academic education. Therefore, the informal setting and the formal setting are not viewed separately.
In effect, museum visits with the family as well as school groups are characterized as educational
learning. There is only one children’s museum in Korea, Samsung Children’s Museum, and one
gallery for children in the new National Museum of Korea. Apart from the Samsung Children’s
Museum and the Children’s Gallery in the new National Museum of Korea, most exhibits in museums
are targeted at adults. There is a need for existing museums to create exhibits that target children and
as this paper will examine the importance of museums to cater for under five year-olds.
“Il faut quitter avant d’en avoir assez” said a mother to a child in a French museum (Butler & Sussman,
1989, p.35). This example clearly shows the adult as teacher in charge of the child has considerable
influence in affecting the child to regard the museum in a certain way through direct teaching and if the
adult happens to find the museum as a reverential place where one must make a tour in quietude or
even a stuffy place where only certain people in society go to, the child will, in effect, retain such an
26
image (Butler & Sussman, 1989). The adults are the ones who make up the agenda as initiators to
come to a museum and who come with their previous stored knowledge. Depending on how old the
child is, the adult as interpretor will interpret in a way befits the child’s potential to understand the
exhibits. As supporter, the adult will praise the child when the concepts of each object are understood
by saying, “Very good!” and boost the child’s confidence. As mediator, the adult will interpret his or her
knowledge to the child not only throughout the exhibition but the whole museum experience from
orientation to exiting which will include taking the child to the restrooms or even strolling the child in a
buggy as also caretaker. In some museums the adult will show the child how hands-on exhibits work
as demonstrator. With these concepts as the basis, we will explore the children’s development to
object awareness.
In order to make programs or adapt exhibits in museums for the child, we must scrutinize their
capacity to learn about objects and to what degree they facilitate it. Jean Piaget’s theory of child
development have been applied to many museum programs and exhibits and the part that I will
discuss is to point out briefly the development of object awareness of the child for us to better
understand how we can integrate this information to our creations. By focusing on the cognitive theory
of Piaget we can see how the child develops this faculty.
In order to understand his theory, Piaget’s concept of the evolution of cognitive organization is directly
quoted from Henry W. Maier’s book Three Theories of Child Development. According to Maier, the
concept is interpreted by two recurring postulates of Piaget:
1. It is presumed, a priori, that in the organization of effects, causality, space, time, and their
interrelationships, definite patterns of intellectual development already exist.
2. The intellect organizes its own structure by virtue of its experience with objects,
causality, space, time and the interrelationship of these environmental realities. (Maier,
1988, p. 21)
In other words, ”we acquire knowledge to the extent to which we ourselves can discover or make the
thing to be learned,” Maier (1988) sums up (p.21). He also includes what John Dewey has written on
this subject:
We know an object when we know how it is made, and we know how it is made in the
degree in which we ourselves make it. (Maier, 1988, p.21)
This happens with experience from the commencement of life not something that magically happens
the moment the child becomes an adult or some people may account teenage years as the
psychological core to adulthood, but it starts from the second the child comes out into this world from
the mother’s womb and opens his/her eyes (depending on each case) to feel the presence of the
doctor or the nurse, the medical apparatuses, or later, the window full of the family members waving at
the child with awe-inspired faces and expressions, shiny objects, the harsh light of the hospital room
or it could be the soft light of the mother’s room (not frequent these days)- to the real world where
objects and experiences are met and encountered from birth. So why neglect these years as
unessential? Because the child does not vividly remember them? Those years are the essence of the
adult being today. The influence of those years may be good or bad ones neatly stacked away in one
of the drawers to the unconscious mind; as an adult, one behaves upon the objects, people, and the
environment according to the items of experience opening them from the drawers time to time and it is
valuable in activating long-term memory chunks (Alter 1988).
The five phases of Piaget’s (1952) developmental theory deal with the cognitive development of the
child which I will elaborate on the first three phases which covers the first seven years of a child’s life,
most importantly, in accordance with the concept of objects unfolds.
The five phases are:
1. Sensorimotor
2. Preconceptual
3. Intuitive Thought
4. Concrete Operations
5. Formal Operations
Sensorimotor Phase
27
The sensorimotor phase is the period of initial development and manifests the first two years of the
child’s evolution. The first stage, described as “exercises of reflexes,” is marked by the repetitive
experience and rhythmicity during the first month of the child’s life, an important factor in the early care
of the child, which may include playing music (singing a lullaby, humming a tune, or turning on the
mobile for the child while putting him or her to sleep) for the child at certain hours, taking the child for a
stroll, reading a book, going to a museum each week, is just as important as the rudimentary act of
choosing to initially breast feed or bottle feed, to use cloth diapers or disposable ones, to hold and
cradle the child to sleep or leave him/her alone to fall asleep without the adult’s presence is all a part
of repetitive experience and rhythmicity including all the textures, tones, sounds, aroma, taste that
goes with each new experience, during the sequential stages of development in stimuli. During the
“primary circular reactions stage,” the child starts to learn from the process of interaction with the
object rather than from the object itself, then during the “secondary circular reactions stage,” which is a
period approximately from an infant’s fourth to eighth month, the object still does not have a branding
effect on the child’s cognizance; once the object disappears, it is no longer existent. However, from
eight to twelve months, the “stage of secondary schemata,” the child can differentiate the object and
the associated situation. The “tertiary circular reactions stage,” which covers twelve to eighteen
months, objects and the environment are of particular interest to the child and the object is perceived
as separate from the series of actions. In the “invention of new means through mental combinations
stage,” the final stage of sensorimotor development, the child discerns objects as distinct entities
which is disengaged from his/her will.
Preconceptual Phase
In the Preconceptual phase, the period from two to four years old, the object and the environment are
personalized and subject to be discovered for the child which is why he/she is prone to touch every
object in sight especially if it has been “undiscovered.”
The Phase of Intuitive Thought
During the phase of intuitive thought from four to seven years the child retains his/her perception of
even objects that move are living which accounts for fascination in battery-operated toys and for,
sometimes, the equal treatment in objects and humans. Not only do we find this information helpful in
the use of hands-on exhibits since studies have show they are more popular with the children as a
family group, but as an opportunity to divert the notion of the unapproachable, pedestaled object to the
touchable, personal one.
As a result, this theory tells us that the child is able to realize objects at a very young stage with a
clear evidence of the child’s development to perceive objects and understanding them as separate
entities. With further research into this subject, museum professionals should adapt programs and
exhibits accordingly.
Future practice and research of this subject and often underestimated audience is what South Korean
museums should be aiming towards. Furthermore, Piaget’s concepts of child development have been
bases for the foundation of children’s programs and exhibits in “adult” museums as well as children’s
museums. One might say what is the point in observing families in museums and infants; for all that
matters, museums are not centres for psychology. But they are more. The museum for a new century
plans for infants who will, in turn, become adults in the new century or better yet millennium: a place
where more and more families will go on Sundays to encounter(physically), enjoy(socially), and
learn(intellectually) (Krug & Weinberg 1996). Therefore, we must view with what capacity these infants
learn about the object-oriented environment through their family as teacher, initiator, interpretor,
supporter, mediator, caretaker, demonstrator in museums and develop programs and exhibits suitably
so that they will retain more, and devise “strategies for presentation that will ensure clear and
unambiguous object and concept learning to be able for them to personalize them ”(Falk & Dierking
1992: 131).
How can we, in the museum field, make programs and exhibits, the museum environment, in general,
to help the family and child facilitate as a positive enjoying as well as learning experience? Selecting
appropriate objects and theme taking account that the child has hardly any external myths to draw
upon (Alter 1988), through extensive research in coordination with didactics and design, and thorough
evaluation, programs and exhibits can be made suitable for the family and child. This question will also
be dealt with in relation to the museums in Korea since every culture differs in providing for this
audience. “A museum that attends to visitors’ physical needs will be able to address their intellects”:
28
With only one children’s museum in Korea, the rest have insufficient facilities for these VIP visitors
(Falk & Dierking 1992:147). Not only must we think of the programs and the exhibits, but the
orientation area which should have readily available baby buggies as well as elevators since we see
many adults holding them throughout the visit causing double the amount of museum fatigue. Toilet
seats for children and facilities to change diapers and even lounge chairs inside the restrooms for
breast-feeding mothers should be realized. Attention to sanitation for these children should be heeded.
Restaurants should be equipped with high chairs. For labels and written material such as worksheets
(which could be sent to homes with a supplementary survey sheet for parents), careful consideration
of age and height must be made, and hands-on which usually exist in science or children’s museums
must be high probabilities for other kinds of museums as well. Guidebooks for the family to prepare
themselves on what to teach the child should be published. Proper colour choices, lighting, materials,
etc. are all a part of the integration of the museum experience for the truly layman visitor; thus we
must research further into this field. The following are examples of successful programs and projects
already conducted in the Western world and should be models for Korean museums:
1. An “adult” art gallery focuses on children under five.
The Walsall Museum and Art Gallery created a project called Start in Summer 1995 for the often
unincluded audience, three to five year olds. The exhibit is based on the concept of Playscape from
the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis and cooperation from family and nursery schools were given
through front-end evaluation. It was the first interactive art exhibition made for this audience in an art
gallery and aimed towards investigating potentials of the child in encountering art. Adult participation
was required but they tried to limit it as much as possible. According to the writer, “art galleries have
not concentrated on these youngest visitors; reasons may be a fear of the unknown, an unwillingness
to interfere with the aesthetics of the gallery space, a belief that art galleries are adult places for quiet
contemplation unsuitable for young children”(Cox & Cox 1995). The results were that children were
truly enthusiastic in creating art and talking about it. In two weeks time it was fully booked.
2. Museum gift shop takes their youngest visitors seriously; so should exhibits.
A project for colour choices on erasers by children in a museum gift shop was conducted to see what
they preferred (Bitgood & Lockey 1995). Not only did it prove that this choice must also depend on the
age, the item and the quality of item, but also that the staff did have time for doing visitor studies.
Exhibits, as well, should consider the colours that children are more receptive towards.
3. Learning from objects in a museum.
The aim for this study was to find the correlation between the visitors’ learning-style and information
type in museums (Thompson 1992). They defined the visitors’ learning-style according to the person’s
cognitive orientation which was measured as information-processing ability varying from low to high.
When a visitor has a low information-processing ability, he/she has difficulty in fully grasping concepts
compared to the visitor with a high information-processing ability. Nevertheless, the study proved that
highly structured exhibits (ones that have concepts distinctly presented) were more effective for all
types of visitors (including under fives).
4. The Piagetian children’s science gallery.
In May 1988, the Birla Institute and Technological Museum in Calcutta, India opened up the Birla
Children’s Gallery which based its framework from Piaget’s theories by hands-on, mainly physics
exhibits “learning by doing” with interaction with objects, focused on 2 to 7 year olds (Bagchi 1992).
Although children come with their parents, they are on their own once they enter.
5. A separate gallery for the kids at the National Natural History Museum in Leiden.
The National Natural History Museum planned the museum with a gallery for children from 4 to 12
which opened in 1998. It is consisted of a stone baking, a café for animal feeding, and exploring
activities to learn about various subjects through hands-on. It was evaluated in the phase of formative
evaluation and is a good example for all types of museums in the application of concept planning
study, story line testing, formative evaluation, summative evaluation, and critical appraisal.
29
The determinants that make up a child’s museum experience are many: the relationship with the
family, their values, the culture, objects and the environment. By scrutinizing these subjects and one
more to fathom, their capacity to learn about objects, we can determine what kind of effects we can
have on the child, for they are, in fact, receptive and information is unquestionably inputed although
the output may not be so obvious. Thus far, the above-mentioned diverse projects should be weighed
as prototypes for Korean museums as well as others around the world, and those who are a part of
the museum field should doubt no longer about the potentials of these palpitating visitors.
References
Alter, P. (1988). “Exhibit Evaluation: Taking Account of Human Factors.” Curator, 31, 167-177.
Bagchi, S.K. (1992). “The Piagetian Children’s Science Gallery.” Curator, 35, 95-104.
Bergman, A., Mahler, M.S., & Pine, F. (1975). The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant. New York:
Basic Books, Inc.
Bitgood, S. & Lokey, L. (1995). “Children’s Color Choices in a Museum Gift Shop. Visitor
Behaviour, 2, 10.
Brown, C. (1995). “Making the Most of Family Visits: Some Observations of Parents with Children in a
Museum Science Centre. Museum Management and Curatorship, 14, 65-71.
Butler, B.H. & Sussman, M.B. (1989). Museum Visits and Activities for Family Life Enrichment. New
York: Haworth Press Inc.
Clark, D.N. (2000) Culture and Customs of Korea. Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood
Press.
Cox, A. & Cox, M. (1995). “The Under Fives at Walsall Museum and Art Gallery.” Journal of Education
in Museums, 16, 4-5.
Dierking, L.D. (1989). “The Family Experience: Implications from Research.” Journal of museum
education, 14, 9-11.
Duckworth, E. (1990). “Museum Visitors and the Development of Understanding.” Journal of museum
education, 15, 4-6.
Falk, J.H. & Dierking, L.D. (1992). The Museum Experience. Washington, D.C.: Whalesback Books.
Korean National Statistics Office (2003-1970) Vital Statistics.
Krug, K. & Weinberg, C. (1996). “Mission, Money, and Merit: Strategic Decision Making by Nonprofit
Managers”. Worldwide Web Accessed on 15 December 2004
(http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:TR_pmMaLMS8J:www.sauder.ubc.ca/faculty/research/d
ocs/weinberg/missionmoneyPDF.PDF+Krug,+K.+(1996).+For+whom+do+we+do+our+work.+&hl=en).
Maier, H.W. (1988). Three Theories of Child Development. Lanham, MD: University Press of America,
Inc.
Meeter, H. & Verhaar, J. (1989). Project Model Exhibitions. Leiden: Reinwardt Academie.
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. A Museum Guide for Parents of Curious Children: Learning Together
from Objects. Montreal: The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Piaget, J. (1952). The Origins of Intelligence in Children. New York: International Universities Press,
Inc.
Thompson, D. (1992). “Greenglass’ Learning from Objects in a Museum.” Visitor Behaviour, 7: 15.
30
La Adopción de los conceptos de Jean Piaget sobre el
desarrollo cognitivo del nino en relación con el
conocimiento de los objetos en los museos
de Corea del sur
Yun Shun Susie Chung - USA
____________________________________________________________
Las personas mayores me aconsejaron que dejara de lado los diseños de serpientes boas abiertas o
cerradas y que me interesara más bien en la geografía, la historia, el cálculo y la gramática. Es así
como abandoné, a la edad de seis años, una magnífica carrera de pintor… Las personas mayores
jamás comprenden nada por sí solas, y es agotador para los niños darles explicaciones una y otra
vez… El Principito
Tanto en Europa como en América, la “familia nuclear” se ha convertido en una expresión pasada de
moda desde el fin de siglo. Las familias hoy “vienen en todos los formatos y tamaños, incluyendo
familias con padres solteros, familias mixtas, familias extensa y familias co-emparentadas”
(Dierking1989:9). Sin embargo, en el este de Asia y particularmente en Corea del Sur, hacia donde
dirigiré mi estrategia, la familia extensa todavía existe y la familia nuclear es un fenómeno reciente
con fuertes vínculos. El tema principal que se debate en la actualidad se refiere al hecho que más y
más mujeres están comenzando a trabajar, ya sea para mantener a la familia o para tener una
carrera propia, mientras que la abuela, la tía y hasta la guardería infantil o una niñera profesional se
hacen cargo en su lugar del cuidado de su hijo. El último fenómeno que está sucediendo en Corea del
Sur es el de la familia con padres solteros: de acuerdo con la Oficina Nacional Coreana de
Estadísticas, se registraron 167.096 casos en 2003 y 59.313 parejas casadas se divorciaron. Las
estadísticas también muestran que la tasa de natalidad ha decrecido dramáticamente desde 1993,
con 723.934 hasta llegar a 493.471 en 2003, si bien el gobierno coreano toma a su cargo la
alimentación de un hijo.
Los sábados, generalmente se trabaja medio día. Las familias tienden a salir los domingos de
excursión. En la mayoría de los casos, los niños impulsan a sus padres para que los lleven a los
museos, lo que se convierte en un entretenimiento, en una especie de paseo social para ellos
mismos. (Falk & Dierking 1992). Generalmente, cuando tiene lugar una exhibición con mucho éxito de
público, encuentran el tiempo para ir todos juntos, pero las salidas culturales para los integrantes de
la familia van más allá de los eventos estéticos visuales. Por las noches se los encuentra sentados
frente al televisor, conversando sobre el episodio que están viendo. En Corea, el espacio para vivir es
limitado. Las casas de departamentos no tienen valor estético, sólo un propósito funcional. La
educación de los hijos es un factor clave desde los comienzos de la sociedad coreana. El camino al
prestigio ha sido siempre a través de la educación. El analfabetismo prácticamente no existe. Los
padres harán cualquier cosa por ayudar a los hijos a estudiar, incluso mudarse a un mejor distrito o, si
tienen los medios, enviarlos a un país extranjero para que logren una mejor educación.
El niño es introducido a muy temprana edad en la educación para la lectura, la escritura, la
conversación y la creatividad. A la edad de 3 o 4 años es enviado a institutos donde aprende a tocar
el piano o cualquier otra habilidad como manejar la computadora o aprender inglés como segunda
lengua. La educación cultural no se distingue de la educación académica. El marco formal y el
informal no se dan en forma separada. En efecto, las visitas a los museos con la familia como así
también en grupos escolares se consideran aprendizaje educacional.
En Corea sólo hay un Museo de los Niños, el Samsung Children’s Museum y una Galería también
para niños en el nuevo Museo Nacional. Descontando las dos instituciones mencionadas, las
exhibiciones de los museos están dirigidas a los adultos. Es necesario que se realicen exposiciones
para los niños y el objetivo de este documento es precisamente examinar la importancia de los
museos para atender a niños por debajo de los cinco años de edad.
“Il faut quitter avant d’en avoir assez”, (“Tenemos que irnos antes de estar hartos”) dijo una madre a
un niño en un museo de Francia (Butler & Sussman 1989, pág. 35) Este ejemplo muestra a las claras
que el adulto como maestro a cargo de un niño tiene considerable influencia para que mire el museo
31
de una determinada manera a través de la enseñanza directa, y si resulta que considera al museo
como un lugar reverencial que se debe recorrer en silencio, o bien un lugar asfixiante donde sólo van
determinadas personas, el niño retendrá esa imagen (Butler y Sussman 1989). Los adultos, como
iniciadores, son quienes compaginan la agenda para ir al museo y quienes además, van con sus
conocimientos previos. Dependiendo de la edad, el adulto interpretará de manera conveniente el
potencial del niño procurando que comprenda la exhibición. Como apoyo, lo elogiará cuando
comprende los conceptos de cada objeto, diciendo “¡muy bien!” a fin de estimular su confianza en sí
mismo.
Como mediador el adulto volcará sus propios conocimientos en el niño, no sólo a lo largo de la
exhibición, sino de la experiencia total del museo, desde que entra hasta que sale, lo que incluirá
llevarlo a las áreas de descanso e incluso pasearlo en un buggy a la manera de un celador. En
algunos museos el adulto mostrará al niño cómo se manifiestan los objetos de experiencia práctica
(hands-on).
Con estos conceptos como base, exploraremos el desarrollo de los niños para el conocimiento del
objeto.
Para hacer programas o adaptar para el niño las exhibiciones de los museos, debemos observar
detenidamente su capacidad de aprendizaje en relación con los objetos y saber hasta qué grado se le
posibilita hacerlo. La teoría de Jean Piaget sobre el desarrollo del niño fue aplicada en muchos
programas de museos; el punto que desearía debatir en esta oportunidad a fin de comprender mejor
la manera de integrar esa información a nuestras creaciones, se refiere al desarrollo de la conciencia
del objeto en el niño. Focalizando la teoría cognitiva de Piaget podemos observar cómo desarrolla
esta facultad. A efectos de comprender mejor el concepto de Piaget de la evolución de la
organización cognitiva, su teoría, he citado textualmente el libro de Henry W. Maier “Tres teorías
sobre el desarrollo del niño”. De acuerdo a Maier el concepto es interpretado por dos postulados
recurrentes de Piaget :
1. Se presume, a priori, que en la organización de efectos, causalidad, espacio, tiempo y sus
interrelaciones ya existen modelos definidos de desarrollo intelectual.
2. El intelecto organiza su propia estructura por virtud de su experiencia con los objetos, la
causalidad, el espacio, el tiempo y la interrelación de estas realidades del entorno. (Maier 1988:21)
En otras palabras, “adquirimos el conocimiento en la medida en que nosotros mismos podemos
descubrir o hacer aquella cosa que debe ser aprendida” Maier (1988) resumen (p.21). También
incluye lo escrito por John Dewey sobre el tema:
“Conocemos un objeto cuando sabemos cómo está hecho y sabemos cómo está
hecho en la medida en que nosotros mismos lo hagamos.”
Esto sucede con la experiencia desde el principio de la vida y no es algo que sucede mágicamente en
el momento en que el niño se convierte en adulto. Algunas personas pueden considerar los años de
la adolescencia como el meollo psicológico para el paso a la edad adulta, pero ésta en realidad
comienza en el momento en que el niño entra al mundo desde el vientre de su madre y abre sus ojos
hacia el mundo real - donde objetos y experiencias se encuentran desde el nacimiento- para sentir la
presencia del doctor o la enfermera, el instrumental médico y tal vez más tarde, el ventanal donde
asoman los rostros temerosos de los miembros de la familia que lo saludan, los objetos brillantes, la
severa luz del hospital o tal vez la suave luz del cuarto de la madre…
Entonces, por qué desperdiciar esos años como si no fueran esenciales…? ¿Porque el niño no los
recuerda vívidamente…? Esos años son la esencia de lo que será después el adulto. La influencia de
esos años puede ser buena o mala; permanece apilada con esmero en uno de los cajones del
inconsciente, y ya como adulto, aquel niño, que se comporta en relación con los objetos, la gente y el
entorno de acuerdo a su experiencia, cada tanto abre esos cajones para activar trozos de
memoria…(Alter 1988)
32
La Teoría del Desarrollo de Piaget (1952) se divide en cinco fases que tratan la evolución cognitiva
del niño. Me ocuparé aquí de las primeras tres fases, que cubren los primeros siete años en la vida
de un niño y, lo que es más importante, desarrollan el concepto del descubrimiento del objeto.
Las cinco fases son:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Sensomotora
Preconceptual
Pensamiento intuitivo
Operaciones concretas
Operaciones formales
1. Fase sensomotora
La fase sensomotora comprende el período de desarrollo inicial y se manifiesta en los primeros dos
años de la evolución del niño.
La primera etapa, descripta como “ejercicios reflejos” está marcada por la experiencia repetitiva y
rítmica durante el primer mes de la vida del niño -importante factor para tener en cuenta el cuidado
temprano- que puede incluir tocar música, cantar una canción de cuna, tararear una melodía, girar un
móvil cuando se lo acuesta...
Llevar a un niño a ciertas horas a dar una vuelta, leerle un libro o ir al museo cada semana, es tan
importante como el acto rudimentario de elegir la alimentación materna o la mamadera; usar pañales
de género o descartables; acunar al niño en los brazos para dormir o dejarlo dormir solo sin la
presencia del adulto. Todo forma parte de la experiencia repetitiva y rítmica. Incluye también texturas,
tonos, sonidos, aromas, gustos que acompañan cada nueva experiencia durante los niveles
secuenciales del desarrollo con estímulos.
Durante la “etapa primaria de reacciones circulares” el niño comienza a aprender a través de la
interacción con el objeto más que del objeto mismo. Durante la “etapa secundaria de reacciones
circulares”, que abarca aproximadamente el período que va desde los 4 hasta los 8 meses, el objeto
todavía no deja marca en el conocimiento del niño: una vez que desaparece, ya no existe para él/ella.
Sin embargo desde los 8 hasta los 12 meses, la “etapa esquemática secundaria” el niño ya es capaz
de diferenciar el objeto y la situación asociada. La “etapa terciaria de reacciones circulares” cubre de
los 12 a los 18 meses. Los objetos y el entorno cobran particular interés para el niño. El objeto es
percibido por separado de las acciones. Es la “invención de nuevos recursos a través de las
combinaciones mentales”, última etapa del desarrollo sensomotor. El niño ya discierne los objetos
como entidades diferenciadas y separadas o independientes de su voluntad.
2. Fase preconceptual
La fase preconceptual abarca el período que va de los 2 a los 4 años. El objeto y el entorno se
personalizan y están sujetos a descubrimientos por parte del niño, motivo por el cual es proclive a
tocar todos los objetos a la vista, especialmente si son desconocidos.
3. Fase de pensamiento intuitivo
Durante la fase de pensamiento intuitivo, de los 4 a los 7 años, el niño conserva su percepción de los
objetos y hasta considera que aquellos que se mueven están vivos. De allí su fascinación por los
juguetes a batería. Muchas veces da igual tratamiento a los objetos que a los humanos. Encontramos
esta información útil en lo que respecta al uso de objetos de experimentación personal (hands-on
exhibits). Estudios realizados han demostrado que son populares entre los niños que forman parte de
un grupo familiar, como oportunidad de desviar la noción de intocable a la de tocable y personal.
Ante la clara evidencia de su desarrollo para percibirlos y reconocerlos como entidades separadas,
queda demostrado que el niño es capaz de comprender los objetos desde muy temprana edad.
Realizando una mayor investigación sobre este tema, los profesionales de museos estarían
preparados para adaptar en consecuencia los programas de las exhibiciones. Los museos de Corea
del Sur deberían apuntar hacia prácticas e investigaciones sobre este tema y sobre la audiencia, a
menudo subestimada. Por otra parte, cabe destacar que los conceptos de Piaget sobre el desarrollo
33
infantil sentaron las bases de la programación de exhibiciones para niños en los museos de “adultos”
tanto como en los específicos para ellos.
Cuando observamos en los museos las familias con sus niños, deberíamos saber cuál es el propósito
que las lleva. El museo para el nuevo siglo deberá ser planeado para los niños de hoy, que serán, a
su turno, los adultos del nuevo milenio. Cada vez más, el museo será un lugar donde se reúna la
familia los domingos para encontrarse (físicamente), para disfrutar (socialmente) y para aprender
(intelectualmente). (Krug y Weinberg 1996). Por lo tanto, debemos ver con qué capacidad el niño
adquiere el conocimiento de un entorno orientado hacia el objeto -desde el museo y a través de su
familia, convertida a la vez en maestro, iniciador, intérprete, apoyo y mediador- por medio de
programas adecuados, con “estrategias de presentación que aseguren un aprendizaje del objeto y su
concepto claro y sin ambigüedades y que les permita personalizarlo” (Falk & Dierking 1992:131).
¿De qué manera podemos nosotros, desde el campo de los museos, elaborar programas y
exhibiciones que ayuden a la familia y al niño, facilitándoles una positiva diversión al mismo tiempo
que una experiencia de aprendizaje…? Seleccionando objetos y temas apropiados, teniendo en
cuenta que el niño difícilmente tiene mitos externos a los que recurrir. (Alter 1988); realizando
investigaciones intensivas en coordinación con la didáctica y el diseño y a través de la evaluación,
tanto la familia como el niño podrán disfrutar de los programas y exhibiciones indicados.
El punto a continuación debe ser tratado también en relación con los museos de Corea, dado que
cada cultura difiere en lo que ofrece a la audiencia. Se ha dicho que “…un museo que se ocupa de
las necesidades físicas del visitante estará capacitado para dirigirse a su intelecto”. Y con sólo un
museo infantil en Corea, el resto no cuenta con comodidades suficientes para estos visitantes VIP
(Falk & Dierking 1992 : 147). No sólo debemos pensar en los programas y las exhibiciones, también
en el área de orientación donde deben estar disponibles los buggies para los pequeños visitantes,
como también los ascensores, ya que muchos adultos llevan en brazos a sus hijos a través de la
visita, con la consiguiente fatiga de museo... Se deben tener en cuenta especialmente los artefactos
de los baños para niños, los cambiadores e incluso la colocación de sillones en los lugares de
descanso para las madres que amamantan, todo bajo las más estrictas medidas de higiene. Los
restaurants deben estar equipados con sillas altas. En lo referente al material escrito, deberían
publicarse guías para la familia a fin de que se mantengan informados sus miembros y las hojas de
trabajo podrían ser enviadas a la casa con una encuesta complementaria para los padres. La elección
de colores apropiados, luces, materiales, etc. forman parte de la integración de la experiencia del
museo con el visitante realmente lego. Por lo tanto deberíamos investigar más en ese campo.
Los siguientes son ejemplos de proyectos exitosos llevados a cabo en el mundo occidental que
deberían servir de modelo para los museos de Corea.
1. Una galería de arte para “adultos” dirigida a niños de menos de cinco años
En el verano de 1995 el Museo y Galería de Arte Walsall elaboró un proyecto llamado Start,
destinado a la audiencia menuda y muchas veces excluida que oscila entre los 3 y 5 años. La
exhibición está basada en el concepto de Playscape del Museo de los Niños de Indianápolis. Fue la
primera exhibición interactiva especialmente realizada para la audiencia infantil en una galería de arte
y se proponía investigar el potencial del niño al hacer su encuentro precisamente con el arte. Se
requirió la participación de los adultos, procurando limitarla al máximo.”Las galerías de arte nunca se
han concentrado en los visitantes más jóvenes. Las razones deben ser el temor por lo desconocido,
el deseo de no interferir con la estética del espacio y la creencia de que las galerías de arte son
lugares para adultos destinados a la serena contemplación, inadecuados para los más pequeños.
(Cox & Cox 1995). Los resultados fueron sorprendentes. Los niños resultaron realmente entusiastas
para crear arte y en dos semanas estaban todos los lugares reservados.
2. Tienda de regalos del museo toma en serio a sus visitantes más jóvenes
( lo mismo deberían hacer en las exhibiciones)
En la tienda de regalos de un museo se llevó a cabo un proyecto a cargo de los niños, con el objeto
de detectar sus preferencias en la elección de colores para las gomas de borrar (Bitgood & Lockey
1995). No sólo se comprobó que esta elección depende de la edad, el item y su calidad, sino también
que el staff del museo tenía tiempo sobrado para realizar estudios de visitantes. Se concluyó que los
34
objetos expuestos también deben tener en cuenta los colores, para lo cual los niños son más
receptivos que los adultos.
3. Aprendiendo de los objetos del museo
El propósito de este estudio fue encontrar la correlación entre el estilo de aprendizaje de los visitantes
y el tipo de información que ofrece el museo. (Thompson 1992) El estilo de aprendizaje del visitante
se definió de acuerdo con la orientación cognitiva de cada persona, medida como capacidad de
información-procesamiento. El estudio probó que las exhibiciones sumamente estructuradas (las que
incluyen conceptos claramente presentados) son más efectivas para todo tipo de visitantes
(incluyendo aquellos por debajo de los 5 años).
La Galería de Ciencias de los Niños de Piaget
En mayo de 1988 el Instituto Birla y el Museo Tecnológico de Calcuta, India, abrieron la Galería Birla
para Niños en el marco de las teorías de Piaget sobre la experiencia práctica. Fueron principalmente
exhibiciones de física “learning by doing” (aprender haciendo) con interacción con los objetos,
destinadas a niños de 2 a 7 años (Bagchi 1992) Aunque los niños llegan con sus padres, cabe
destacar que una vez que entran deben quedar solos.
5. Una galería separada para los más pequeños en el Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de Leiden,
Holanda.
El Museo Nacional de Historia Natural se planeó incluyendo una galería para niños de 4 a 12 años,
que abrió en 1998. Consistía en un horno de piedra para amasar, un café para alimentar animales y
actividades exploratorias para aprender sobre diversos temas a través de la experiencia práctica. Fue
evaluada en la fase formativa y se la considera un buen ejemplo para todo tipo de museos en lo que
se refiere a la aplicación de estudios de planificación conceptual, evaluación formativa, evaluación
sumativa y apreciación crítica.
Los factores determinantes que componen la experiencia en un museo de niños son muchos: la
relación con la familia, sus valores, la cultura, los objetos y el entorno. Analizando estos temas y
algunos más y su capacidad para aprender acerca de los objetos, podemos determinar qué clase de
efectos se van a producir en el niño, porque de hecho es muy receptivo y la información ingresada
(input) es incuestionable aunque la de salida (output) no sea tan obvia De este modo, los diversos
proyectos arriba mencionados deben ser sopesados como prototipos para los museos de Corea y
también para otros museos del mundo.
Todos aquellos que forman parte de una u otra manera del área de los museos no deben dudar
acerca de las potencialidades de nuestros palpitantes y pequeños visitantes.
Summary English
Given the fact that most public institutions allow children under five to enter free since they are not
seen as individuals but bound to a family, focus on the child and interaction with the family will be a
fundamental concept in order to study the child as an individual museum visitor, a delicate,
undervalued, and untouched subject. In the home and out, 24 hours a day, children, especially under
five years of age, are cared for and never do we find them alone in a museum without guidance from
an adult. Nevertheless, it does not mean that they are incapable of observing, feeling or thinking on
their own, only that they are at a vulnerable stage where learning is through exploring, therefore they
must be lead and taught the proper way to explore. Usually we find either the mother, father,
grandmother, in general, family members to be the ones in charge of what we call ‘child-rearing’ which
incorporates guidance, each moment having a different degree or stage as the child grows. According
to Robert S. Sears’ conception of child development, “child-rearing is a continuous process. Every
moment of a child’s life that he or she spends in contact with his or her parents has some effect on
both his or her present behavior and his or her potentialities for future actions” (Maier 1988:141).
This includes values, beliefs, attitudes, and ways of life that the family members will present to the
child pertaining to objects, people, and the environment which, in turn, will have affect on the museum
35
experience (Butler & Sussman, 1989). This paper explores the adoption of Jean Piaget’s concepts of
child development to object awareness in museums in the South Korea as case study.
Resumen
Dado que la mayoría de las instituciones públicas permite a los niños de menos de cinco años
acceder a ellas en forma gratuita, pues no son vistos como individuos independientes sino ligados a
una familia, focalizar al niño en su interacción con dicha familia será un concepto fundamental para
estudiarlo como un visitante individual del museo, tema delicado, subestimado y casi intacto.
En el hogar y fuera de él los pequeños son cuidados las 24 horas del día, especialmente los menores
de cinco años de edad y nunca los encontramos solos en un museo sin la guía de un adulto. Sin
embargo, esto no significa que sean incapaces de observar, sentir y pensar por sus propios medios,
sólo que están en una etapa vulnerable de sus vidas donde el aprendizaje se realiza a través de la
experiencia, motivo por el cual deben ser guiados para aprender la manera correcta de explorar.
Usualmente encontramos a la madre, el padre o la abuela -en general a los miembros de la familiaencargados de lo que llamamos child-rearing, que incorpora orientación y guía en todo momento,
pero en diferentes grados y etapas a medida que el niño va creciendo.
Según Robert S. Sears, la concepción del desarrollo del niño o child- rearing, es un proceso continuo.
Cada momento en la vida de un niño pasado en contacto con sus padres tiene algún efecto, tanto en
su conducta presente como en sus potencialidades para futuras acciones. (Maier 1988:141). Esto
incluye valores, creencias, actitudes y modos de vida que los miembros de la familia presentarán al
niño, vinculándolos con los objetos, las personas y el entorno y que a su turno, tendrán efecto en la
experiencia del museo (Butler y Sussman, 1989). Este documento refleja un caso de estudio que
explora la adopción de los conceptos de Jean Piaget sobre el desarrollo del niño y su conocimiento
de los objetos en los museos de Corea del Sur.
Translated into Spanish by Nelly Decarolis
36
Assumptions, Expectations and Actual Gallery
Experiences
Ann Davis - Canada
________________________________________________________________________________
What do museum visitors want in a visit to a museum? Perhaps even more importantly, what do nonmuseum visitors want of museums? Can museums understand what attracts and repels visitors? Do
museums today shape value, validate identity and impose order? Do museums today continue their
traditional functions of yielding pleasure, diversion and status? And, if so, how? How do we discuss
the impact of a museum experience? These enormous museological problems provoked this paper, a
paper that only succeeds in probing the very edges of a few aspects of these questions, for it is
1
immediately acknowledged that we have many questions but few answers about museum audience.
This paper, based on work done in a senior undergraduate museum studies course at the
University of Calgary, will concentrate on two factors identified by John Falk and Lynn Dierking as
2
fundamental to museum learning experiences. In their seminal book, Learning from Museums:
Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning, 2000, Falk and Dierking isolate eight key factors, or
3
suites of factors, which they think are fundamental to museum learning experiences. These are:
Personal Context
1. Motivation and expectations
2. Prior knowledge, interests, and beliefs
3. Choice and Control
Sociocultural Context
4. Within group sociocultural mediation
5. Facilitated mediation by others
Physical Context
6. Advanced organizers and orientation
7. Design
4
8. Reinforcing events and experiences outside the museum.
While the University of Calgary students examined all eight factors, only two, numbers 7 and 8, will be
considered here. The decision to restrict this paper to two and to these particular two, was taken
partly on the basis of new information and partly due to space restraints.
I
Background
In the 1970’s and 1980’s museums began to study visitors, surveying visitor demographics.
These surveys sought to analyze visitation by age, race, education, income level, residence location
and other indices. This work identified underserved sectors and helped museums to try to shift their
visitor mix toward one more representative of the general population. While government funders
promoted these forms of diversity as well as the activity of measuring audience diversity, museums
began to try to identify those features which attracted or repelled visitors, “what kinds of displays they
1
For a good overview of the historical and museological background to the problem see Neil Harris, “The Divided
House of the American Art Museum,” Daedatus, Summer 1999, v. 128.
2
MHST 433, winter 2005. The members of this class were Kim Biberich, Rochelle Boehn, Jill Collins, Metaxia
Georgopoulos, Cory Gross, Yukiko Horibe, Julie Labonte, Emily Lux, Kristian McInnis, and May-Lin Polk
3
Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning. (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press,
2000), p. 137.
4
Ibid.
37
found particularly appealing or especially unappealing, what their assumptions, expectations, and
5
actual gallery experiences were like….”
At the same time museum practice and influence was critiqued by the likes of Pierre Bourdieu,
Michel Foucautt and Jacques Derrida, transforming contemporary theories of subjectivity,
representation and otherness. Public institutions, such as hospitals, universities, libraries and
museums, long laying claim to progressive admiration, were now revealed as “disciplinary devices in
6
an extended class war,” institutions enjoying extraordinary power. Aside from specifically privileging
certain classes of objects and dignifying their owners, during the twentieth century museums have
been identified, Neil Harris claims, as “significant social narrators, codifying modernity, organizing
7
history, subduing nature, and ultimately disciplining their visitors.” Donald Preziosi argues that the
museum has become an institution “of astonishingly potent and subtle illusion… one of the most
powerful factories for the production of modernity,” one of the “premier theoretical machineries for the
8
production of the present.”
II
Methodology
During the winter term 2005, the senior seminar in Museum and Heritage Studies was centred
on Falk and Dierking’s book Learning from Museums. Using qualitative research methods, students
were to research and present in a seminar and essay their findings on one of Falk and Dierking’s eight
key factors in museum learning. Based on the premises of inquiry-based learning, each student had
to carry out original research. Each sought ethics approval for using human subjects, isolated a
thesis, identified research methods – usually a combination of observations and interviews, devised
research questions, conducted the observations and interviews in local museums, analyzed the
results and, finally, presented the whole process to class in a seminar and as an essay. Students
were encouraged to be as interdisciplinary as possible.
The results were extraordinary. Each student was asked to go beyond, to probe deeper than
Falk and Dierking had done. Many succeeded. In so doing, they learned a great deal about
museums, although they were not always conscious that they were doing so. Specifically they learned
that we know very little about museum audiences, their learning and their experiences. Students also
discovered how very difficult research is to do. They had subjects who did not turn up, were
disinterested or rushed or fundamentally negative. They encountered museums that did not provide
the programs they advertised. They often uncovered individual museum visitors who, though
educated, were not educated in the specific complexities of museums and simply did not have the
9
words to describe their reactions. They often got unexpected results.
III
Design
th
This section is based primarily on the work of Cory Gross, a 4 year student in MHST 433.
Always dressed in black, sporting many piercings and long hair carefully gelled to stand straight up, it
is not surprising that Cory chose museum design as his research topic.
Place is very important in learning. As Tony Hiss explains
We all react, consciously and unconsciously, to the places where we live and work…
[O]ur ordinary surroundings, built and natural alike, have an immediate and a
10
continuing effect on the way we feel and act, on our health and intelligence.
5
Harris, p. 6.
Ibid., p. 7.
7
Ibid.
8
Donald Preziosi, “Art History, Museology, and the Staging of Modernity,” in Maurice Tuchman, Parallel Visions:
Modern Artists and Outsider Art, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 299-300.
9
For an interesting discussion of the problems of inarticulation in another context, see Malcolm Gladwell, Blink:
The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005).
Here Gladwell, commenting on taste tests between Coke and Pepsi, points out that most of us cannot
categorize and describe two tastes that are quite similar, pp. 184-186.
10
Tony Hiss, The Experience of Place (New York: Knopf, 1990).
6
38
There is, therefore, a strong correlation between physical space or context and feelings, with a
corollary that learning occurs best under conditions of positive affect. As the need to make sense of
the environment is an innate quality of all mammalian brains, the design of space in a museum is an
11
important contributor to learning, to the search for meaning.
Falk and Dierking explain that over the past few decades, exhibition design has undergone a
major revolution in both quality and complexity. Exhibitions are no longer just spaces for displaying
objects. Now they are environments in which visitors experience history, art, nature or science.
Exhibitions, more and more, envelop the visitor in visual, tactile, auditory and even olfactory sensation.
But exhibitions are more than just sensory experiences, the design. They are also intellectual
experiences. Good design alone does not automatically yield a good experience, for the content, the
12
topic must also appeal.
To study exhibition design, Cory Gross asked three people to visit two very different
exhibitions at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary. Observed by Cory, each person visited both
Nitsitapiisinni: Our Way of Life, an ethnographic exhibition exploring the history and culture of the
Blackfoot First Nations of southern Alberta, and Many Faces, Many Paths: The Art of Asia, an art
exhibition of Hindu and Buddhist sculpture.
Gross concluded that, in designing exhibitions, museums designers must start with an
understanding of what visitors were seeking when visiting the museum. Museum objects, in and of
themselves, are negotiable, as Bourdieu et al demonstrate. In the museum context, artifacts are
valuable as instruments for conveying information the visitors want to know and the experience they
want to have. Gross concluded that, although real artifacts have an aura imbued by history and
authority, it is the meaning or meanings the objects convey which interests visitors more than the
objects themselves. Therefore exhibition design must work with artifacts to impart meaning, design
and object should be, Gross claims, integrated “so as to holistically engage the visitor and to facilitate
13
authentic learning and understanding.”
IV
Reinforcing Events and Experiences Outside the Museum
Two students in MHST 433 studied this topic, Yukiko Horibe and Jill Collins. Yukiko, a visiting
student from Japan, was restrained in class discussions, due to her lack of fluidity in spoken English,
yet she clearly followed discussions and determinedly contributed perceptive comments. Jill, a
psychology major who delighted in our qualitative rather than quantitative methodology, works in a
small country museum and was skillfully able to integrate her museum experience and her psychology
studies into this course.
The role of subsequent experience in learning is well known. In studying for an exam, for
example, good students review their notes and the text book, going over material already presented a
second or third time. The greater the number of times material is reviewed, the easier it is to
understand and remember it. Falk and Dierking feel it is important “to make learning experiences
boundless.” This means, then, that “the experience should continue from learners’ innate interests
and experiences and enable them to continue or extend the learning beyond the temporal and
14
physical confines of a single experience.”
Falk and Dierking discuss a study conducted at the
National Aquarium in Baltimore that attempted to monitor what visitors do and retain after their visit to
the museum. This study determined that visitors exiting the aquarium had clearly absorbed the central
message of conservation, and that their understanding of conservation had clearly been both
extended and refined.
Over several months the study revealed that changes in visitors’
understanding, knowledge and interests persisted. What was surprising, distressing really, was that
though the museums experience connected to visitors’ lives following their visit, the visit typically did
not inspire conservation action. As Falk and Dierking noted “It appeared that in the absence of
reinforcing experiences, emotion and commitment had generally receded to the baseline levels
11
Falk and Dierking
Ibid., pp. 127-129
13
Unpublished essay, p. 24.
14
pp. 130-131.
12
39
15
observed when visitors entered the aquarium.”
Another study, conducted at the Washington Park
Arboretum in Seattle, determined that related follow-up activity reinforced some of the concepts
16
presented during the field trip.
The two case studies undertaken by Jill and Yukiko attempted to
follow individual visitors over time, in their cases just a short time, to learn specifically what they do or
do not do after a visit.
Yukiko looked specifically at visitors’ attitudes toward museum shops, examining why
museum visitors visit museum shops. More specifically the case study was designed to investigate
whether museum visitors visit museum shops for learning and whether actions in museum shops
reinforce learning. Yukiko observed and interviewed three fellow students as they visited The Nickle
Arts Museum’s shop and the exhibition Maxwell Bates: At the Crossroads of Expressionism. These
three students, all of whom usually visit the shop after a visit to a museum, found it difficult to articulate
exactly why they visit the shop. But, under Yukiko’s skillful probing and acute analysis, some
interesting reasons emerge. Each student sought specific material related to the exhibition. In this
case, they were disappointed because the exhibition catalogue was not in the gift shop. Actually the
catalogue was prominently displayed on the front desk and sold well. Perhaps these three
participants were too diligent or too narrow in their definition of shop, and did not accommodate
purchases from the front desk. The participants articulated that a visit to the museum shop was like a
“cushion” or like “desert,” after the exhibition. While museum shops usually try to tie into a museum’s
educational goal, this purpose was imperfectly communicated to the participants in the merchandise
available. Economy of scale was certainly part of the reason here: The Nickle Arts Museum does not
attract enough visitors to make it viable to print special post cards or other merchandise for each
exhibition, which typically lasts two months. This study then does not support the thesis that museum
17
visitors visit a museum shop for learning and that museum shop visits reinforce learning.
Jill Collins was interested in how events that occurred outside the museum may reinforce
museum-based learning. Her study involved observing and interviewing five middle-aged people,
three women and one couple, all of whom visited a rural museum. One month after their museum
visit, each participant was interviewed to determine whether and how new knowledge acquired during
a museum visit was re-contextualized into an individual’s schema. Jill determined that, in every case,
substantial learning did occur during the visit to the museum. As well, over the next month each
participant accessed in some way that learning.
Interestingly the source of learning was often lost. Participants remembered information
acquired during their museum visit but, in later activities, did not recall where they had learned that
information. People incorporate new knowledge into what they already know, and did not think about
the source. One participant, for example, learned at the museum that the country singer Wilf Carter is
Canadian. In the interview she was able to produce Wilf Carter’s nationality but not her source for that
18
knowledge.
These three case studies, although very small and restricted in many ways, show that
museums still have a great deal to learn about their audience. We need to consider and to research
much more carefully why and how visitors visit museums, and what they do before and after their visit.
While the research confirms a very strong learning purpose, that learning purpose falls away quite
rapidly after the visitor has left the exhibition and is browsing in the museum shop or going about her
daily activities.
15
Ibid., p. 202
Augustus J. Farmer and John A. Wott, “Field Trips and Follow-up Activities: Fourth Graders in a Public
Garden,” Journal of Environmental Education, Fall 1995, Vol. 27, No. 1.
17
Ibid., p. 131
18
Unpublished essay.
16
40
Conjeturas, Expectivas y Experiencias Actuales en Las
Galerías
Ann Davis – Canada
¿Qué es lo que esperan los visitantes en su visita al museo? Quizá, y más importante aún, ¿qué es lo
que esperan de los museos los no-visitantes?¿Pueden los museos comprender qué es lo que atrae o
repele a los visitantes? ¿Determinan hoy valores, convalidan la identidad e imponen orden?
¿Continúan con sus funciones tradicionales de generar placer, entretenimiento y posición social? Y si
es así, ¿cómo lo logran? ¿De qué manera discutimos el impacto de una experiencia de museo? Estos
grandes interrogantes museológicos provocaron este documento, un documento que sólo conseguirá
su propósito examinando los límites mismos de algunos aspectos de estas preguntas, ya que
sabemos perfectamente que existen muchas preguntas y pocas respuestas sobre el público de
1
museos.
Este artículo, basado en el trabajo realizado en un curso de estudios museológicos de estudiantes
universitarios superiores de la Universidad de Calgary, se concentrará en dos factores identificados
por John Falk y Lynn Dierking que son fundamentales para las experiencias de aprendizaje en los
2
museos. . En su libro, Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning, 2000,
de gran influencia en la evolución de nuevas ideas, Falk y Dierking aíslan ocho factores clave o serie
3
de factores que consideran imprescindibles para las experiencias de aprendizaje en el museo , a
saber:
El contexto personal
1. Motivaciones and expectativas
2. Conocimientos, intereses y creencias previos
3. Selección y control
Contexto socio-cultural
4. Intervención socio-cultural del grupo
5. Intervención facilitada por otros
Contexto físico
6. Organizadores y orientación avanzados
7. Diseño
4
8. Fortalecimiento de hechos y experiencias fuera del museo
Si bien los estudiantes de la Universidad de Calgary examinaron los ocho factores mencionados, aquí
sólo consideraremos los números 7 y 8. La decisión de restringir este documento al análisis de dos de
ellos, y de estos dos en particular, fue tomada sobre la base de ofrecer nueva información respetando
las limitaciones de espacio.
1.
Antecedentes
En las décadas del 70 y el 80 los museos comenzaron a estudiar a los visitantes sobre la base de
encuestas demográficas. Estos estudios buscaban evaluar las visitas por edad, raza, educación,
ingresos, lugar de residencia y otros índices. Los trabajos identificaron sectores carenciados y
1
Para una buena apreciación de los antecedentes históricos y museológicos del problema, ver Neil Harris, “The
Divided House of the American Art Museum”, Daedatus, Verano 1999, v. 128.
2
MHST 433, winter 2005. Los miembros de esta clase eran Kim Biberich, Rochelle Boehn, Hill Collins, Metaxia
Georgopoulos, Cory Gross, Yukiko Horibe, Julie Labonte, Emily Lux, Kristian McInnis, and May-Lin Polo.
3
Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning. (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press,
2000), p. 137.
4
Ibid.
41
ayudaron a los museos a encauzar su mezcla de visitantes hacia otra más representativa de la
población en general. En tanto que los patrocinadores del gobierno promovían estas formas de
diversidad tanto como la medición de la heterogeneidad de audiencias, los museos comenzaron a
tratar de identificar aquellas características que atraían o repelían a los visitantes, “qué tipo de
presentaciones consideraban particularmente atractivas o de lo contrario poco atractivas; cómo eran
5
sus conjeturas, expectativas y experiencias reales en las galerías…”
Al mismo tiempo, la praxis museológica y su influencia eran juzgadas por personas como Pierre
Bourdieu, Michel Foucault y Jacques Derrida, transformando las teorías contemporáneas de la
subjetividad, la representación y la otredad. Instituciones públicas tales como hospitales,
universidades, bibliotecas y museos, que desde hacía mucho tiempo clamaban por lograr una
progresiva admiración, se revelaban ahora como “modelos disciplinares en una extendida guerra de
6
clases,” y como instituciones que disfrutaban de un poder extraordinario.
Aparte de privilegiar específicamente cierta clase de objetos y dignificar a sus propietarios, durante el
siglo XX los museos fueron identificados -afirma Neil Harris- como “significativos narradores sociales
que codifican la modernidad, organizan la historia, someten la naturaleza y, finalmente, disciplinan a
7
sus visitantes” . Donald Preziosi argumenta que el museo ha devenido una institución “de asombrosa,
potente y sutil ilusión… uno de las más poderosas fábricas para la producción de la modernidad”, una
8
de las “primeras maquinarias teóricas para la producción del presente” .
2.
Metodología
Durante el período invernal de 2005, el Seminario Superior sobre “Museos y Estudios de Patrimonio”
estuvo centrado en el libro de Falk and Dierking Learning from Museums. Aplicando el uso de
métodos de investigación cualitativos, cada estudiante debió investigar y presentar en un seminario y
en un ensayo, sus hallazgos sobre uno de los ocho factores clave de Falk & Dierking acerca del
aprendizaje en los museos. Apoyándose en las premisas de aprendizaje basado en la indagación, los
estudiantes debieron realizar una investigación original. Cada uno de ellos buscó aprobación ética por
tener que utilizar sujetos humanos; preparó una tesis; identificó métodos de investigación
(generalmente una combinación de observación y entrevistas); planeó preguntas; condujo las
observaciones y las entrevistas en los museos locales; analizó los resultados y finalmente, presentó
todo el proceso para clasificar en un seminario y un ensayo. Los estudiantes fueron impulsados a ser
lo más interdisciplinarios posible.
Los resultados fueron extraordinarios. A cada estudiante se le solicitó que fuera más lejos aún, que
calara más profundamente que Falk & Dierking. Muchos tuvieron éxito. Al hacerlo, aprendieron
muchas cosas sobre museos, si bien no siempre eran conscientes de que lo estaban haciendo.
Específicamente, aprendieron que sabemos muy poco sobre los públicos de museos, su aprendizaje
y sus experiencias. También descubrieron lo difícil que es realizar una investigación. Había sujetos
que no podían ser hallados y otros que carecían de interés por el tema, estaban apurados o eran
fundamentalmente negativos. Encontraron museos que no proveían los programas que anunciaban y
a menudo se toparon con visitantes individuales que, aunque educados, no lo eran en lo relativo a las
complejidades específicas de los museos y que simplemente no encontraban las palabras necesarias
9
para describir sus propias reacciones. Muchas veces también obtuvieron resultados inesperados.
3.
Diseño
5
Harris, p. 6.
Ibíd..
7
Ibíd..
8
Donald Preziosi, “Art History, Museology, and the Staging of Modernity”, en Maurice Tuchman, Parallel Visions.
Modern Artists and Outsider Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 299-300.
9
Para una interesante discusión sobre los problemas de inarticulación en otro contexto, ver Malcolm Gladwell,
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005).
Aquí Gladwell, comentando los tests de sabor entre Coke y Pepsi, destaca que la mayoría no puede categorizar
ni describir dos gustos que son casi similares, pp. 184-186.
6
42
to
Esta sección se basa en el trabajo de Cory Gross, un estudiante de 4 Año de MHST 433. Siempre
vestido de negro, con largos cabellos cuidadosamente engominados para mantenerse tiesos y
erectos, no es sorprendente que Cory haya elegido el diseño como tema de investigación.
El lugar es muy importante para el aprendizaje. Como lo explica Tony Hiss:
Todos reaccionamos, consciente o inconscientemente, en relación con los lugares
donde vivimos y trabajamos… Nuestro entorno, tanto construido como natural, posee
un efecto inmediato y continuo en nuestra manera de sentir y de actuar, en nuestra
10
salud e inteligencia.
Existe, por lo tanto, una fuerte correlación entre el espacio físico o contexto y los sentimientos, con el
corolario que el aprendizaje es mejor bajo condiciones positivas de afecto. Así como la necesidad de
cobrar conciencia del entorno es una cualidad innata del cerebro de los mamíferos, el diseño del
espacio en un museo es una importante contribución para el aprendizaje y para la búsqueda de
11
significados .
Falk & Dierking explican que en las últimas décadas el diseño de la exhibición ha sufrido una gran
revolución, tanto en calidad como en complejidad. Las exhibiciones han dejado de ser sólo espacios
para exponer los objetos. Ahora son entornos en los que los visitantes experimentan la historia, el
arte, la naturaleza o la ciencia. Cada día más, las exposiciones envuelven al visitante en sensaciones
visuales, táctiles, auditivas y hasta olfativas que son mucho más que simples experiencias sensibles:
son también experiencias intelectuales. El buen diseño sólo no reditúa automáticamente una buena
12
experiencia. El contenido y el tema también deben llamar la atención.
Con el objeto de estudiar el diseño de la exhibición, Cory Gross pidió a seis personas que visitaran
dos exhibiciones, muy diferentes entre sí, en el ‘Glenbow Museum’ de Calgary. Bajo la mirada de
Cory, cada persona visitó Nitsitapiisinni: our way of life, exposición etnográfica que explora la historia
y la cultura de las primeras naciones de Pies Negros del sur de Alberta, y Many faces, many paths:
the art of Asia, una exposición de arte escultórico hindú y budista.
Gross concluyó que, al diseñar las exhibiciones, los encargados de esa tarea deben comenzar por
comprender lo que está buscando el visitante cuando recorre el museo. Si bien los objetos de museo
en sí mismos son negociables, como demuestran Bourdieu et al, en el contexto del museo los
artefactos son valiosos en su calidad de instrumentos para transmitir la información que desean
conocer los visitantes y ofrecer las experiencias que desean incorporar. Gross llega a la conclusión
que aunque los artefactos reales poseen además de autoridad un aura imbuida por la historia, más
que el objeto en sí mismo, es el significado o los significados que transmite lo que interesa a los
visitantes. Por lo tanto, el diseño de la exposición debe trabajar con los artefactos para impartirles
significación. El diseño y el objeto deben estar integrados, afirma Gross, “de tal manera que
13
comprometan al visitante holísticamente y faciliten una comprensión y un aprendizaje auténticos.”
4.
Reforzando eventos y experiencias fuera del museo
Dos estudiantes del MHST 433 investigaron este tema: Yukiko Horibe y Jill Collins. Yukiko, una
estudiante de Japón, limitada en las discusiones en clase debido a su falta de fluidez para expresarse
en inglés, pero capaz de seguir sin dificultad las discusiones generales, a las que contribuía con
comentarios sagaces y perceptivos y Jill, una psicóloga que encontraba deleite en nuestra
metodología cualitativa más que en la cuantitativa, que trabaja en un pequeño museo de campaña y
resultó hábil y competente para integrar en el curso su experiencia museológica y sus estudios de
psicología.
El rol que juega en el aprendizaje la experiencia subsiguiente es bien conocido. Al estudiar para un
examen, por ejemplo, los buenos estudiantes revisan sus notas y el libro de texto e inspeccionan
rápidamente por segunda y tercera vez el material ya presentado. Cuanto mayor es la cantidad de
10
Tony Hiss, The Experience of Place New York: Knopf, 1990).
Falk and Dierking.
12
Ibíd., pp. 127-129.
13
Ensayo sin publicar, p. 24.
11
43
veces que el material es revisado, más fácil es comprenderlo y recordarlo. Falk & Dierking,
precisamente, consideran importante “hacer que las experiencias de aprendizaje sean ilimitadas”.
Esto significa que “la experiencia debería continuar a partir de los intereses innatos de los aprendices
y permitirles continuar o extender el aprendizaje más allá de los confines temporales y físicos de
14
una experiencia singular” . Falk & Dierking analizaron un estudio realizado en el Acuario Nacional de
Baltimore que pretendía monitorear lo que los visitantes hacen y retienen después de la visita al
museo. Este estudio determinó que quienes salían del Acuario habían recibido con claridad el
mensaje central de conservación y que su nivel de comprensión acerca de la conservación había
sido a la vez amplio y claro.
Después de varios meses, el estudio reveló que existían cambios en la comprensión, conocimiento e
intereses de los visitantes. Lo sorprendente -y realmente inquietante- fue observar que, si bien la
experiencia del museo se conectaba con la vida de los visitantes a partir de su visita, ésta última no
les había inspirado ninguna acción conservacionista. Como Falk y Dierking hicieron notar,
“…pareciera ser que en ausencia de experiencias reforzadoras, la emoción y el compromiso suelen
15
retroceder hasta los niveles de base observados cuando entraron al Acuario” . El otro estudio,
llevado a cabo en el Jardín Botánico de Washington Park en Seattle, determinó que la actividad
conexa de seguimiento refuerza algunos de los conceptos presentados durante el recorrido de
16
campo . Los dos casos de estudio llevados a cabo por Jill y Yukiko, trataron de seguir a los visitantes
individuales a través del tiempo -en este caso sólo por un corto lapso- para observar específicamente
lo que hacen o dejan de hacer después de su visita.
Yukiko se dedicó especialmente a observar la actitud de los visitantes en relación con las tiendas de
los museos, examinando por qué las visitan. El caso de estudio fue específicamente diseñado para
investigar si se visitan para aprender y si las acciones en las mismas refuerzan o no dicho
aprendizaje. Yukiko observó y entrevistó a tres estudiantes, condiscípulos suyos, mientras realizaban
su visita en la tienda del ‘Nickle Arts Museum’ y la exposición Maxwell Bates: En la encrucijada del
expresionismo. Estos tres estudiantes, como todos los que usualmente visitan la tienda después de
un recorrido por el museo, encontraron difícil expresar exactamente por qué lo hacían. Pero bajo el
agudo análisis y el diestro interrogatorio de Yukiko emergieron algunas razones interesantes. Cada
estudiante buscaba allí material específico relacionado con la exhibición. En este caso, estaban
desilusionados porque el catálogo de la exposición no se encontraba en la tienda de regalos. En
efecto, el catálogo estaba desplegado en el mostrador del frente y se vendía muy bien. Tal vez estos
tres participantes fueron demasiado diligentes o muy estrechos en su definición de la tienda y no
evaluaron las adquisiciones del mostrador.
Los participantes dijeron que una visita a la tienda del museo es como un “amortiguador” o como el
“postre” después de la exhibición. Si bien las tiendas de los museos tratan generalmente de enlazarse
con el objetivo educacional del museo, este propósito no fue correctamente comunicado a los
participantes en relación con la mercadería disponible. Ciertamente, la economía de escala fue parte
de la razón: The Nickle Arts Museum no atrae lo suficiente a los visitantes como para hacer viable
imprimir postales especiales u otras mercaderías para las exhibiciones, que generalmente duran dos
meses. Este estudio, por lo tanto, no respalda la tesis de que el público visita la tienda del museo
17
para aprender ni que las visitas a la tienda del museo refuerzan el aprendizaje.
Jill Collins, por su parte, estaba interesada en la manera en que los eventos ocurridos fuera del
museo pueden llegar a reforzar el aprendizaje en el mismo. En su estudio observó y entrevistó a
cinco personas de mediana edad, tres mujeres y una pareja. Todos ellos visitaron un museo rural. Un
mes después de la visita, cada participante fue entrevistado para determinar de qué manera los
nuevos conocimientos adquiridos durante la visita al museo fueron recontextualizados en un esquema
individual. Jill determinó que en todos los casos se produjo un aprendizaje sustancial durante la visita
al museo. Asimismo, al mes siguiente, cada participante dio información, en cierta manera, de ese
aprendizaje.
14
Pp. 130-131.
Ibíd.., p. 202.
16
Augustus J. Farmer y John A. Wott, “Field Trips and Follow-up Activities: Fourth Graders in a Public Garden”,
Journal of Environmental Education, Fall 1995, Vol. 27, nº 1.
17
Ibíd., p. 202.
15
44
Es interesante constatar que generalmente la fuente de conocimientos se pierde. Los participantes
recordaban la información adquirida durante su visita al museo pero, en actividades posteriores, no
recordaban dónde habían obtenido dicha información. Las personas incorporan nuevos
conocimientos junto a los que ya poseen, pero no piensan en la fuente. Un participante, por ejemplo,
aprendió en el museo que el cantante country Wilf Carter es canadiense. En la entrevista, se
encontraba en condiciones de decir la nacionalidad de Wilf Carter pero no la fuente de este
18
conocimiento.
Estos tres casos de estudio, aunque pequeños y restringidos, demuestran que los museos todavía
tienen mucho que aprender sobre su audiencia. Necesitamos considerar e investigar con mayor
cuidado por qué y cómo el público visita los museos y lo que hace antes y después de su visita.
Mientras por un lado la investigación confirma la existencia de un fuerte propósito de aprendizaje,
ese mismo propósito decae rápidamente después que el visitante ha dejado la exhibición y se
encuentra curioseando en la tienda del museo o preocupándose por sus actividades diarias.
Translated to Spanish by Nelly Decarolis
18
Ensayo sin publicar.
45
Museología, Interpretación y Comunicación:
El Público de Museos
Nelly Decarolis - Argentina
_______________________________________________________
El momento crítico de la praxis es
seguramente un momento teórico.
Paul Ricoeur
I. A manera de introducción
“Es difícil concebir un universo en que los seres humanos se comuniquen sin lenguaje verbal […]
pero igualmente difícil es concebir un universo en que los seres humanos sólo emitan palabras […]
En un mundo servido solamente por las palabras, sería muy difícil mencionar las cosas” (Eco: 1992)
“El lenguaje verbal se puede definir como el sistema modelador primario (Lotman, 1967) del que los
demás lenguajes son variaciones. Es el artificio semiótico más potente que el hombre conoce; le
permite traducir sus pensamientos, motivo por el cual hablar y pensar son zonas preferentes de la
investigación semiótica. No obstante, existen diferentes modos de producción de signos que
presentan un tipo de relación con su contenido que marca diferencias constitutivas con respecto a los
signos verbales. Son contenidos expresados por unidades no verbales sino visuales o de
comportamiento, transmisibles por artificios no lingüísticos, capaces de abarcar porciones del espacio
semántico general que la lengua hablada no siempre consigue tocar. Percepciones estructuradas y
descriptibles sistemáticamente como tales o como comportamientos, hábitos, sentimientos que
exigen investigaciones más amplias dentro del estado actual de la semiótica ya que se pueden
1
expresar pero no comunicar verbalmente.”
En este contexto cabe recordar que “...lo que se sabe de la percepción -y especialmente de la visióndemuestra que los notables mecanismos por los cuales los sentidos comprenden el medio son casi
idénticos a las operaciones que describe la psicología del pensar y que el pensamiento
verdaderamente productivo, en cualquiera de las áreas de la cognición, tiene lugar en el reino de las
imágenes […] La acción de “mirar” está compuesta por una serie de acciones interdependientes a
través de las cuales se otorga sentido a ciertos elementos específicos […] La percepción visual es
pensamiento visual y el papel que le cabe al pensamiento perceptual en las artes y en otros dominios
conexos ofrece la posibilidad de una nueva perspectiva respecto al aislamiento y el abandono a que
2
estuviera condenado en la sociedad y en la educación”.
II. El museo y sus públicos: nuevos paradigmas de comunicación, interpretación y aprendizaje
Frente a las nuevas ideas, movimientos, tendencias y orientaciones, el museo puede ser considerado
como una verdadera avanzada por su espíritu crítico que lo convierte en no conformista y le da mayor
apertura y sensibilidad, allí donde el objeto musealizado “…está abierto como un ‘campo’ de
posibilidades interpretativas […] de tal modo que el usuario se ve inducido a una serie de lecturas
3
siempre variables, como constelación de elementos que se prestan a varias relaciones recíprocas.”
Se habla mucho de interdisciplinariedad a la hora de abordar críticamente las múltiples dimensiones
de la teoría y la praxis museal. Una metodología interdisciplinaria permite tender puentes entre las
distintas culturas y reconectar áreas que la investigación tradicional había separado en
compartimentos estancos, aún cuando continuasen vinculadas en el devenir histórico. La dimensión
crítica del trabajo teórico interdisciplinario logra conexiones imprevistas, pero a la vez necesita abrir
1
Eco, Umberto. Los límites de la interpretación. Editorial Lumen S.A. Barcelona. 1998.
Arnheim, Rudolph. El pensamiento visual. Editorial.EUDEBA. Buenos Aires. 1976
3
Eco, Umberto: Obra Abierta. Editora Espasa Calpe Argentina. Argentina. 1993
2
46
brechas en la superficie de lo establecido, necesita nuevos espacios en busca de la raíz de los
problemas que se encuentran en contextos ya dados. La teoría puede cambiar nuestra forma de ver
el mundo y hacer visible lo que hasta hoy parecía invisible.
Determinadas construcciones simbólicas de la cultura reclaman interpretaciones susceptibles de
entrar en conflicto porque, como dice Ricoeur “…la posibilidad de un conflicto de interpretación es
intrínseca al proceso mismo de interpretación.”
El método interpretativo conjuga distintos puntos de vista y distintas áreas de conflicto y reinterpreta
territorios continuamente pre-interpretados. Interpretar es dar forma a un punto de vista, es también
realizar una toma de postura abierta a la crítica y al debate.
Los múltiples desafíos que plantea la interpretación en el museo son el reflejo de las tensiones
existentes entre las diferentes funciones que le son propias y sus roles de mayor alcance. La
pregunta es, ¿pueden los museos encontrar un justo equilibrio entre sus diferentes roles? ¿procuran
realmente hacerlo…?
Gran parte de las experiencias e investigaciones desarrolladas durante los últimos años en el ámbito
museal han fortalecido la dimensión pedagógica del museo, sustentada en su poder de convocatoria
y comunicación. Como consecuencia, el público ha asumido un protagonismo innegable, dejando de
ser un espectador pasivo para convertirse en un actor relevante y hoy asistimos al surgimiento de un
nuevo campo de investigación: el estudio de públicos y sus condiciones de aprendizaje a través del
museo.
Se plantean, no obstante, serios problemas que deben ser resueltos, tanto en el plano de la relación
sujeto-objeto (percepción e interpretación) como en el de una estructura adecuada y válida para todo
tipo de visitantes.
Los cambios sustanciales en la actitud de los museos forman parte integrante de la tan mentada
renovación museológica, que se apoya en los múltiples y acelerados cambios sociológicos y
tecnológicos acaecidos en las últimas décadas del siglo XX. Es encomiable constatar los esfuerzos
que realizan para proyectar sus contenidos en su entorno social y comunitario, respetando la realidad
del “otro cultural” y la sensibilidad del público a quien va dirigida la experiencia del museo y por ende
su mensaje.
En el momento actual, gran parte de la investigación está centrada en el público visitante, cualquiera
sea la planificación de las actividades culturales y educativas de cada museo. ¿Por qué la gente va a
los museos y por qué algunas personas los evitan? ¿Qué hacen cuando están allí y de qué manera
pueden los museos crear impactos a largo plazo en los visitantes? ¿Cuál es la responsabilidad ética
de los museos hacia aquellos ciudadanos que no los visitan, los no-visitantes? ¿Cuál es la naturaleza
del aprendizaje a través del museo y de qué manera resulta pertinente a su misión?
“Visitar museos y lugares similares es una de las actividades más populares para el tiempo libre […]
La adquisición de conocimientos responde a dos condiciones determinadas: una compulsiva (cuando
se está obligado a aprender); la otra responde a la libre elección (cuando se desea aprender). Esta
dicotomía, como muchas similares, no se encuentra siempre bien delineada, si bien separa
definitivamente en dos grupos las experiencias de aprendizaje. Uno, responde a la educación
obligatoria y sistemática; otro, a la libre elección y es aquí donde la adquisición de conocimientos se
realiza sólo por el deseo de aprender, como entretenimiento o cuando se siente el llamado de una
motivación interna. Es éste el tipo de aprendizaje que motiva a curiosear en un sitio web de museos o
a mirar el Discovery Channel o a viajar a lejanos países para explorar antiguas ciudades, bosques
tropicales o arrecifes de coral […] Hoy la gente considera cada vez más necesario y ameno
comprometerse activamente y a sabiendas con un aprendizaje basado en la libre elección. Los
visitantes de museos aprecian más lo que aprenden a través de la exploración y el descubrimiento de
4
cosas nuevas y otorgan un gran valor al hecho de hacer algo que valga la pena en su tiempo libre.”
“La mayoría de las personas que van a los museos piensan que la educación es un importante
proceso que dura toda la vida y que les permite, tanto a ellos como a sus hijos, ampliar sus horizontes
de conocimiento. […] Los individuos que van a los museos han elegido sacar el mayor partido posible
4
Falk, J.H. & Dierking, L.D. The museum experience. Washington D.C.Whalesback Books. 1992.
47
de su concreto interés por un área determinada de la ciencia, la historia, el arte… […] Intuyen que la
visita satisfará una necesidad poderosa y personal: la de adquirir más conocimientos sobre un tema
particular en un área determinada de su interés. Por otra parte, gran parte de la conducta personal del
individuo se ve influida por las experiencias de su temprana niñez. […] Los públicos de museos, ya
sean familias, adultos en pareja o personas solas, concuerdan en algunos de sus juicios: 1) el mejor
museo es aquél que presenta mayor variedad de material interesante dirigido a grupos de diferentes
edades, niveles educacionales y técnicos e intereses personales. 2) los visitantes esperan sentirse,
de alguna manera, mentalmente involucrados con lo que ven; en otras palabras, esperan poder
conectarse personalmente con los objetos, ideas y experiencias presentadas y a menudo también
esperan poder hacer algo más que contemplar los objetos, tal vez hasta llevar a cabo algún tipo de
participación física y 3) las personas que visitan los museos en grupo ansían tener la oportunidad de
5
una experiencia compartida…”
Falk & Dierking consideran que lo que hace atractiva una visita al museo no siempre es igual para
todas las personas: algunos prefieren las experiencias prácticas (hands-on o touching); otros indican
el deseo de una presencia humana en las galerías, capaz de proveer explicaciones; muchos se
refieren al rol que las nuevas tecnologías pueden desempeñar en relación con el estímulo de la
interactividad. Y surge aquí un tema universal: todas las opiniones reflejan de una manera u otra la
necesidad de la existencia de una relación recíproca, en la cual se le ofrezcan al visitante
posibilidades de elegir, de resultar involucrado y de participar activamente en la experiencia.
El público busca exhibiciones interesantes e informativas que concuerden con sus necesidades, sus
conocimientos y experiencias previas, pero también tiene otras expectativas, porque no todos los
visitantes de museos se acercan con la mera intención de aprender. (Hood and Roberts: 1994) Varios
estudios han documentado que, más allá del contenido, los museos proporcionan oportunidades
para la interacción social y para escapar de la acostumbrada rutina del mundo del trabajo cotidiano.
(Graburn, 1977; Yellis, 1985). Familias, individuos y estudiantes visitan los museos y otras
instituciones comunitarias por diversas y múltiples razones que incluyen el tiempo libre, la educación
y la curiosidad; los adultos se acercan al aprendizaje con una serie de experiencias y conocimientos
construidos a lo largo de toda su vida; en cuanto al público que asiste a los museos y centros de
ciencias con preferencia, tiene generalmente la expectativa de encontrar algún tipo de experiencia
multimedial. Tales experiencias constituyen, cada vez más, una esperada opción para aquellos
visitantes de museos que aprecian el uso de los multimedia porque reconocen que las computadoras,
los CD ROM y otras tecnologías son capaces de ofrecer mayor variedad y profundidad en la
información recabada, como así también opciones que facilitan sus elecciones para la visita. Pero, del
mismo modo que muy pocos son los que leen todas las cédulas informativas o contemplan todos los
objetos, no todos interactúan con los elementos de la tecnología. Por un lado, un determinado
número de visitantes se entusiasma con la interactividad que provee la computadora. Por otro,
muchos visitantes no muestran ningún interés por el uso de la tecnología y prefieren pasar su tiempo
contemplando los objetos, ya que suelen usar las computadoras toda la semana en el hogar o en el
trabajo.
Los grandes usuarios de los medios tienden a ser los visitantes más jóvenes y el género es siempre
un factor interesante, aunque no una variable directa cuando se trata del uso de la tecnología.
Aunque más varones que mujeres son usuarios directos de la computadora, ambos géneros se
encuentran igualmente representados como usuarios indirectos. (Pawlukiewicz, Bohling & Doering,
1989).
El modelo de visitante interactivo de los investigadores de museos Falk y Dierking enfatiza que para
comprender la experiencia total del visitante, es necesario volver la mirada hacia un dinámico proceso
que se produce en la intersección de tres contextos superpuestos, cada uno de los cuales influye en
la experiencia de aprendizaje de cada visitante:
1. “el contexto personal, que incluye la experiencia previa del visitante, sus conocimientos,
inquietudes, motivaciones e intereses y las expectativas que, en mayor o menor grado, genera la
visita al museo en cada uno de ellos;
5
Paris, Scott. Syllabus on “Museum Education and Learning”. The Informal Learning Review 1999-0304-b
48
2. el contexto social que plantea quién es el visitante o con quien entra en contacto, lo cual incluye el
personal del museo o bien otros visitantes. Ya que el aprendizaje en los museos es en su mayor parte
una actividad social, se destaca la necesidad de investigar el contexto social.
3. El contexto físico se refiere al entorno del museo, la estructura y ambientación del edificio, la
disposición de los objetos, los tipos de exhibición, olores, sonidos, perspectivas y servicios tales
como baños, cafés y tiendas.” (Falk & Dierking, 1992)
En la actualidad, los conceptos sobre teoría del aprendizaje han sufrido importantes cambios. Giran
generalmente alrededor de la idea de que los más importantes temas involucrados en un aprendizaje
comprensivo derivan del análisis de las acciones del aprendiz más que de la indagación de la
naturaleza del sujeto a ser estudiado. Es el estudioso quien elabora significados a partir de su propia
experiencia y lo hace de una manera “constructivista”. (George Hein).
“La exploración total de los significados que brindan los museos, las posibilidades de aprendizaje que
ofrecen las exhibiciones, las innumerables formas en que los visitantes logran dar sentido a sus
experiencias, hacen imprescindible ampliar nuestros métodos de evaluación y trabajo realizando más
estudios abiertos sobre las experiencias de público, basados todos ellos en investigaciones de
campo.” (Geertz, 1983)
Sólo o acompañado, el visitante de museos mira y examina los objetos de manera reflexiva en un
juego de acciones e interacciones destinado a construir significados que otorgan sentido a las obras
expuestas y a la presentación en general. La mirada representa un elemento importante en su
actividad, pues le permite percibir el objeto expuesto. Pero la mirada solo puede capturar la
superficie, paso previo al descubrimiento y el examen, al “encuentro” profundo con el objeto
expuesto que se establece posteriormente y de diversas maneras.
III. Conclusión
Quedan aún flotando en el espacio del museo preguntas sin respuestas: ¿influye o modifica la
conducta del visitante la fuerza de la puesta en escena de la exhibición, parte integral del contexto
físico del museo? O tal vez, los mecanismos que diferencian comunicación de significación, aquellos
que destacan el otorgamiento de significados en la musealización de los objetos más diversos: lo
material y lo inmaterial como conjunción total, en ese mundo-objeto del que habla Roland Barthes
cuando dice que “…todos ellos constituyen el espacio del hombre y determinan su humanidad.” En el
6
museo son los expôts y los outils que menciona Jean Davallon . Los unos, objetos musealizados para
ser expuestos; los otros, apoyo de la exposición para presentar, para explicar, objetos pretexto,
7
objetos manipulados de los que hablaba Jacques Hainard
desde el Museo de Etnografía de
Neuchâtel. Dos tipos de objetos por medio de las cuales el mundo entra en el espacio del museo, ese
espacio que el visitante recorre a través del tiempo, un tiempo sin tiempo, que nunca se detiene…
La exposición, constituida en texto como todo hecho de lenguaje, es un mundo imaginario donde el
objeto, despojado de sus ataduras mundanas, perdida su funcionalidad, instalado en el espacio del
museo, se ha convertido en un objeto real que ya no está más en lo real, pero que ofrece al público
visitante los recursos necesarios a partir de los cuales realizar su interpretación, única y renovada
cada vez.
En muchas oportunidades, ese visitante de museos -que suele resultar imprevisible para
desesperación del responsable del montaje- realiza el descubrimiento del objeto por sí mismo,
absolutamente solo... Este hecho demuestra que al margen de la presentación, ha cumplido poco a
poco con una serie de requisitos por medio de los cuales ha logrado producir (o reproducir) el
contexto en el cual desarrollar su propia experiencia en forma independiente.
La secuencia de acciones y actividades que se manifiestan en el comportamiento del público
visitante permite suponer que cuando se detiene delante de un objeto explorando ciertos elementos y
no otros; cuando hace una lectura de cierta información y no de otra; cuando desea manipular o no
determinadas funciones interactivas, está “construyendo” por sí mismo una nueva mise en scène.
En el desarrollo natural de una estrategia de comunicación, el visitante de museos se encuentra
frente a un mundo lleno de significaciones -de las cuales cada una es única- Un mundo que podrá
6
Davallon, Jean y otros: Claquemurer pour ainsi dire tout l’Univers. La mise en exposition .Editions du Centre
Georges Pompidou. Paris, 1986.
7
Jacques Hainard et Roland Kaehr. Musée d’Etnographie de Neuchâtel, Suisse. 1984.
49
descubrir o no en la medida de sus percepciones, de sus estados de ánimo, de sus fantasmas…Un
mundo al que sabe que no pertenece, aunque pueda disfrutar de sus cualidades intrínsecas, de su
contemplación, de sus zonas abiertas y de sus zonas ocultas, a veces inabordables como puntos de
luz y de sombra... Solo o acompañado, interactuando junto a los suyos o junto a otros visitantes
ajenos a su propio mundo con quienes quizá se cruce fugazmente. Cada uno con sus propias
vivencias, con su bagaje de conocimientos y recuerdos que lo acompaña a todas partes, con sus
expectativas que pocas veces se cumplen por entero, “…por todas partes ve caminos, está siempre
en la encrucijada.” (Walter Benjamin)
El resultado del intercambio de significaciones, producto de la unicidad de su experiencia en una
comunicación basada en un mundo imaginario ‘re-construido’ por cada individuo, marcará una y otra
vez el importante rol que el público de museos desempeña en el conocimiento, la interpretación, la
8
valoración, la preservación y la transmisión del patrimonio material e inmaterial de la humanidad.
BIBLIOGRAFÍA
Arnheim, Rudolf: El pensamiento visual. Editorial EUDEBA, Buenos Aires, 1976.
Baudrillard, Jean: El sistema de los objetos. Ed. Siglo XXI. Madrid 1997.
Davallon, J. y otros: Claquemurer pour ainsi dire tout l’Univers. La mise en exposition. Editions du
Centre Georges Pompidou. Paris, 1986.
Debray, Régis: Transmitir. Ediciones Manantial. Buenos Aires, 1997.
Eco, Umberto:
Los límites de la interpretación. Editorial Lumen. Barcelona, 1998.
____________ : Tratado de semiótica. Editorial Lumen. Barcelona,1991.
____________ : Obra abierta. Ed.Ariel y Espasa Calpe Argentina, Buenos Aires,1993.
Falk & Dierking: The museum experience. Washington D.C. Whalesback Books.1992.
Guidieri, Remo: El museo y sus fetiches. Crónica de lo neutro y de la aureola. Editorial Tecnos.
Madrid, 1997.
Hainard, J. et Kaehr, R.: Compiladores y Editores. Objets prétextes. Objets Manipulés. Musée
d’Etnographie de Neuchâtel. Switzerland. 1984.
Hein, Georges: “The constructivist museum” Journal of Education in Museums (16)21-23.
Merleau-Ponty, M.: El mundo de la percepción. Siete conferencias. Fondo de Cultura
de Buenos Aires, 2002.
Económica
8
“un proceso de transmisión incluye, necesariamente, hechos de comunicación. Lo inverso puede no producirse:
el todo primará entonces sobre la parte. Reflexionar sobre el “transmitir” aclara el “comunicar”, pero lo contrario
no vale. (Régis Debray , “ Transmitir”. 1997, p.22)
50
Museology, Interpretation and Communication:
The Museum Audience
Nelly Decarolis – Argentina
The critical moment of praxis is
certainly a theoretical moment.
Paul Ricoeur
I. Introduction
“It is difficult to think of a universe in which human beings communicate without using verbal language
[…] but it is equally difficult to think of a universe in which human beings only utter words […]. In a
world served only by words, it would be very difficult to mention things” (Eco: 1992)
“Verbal language can be defined as the primary modeling system (Lotman, 1967) of which the
remaining languages are simple variations. It is the most powerful semiotic device known to mankind;
it allows to translate his thoughts and, therefore, speaking and thinking are the preferred fields of
semiotic research. Nonetheless, there are different ways of producing signs that have a given relation
with their contents, bringing about compositional differences with regard to verbal signs. Such
contents are stated through non verbal units, either visual or behavioral, which can be conveyed by
non linguistic devices, capable of encompassing parts of the overall semantic space that spoken
language cannot always approach; structured perceptions which can be systematically described as
such or as behaviors, habits, feelings which call for wider research within the current status of
1
semiotics, since they can be expressed but not verbally communicated” .
Within this context it can be recalled that “...what is known about perception -and especially about
vision- demonstrates that the remarkable mechanisms through which the senses understand the
environment are almost like the operations described by the psychology of thought, and that truly
productive thought in any of the areas of cognition takes place in the realm of images […]. The act of
“looking” is made up of a series of interdependent actions through which a meaning is given to certain
specific elements […] Visual perception is visual thought and the role of perceptual thought in art and
in other related domains provides the possibility of having a new outlook with regard to its isolation
2
and abandonment in society and education”.
II. The museum and its audiences: new paradigms for communication, interpretation and
learning.
Vis-à-vis the new ideas, movements, trends and orientations, museums can be considered avantguard in view of their critical spirit which turns them into non conformist entities and provides them with
greater openness and sensitivity, in places where the musealized object “…is open as a ‘field’ of
interpretative possibilities […] in such a way that the user is induced to different readings, as a
3
constellation of elements prone to various reciprocal relations.”
A lot is said about their interdisciplinary nature when the time comes to critically approach the many
dimensions of museal theory and practice. An interdisciplinary methodology allows the building of
bridges between the different cultures and the reconnection of areas that traditional research has
separated into stagnant compartments, even though they continue to be related throughout history.
1
Eco, Humberto: Los límites de la interpretación. Editorial Lumen S.A. Barcelona. 1998.
Arnheim, Rudolph. El pensamiento visual. Editorial.EUDEBA. Buenos Aires. 1976
3
Eco, Umberto: Obra Abierta. Editora Espasa Calpe Argentina. Argentina. 1993
2
51
The critical dimension of interdisciplinary theoretical work achieves unforeseen connections but, in
turn, needs to open gaps on the surface of what has been established, and moreover, needs new
spaces so as to seek the root of problems in given contexts. Theory can change our way of envisaging
the world and make visible what to date seemed invisible.
Certain symbolic constructions of culture call for interpretations which can come into conflict because
as Ricoeur says “…the possibility of controversial interpretation is intrinsic to the process of
interpretation itself.”
The interpretative method allows a conjunction of different viewpoints and different areas of conflict
and the reinterpretation of territories permanently pre-interpreted. Interpreting entails shaping a
standpoint, and it also means taking a stance open to criticism and debate.
The many challenges of interpretation in a museum often reflect tensions between their different
functions and their outreach roles. The question is whether museums can balance their roles…Should
they even try to do so?
Most of the experiences and research work carried out during the last few years within the world of
museums has strengthened their pedagogical dimension, based on their convening and
communication power. Consequently, their audiences have undertaken an undeniable leading role,
and are no longer passive spectators but instead relevant actors. Therefore, we nowadays experience
the emergence of a new field of research: the study of audiences and their learning conditions through
museums.
There are, however, serious problems to be solved in the subject-object relationship (perception and
interpretation) as well as regarding an appropriate, valid structure for all sorts of visitors.
Substantial changes in museum attitudes are part of such a remarkable museological renewal based
on several speedy changes, both sociological and technological, which took place in the last few
decades of the 20th century. It is worthy to note the efforts they make to project their reality and
contents in their social and community environment, respecting cultural realities of the “cultural
otherness” and the sensitivity of the audiences at which museums target their experience and
message.
Most of current research focuses on the visiting audience, whichever the planning of the museum’s
cultural and educational activities may be. Why do people go to museums and why do some people
avoid museums? What do they do when they are there and what might the long-term impacts of these
experiences be? What is the ethical responsibility of museums towards citizens who do not visit
museums, towards non-visitors? What is the nature of learning and how is it relevant to the mission of
a museum?
“Visiting museums and museum-like settings is one of the most popular leisure time activities […]
People seem to learn under one of two conditions: compulsory learning (when they have to learn) and
free-choice learning (when they want to learn). Like many dichotomies this one is not always clear-cut.
It adequately separates learning experiences into two groups: compulsory, systematic education and
free choice learning, which is learning just for the sake of learning, learning for fun, learning if and
when the internal motivation strikes. This is the type of learning that motivates someone to browse a
museum web site or watch the Discovery Channel or travel to foreign countries to explore ancient
cities, rain forests or coral reefs […] People today are finding it increasingly necessary and enjoyable
to actively and knowingly engage in such free-choice learning. Simply put, people are more and more
seeking out free-choice learning opportunities. Museum-goers or museum visitors value learning,
exploring and discovering new things and place a high value on doing something worthwhile in their
4
leisure time”.
“Most of the people attending museums consider that education is an important life-long process and
perceive museums as places that allow them and their children to expand their learning horizons. […]
Individuals who go to museums have chosen to attend mostly out of a concrete interest in a particular
area of science, history, art […] They perceive that the visit will satisfy a strong and personal need
they have: to learn more about a particular subject area. It is well known that much of any individual
4
Falk, J.H. & Dierking, L.D. The museum experience. Washington D.C.Whalesback Books. 1992.
52
personal behavior is influenced by early childhood experiences. […] Museum audiences, whether
families, adult couples or singles, agree on a few characteristics: 1) the best museum is the one that
presents a variety of interesting material that appeals to different age groups, educational and
technical levels and personal interests; 2) visitors expect to be mentally engaged in some way by what
they see, in other words, they expect to be able to personally connect in some way with the objects,
ideas and experiences presented and often expect to do more than just look at the things, perhaps
even become physically engaged and 3) people visiting in groups expect an opportunity for a shared
5
experience…
Falk and Dierking consider that what makes a museum visit engaging is not always the same for all
visitors: some refer to hands-on or touching experiences; others indicate a desire for a human
presence in the galleries to provide explanations and many refer to the role that media can play in
fostering interactivity. Here, a universal theme emerges: all reflect a reciprocal relationship in which
the visitor is given choices, makes choices, becomes involved and actively participates in the
experience.
The public is seeking interesting, informative exhibitions according to their needs, their background
and prior experiences, but they also have other expectations, because not all visitors come for the
purpose of learning. (Hood and Roberts: 1994) Various studies have documented that beyond
‘content’, museums afford opportunities for social interactions and for escaping from the normal humdrum of the work-a-day-world. (Graburn, 1977; Yellis, 1985). Families, individuals and students visit
museums and community institutions for a variety of purposes, including leisure, education and
curiosity. Adults come to the learning with an array of experiences and lifelong constructed knowledge
and visitors to science museums and science centers generally expect to encounter some type of
multimedia experience. Such experiences are increasingly an expected option for museum visitors
who appreciate the use of multimedia, recognizing that computers, CD-ROMs and other technologies
can provide both varying degrees of information, as well as options that facilitate visitor choices. But
not all visitors interact with all of the media elements in any exhibition, just in the same way that few of
them read all the labels or look at all the objects. On the one hand, a number of visitors are
enthusiastic about the computer interactives; on the other hand, a number of visitors express no
interest in using the interactives at all. They prefer to spend their time looking at the objects
themselves because they use computers at their homes or offices all week.
Media users tend to be younger visitors and gender is an interesting factor, but it is not a
straightforward variable when it comes to media use. Though more men than women are direct users
of the computer, both genders are equally represented as indirect users.(Pawlukiewicz, Bohling &
Doering, 1989). Museum researchers Falk & Dierking’s model of the interacting visitor stresses that to
understand the visitor’s total museum experience it is necessary to look at a dynamic process that
occurs at the intersection of three overlapping main contexts, each of which influences a visitor’s
museum learning experience:
1. The personal context includes the visitor’s experience and knowledge, concerns, motivations,
interests and expectations about the visit to a museum.
2. The social context includes who the visitor is with or who the visitor comes into contact with,
including museum staff or other museum visitors. Since learning in museums is largely a social
activity, it is necessary to look into the social context.
3. The physical context means the museum environment, the structure and ambience of the building,
layout, objects, types of exhibits, smells, sounds, sights and physical facilities such as toilets, coffee
store and shop.” (Falk & Dierking: 1992)
Actually our ideas about the learning theory have undergone very important changes. These ideas
cluster around the notion that the most important issues involved in understanding learning are
derived from analyzing the actions of the learner rather than in probing the nature of the subject to be
learned; it’s the learner who constructs meaning out of experience in a ‘constructivist’ way. (George
Hein). “To fully explore all the meaning-making that can take place in museums, the learning
possibilities of exhibitions, the myriad ways in which visitors may make a meaning out of their
experiences, we need to broaden our evaluation methods and carry out more open-ended studies
through field-based research or ‘thick descriptions’ of visitors’ experiences…” (Geertz, 1983)
5
Paris, Scott. Syllabus on “Museum Education and Learning”. The Informal Learning Review 1999-0304-b
53
Either on their own or accompanied by others, museum visitors look at objects and examine them in a
reflexive manner, in a sort of actions and interactions game for building meanings which provide sense
to the exhibited works of art and to the presentation overall. Viewing is an important element in the
museum visitors’ activity since it allows the perception of the exhibited object. But viewing only
captures the surface, which is the step prior to the discovery and examination, to the deep “encounter”
with the exhibited object which is subsequently established in different ways.
III. Conclusion
There are still unanswered questions on museums floating in the air: does the strength of the mise en
scène of the exhibition, as an integral overlapping portion of the museums’ physical context, influence
or modify the behavior of visitors? Or perhaps are the mechanisms that differentiate communication
from meaning those that highlight attaching a meaning to the musealization of the most diverse
objects: the material and immaterial as a conjunction of the whole in that world-object that Roland
Barthes spoke about when he said that “…all of them constitute the space of man which determines
6
his humanity”. Within the museum, these are the expôts and outils mentioned by Jean Davallon The
former are musealized objects to be exhibited; the latter, support the exhibition in order to make a
presentation or provide an explanation. These are the pretext objects, the manipulated objects
7
mentioned by Jacques Hainard from the Ethnographic Museum of Neuchâtel. Two kinds of objects
through which the world comes into museums, that space the visitor visits throughout time, a timeless
time which never comes to a halt....
The exhibition, shaped like a text as all language events, is an imaginary world where the exhibited
object, with no mundane ties, having lost its functionality, installed in a museum, has become a real
object which is no longer in the real world, but instead offers visitors the necessary resources for its
interpretation, which is unique and renewed each time.
On many occasions, museum visitors who are usually unpredictable -to the despair of whoever sets
up an exhibition- discover the exhibited object all by themselves. This fact shows that, regardless of
the presentation, they have little by little met a series of requirements through which they have
produced (or reproduced) the context to develop their own experience independently.
The sequence of actions and activities which appear in the behavior of museum visitors gives rise to
the hypothesis that when visitors stop in front of an object, exploring some of its elements, when they
read only certain information and when they wish to manipulate only given interactive functions, they
are “building” a new mise en scène.
Within the natural development of a communication strategy, museum visitors face a world full of
meanings -each one of which is unique-. A world that visitors may or may not discover to the extent of
their perceptions, of their humor, of their illusions… A world visitors know they do not belong to,
although they may enjoy its intrinsic qualities, its contemplation, its open as well as its concealed
areas, sometimes unapproachable, as areas of light and shadow. Whether alone or not, either
interacting with their entourage or with other visitors alien to their own world, visitors with whom they
only meet shortly…. Each and every one with their own knowledge and memories which go with them
everywhere, and with their expectations which are very few times fully met, “…they see paths
everywhere, but are always at the crossroads. (Walter Benjamin)
The outcome of this exchange of meanings, resulting from the uniqueness of their experience in a
communication based on an imaginary world which is built around each individual, will over and over
again highlight the important role they play in knowledge, interpretation, appraisal, preservation and
8
transmission of the material and immaterial heritage of mankind.
6
Davallon, Jean et als: Claquemurer pour ainsi dire tout l’Univers. La mise en exposition. Editions du Centre
Georges Pompidou. Paris, 1986.
7
Jacques Hainard et Roland Kaehr. Musée d’Etnographie de Neuchâtel, Suisse. 1984.
8
A process of transmission necessarily includes communication events. The opposite may not happen: the whole
shall then prevail over a part. Reflecting on “transmission” can clarify “communication”, but not the other way
around. (Régis Debray , “ Transmitir”. 1997, p.22)
54
Quels musées pour quels publics ?
André Desvallées – France
__________________________________________________________________________________________
« Je le crois, et quelque paradoxal que cela puisse paraître, je n’hésite pas à dire que les musées
sont faits pour le public. Il vient y chercher, j’en suis convaincu, plus qu’une distraction éphémère,
mieux qu’un enseignement de caractère technique. » (Henri Focillon, 1921)
De nos jours on répète à l’envi que le service du public doit être au centre des préoccupations des
gens de musée. La première mission du musée semble bien, de tout temps, avoir été la conservation
et la transmission du patrimoine, en passant par son exposition, qui était son rapport au public. Et
pourtant, en dehors des musées de proximité comme les musées de plein air scandinaves et les
Heimatmuseet allemands, et à part les préoccupations de quelques rares muséologues belges et
ème
ème
français de la fin du 19
siècle et du début du 20 , très peu se sont préoccupés du public avant le
ème
20
siècle. Jusque là, dans l’institution muséale, l’intérêt allait plutôt à la collection et aux objets
constituant le fondement de chaque établissement. On sait que les Nord-Américains ont commencé à
ème
se préoccuper sérieusement de ce public, au moins pour les grands musées, dès le début du 20
siècle. L’historien d’art français Louis Réau notait, en 1909, « Ces préoccupations [sont] presque
complètement étrangères aux Musées français et allemands » (RÉAU 1909 : 158-159). En Europe il
fallut attendre le congrès international d’Histoire de l’art de 1921, à Paris, pour entendre des
personnalités comme le muséologue belge Jean Capart faire le maigre bilan des rapports entre les
musées et le système éducatif et l’ historien d’art français Henri Focillon proposer de donner au public
une place aussi importante qu’aux artistes et aux historiens. En cela, ils ne pouvaient qu’écouter les
délégués américains E. Abbot, J.C. Dana et E.D. Libbey (MAIRESSE 1995 : 119 ; ALEXANDER 1983 :
377-411). Depuis lors les études de publics se sont développées dans tous les pays occidentaux et
extrême-orientaux. En France elles ont suivi le premier diagnostic effectué par Alain Darbel et Pierre
Bourdieu, à partir de 1964 (BOURDIEU 1964), et se sont multipliées et systématisées à partir des
années 1980. Parallèlement, pendant les années 1970, alors que l’architecture du musée des Beauxarts de l’Ontario, à Toronto, le constituait en forteresse par rapport à son environnement urbain, le
Centre Georges Pompidou se faisait fort de s’ancrer « résolument dans la vie de la cité » et
1
ambitionnait « de nouveaux rapports aux publics . » (KREBS et MARESCA 2005 : 8) Qui plus est, partir
des années 1990, une catégorie professionnelle a été créée plus spécifiquement adaptée que les
guides conférenciers au travail de médiation (CAILLET 2000).
Cependant, lorsqu’on parle de public, il est nécessaire de se demander de qui on parle. Population,
public, visiteur, regardeur (people, public, audience, visitors, ‘‘looker-on’’) ? Les termes sont nombreux
pour désigner tous ceux qui constituent ce public indéterminé. Mais ils n’en précisent pas pour autant
ce qui distingue la manière de percevoir et de recevoir de celui ou de celle qui regarde ce qu’on lui
montre dans le musée. De nombreuses études ont été faites sur les catégories de public, mais ces
distinctions se sont souvent limitées au sexe, à l’âge, à la profession, aux revenu, au niveau
d’instruction et à la fréquence de visite. On connaît beaucoup moins les études s’appliquant aux
conditions individuelles de la visite : seul ou en compagnie, en famille ou en groupe organisé, en
groupe organisé accidentel (sortie organisée à l’occasion d’un congrès ou d’un voyage en groupe) ou
en groupe organisé spécialement pour cette visite, en visite libre ou en visite avec conférencier ou
médiateur – ainsi que les variations en fonction du genre d’exposition et de sa discipline de départ. Il
est bien certain que le rapport à l’expôt ne sera pas le même pour le regardeur cultivé, en visite libre,
ou pour l’analphabète qui suivra ses comparses entraînés au musée au cours d’un voyage de groupe
1
« Ses entrées multiples, la gratuité d’accès à la majorité de ses espaces ou ses horaires élargis en soirée. »
Dans leur courte rétrospective sur Le renouveau des musées, Anne Krebs et Bruno Maresca soulignent que
« Deux dimensions attestent de la primauté accordée à la prise en compte des publics dès la conception du
projet culturel ». D’une part la création d’un Service des études et de la recherche « sur les usages et les
pratiques des visiteurs du Centre », d’autre part, l’instauration du ‘‘laissez-passer’’, forme d’adhésion pour
fidéliser le public, comme le faisaient déjà certains théâtres depuis les années 1950. On sait ce qu’il est advenu
d’un certain nombre de ces avancées après trente ans de fonctionnement et différentes réformes, ramenant les
entrées à une seule et instaurant un accès payant.
55
(LE MAREC Joëlle. et DESHAYES Sophie 1994 et 1996). Et pourtant (ces études l’ont montré), ce qui
compte le plus c’est la manière dont peut se faire l’accès à l’expôt qui est la plus importante ainsi que
ce qui est perçu par le regard pour aboutir à l’interprétation individuelle : les formes ? les couleurs ? le
sens ? la réminiscence ? ou au contraire la surprise ? (EIDELMAN , GOTTESDIENER et al. 2000) C’est le
premier point que je voulais évoquer.
Lors de son intervention de 1921, Focillon, qui dirigeait alors les musées de Lyon, suggérait, à
l’intention des visiteurs de musées : « Aidons-les donc, non seulement par des étiquettes et par des
pancartes, mais par une juste entente de leurs besoins. » (FOCILLON 1921 : 89) Les besoins du public,
ce sont à la fois une bonne information, un accueil agréable, un confort de la visite, mais aussi, et
sans doute surtout, une expographie claire et un décodage du sens de ce qui lui est donné à voir
(CAMERON 1968 et 1971a et b). Si l’on met à part l’insuffisance du mobilier pour le repos physique, le
premier handicap que rencontre le visiteur est celui de l’accueil visuel et du « par où commencer ? et
« par où continuer ? », ce qui suppose un circuit bien établi et bien signalisé. Le second handicap se
situe dans la qualité insuffisante de l’expographie : son regard parviendra-t-il à trouver ce qu’il doit
voir, ce qui suppose un parfait éclairage et une absence d’éblouissements, de contre-jours et d’ombre
portées des visiteurs eux-mêmes sur ce qu’ils ont à regarder. Le troisième handicap se situe souvent
dans la signalisation thématique des secteurs et des unités exposées : on ne rencontre encore que
trop d’expositions dont le contenu des notices est ou insuffisant, ou surabondant. Mais combien aussi
sont mal disposées, difficiles à lire parce que dans l’ombre ou apposées verticalement trop bas ! C’est
seulement une fois remplies ces conditions de bonne visite que le « visiteur » peut devenir
« regardeur ». Et c’est à partir de ce moment aussi que l’on doit analyser ce qui se passe entre le
regardeur et l’expôt. On peut analyser ses déplacements, son parcours (VERÓN et LEVASSEUR 1983).
Ne doit-on pas pour autant mesurer aussi la réception, son intensité, sa durée, tous les éléments de la
perception qui vont conduire le regardeur à sa propre interprétation ?
* * *
En second lieu je voudrais introduire une réflexion sur la nature de l’évolution que le musée est en
train de connaître au regard de l’extension programmée de la fréquentation. Le musée n’échappe pas
à l’évolution d’un monde qui change. Désormais on voit « les chefs d’établissement […] prendre des
mesures qui ont accéléré l’adaptation des musées à la demande des publics » (CAILLET 2000 : 174).
Autrement dit :« Il ne s’agit plus de connaître les publics, mais d’anticiper leurs attentes pour justifier
des politiques que les établissements conduisent. » (KREBS et MARESCA 2005 : 9) Une meilleure
connaissance des attentes du public doit-elle donc entraîner une adaptation du musée pour répondre
à ses attentes ? Le grand danger n’est-il pas celui que connaissent les médias audio-visuels avec
l’audimat, à savoir le nivellement par le moins-disant culturel ? Et ce danger ne passe-t-il pas surtout
par les moyens de médiatisation utilisés ?
Cette adaptation a pris plusieurs formes et connu plusieurs étapes. Quelle que soit la palette que nous
offrent les musées, il faut remonter aux sources pour savoir si l’on parle toujours de la même chose.
En cela, la rétrospective historique que nous offre François Mairesse dans le présent recueil est tout à
fait édifiante, qui nous montre comment l’institution s’est progressivement ouverte, des spécialistes
aux amateurs, puis à un public plus large, mais toujours sélectionné, pour finir par ne plus imposer de
limites autres que, parfois, mais pas toujours, le paiement d’un droit d’entrée. C’est alors que la
sélection s’est faite par le public lui-même en fonction de ses propres intérêts, que l’on s’est aperçu
que ses origines sociales étaient constantes et que c’étaient les mêmes classes moyennes qui
revenaient plus souvent au musée ou visitaient plus d’expositions (BOURDIEU et DARBEL 1966 et toutes
les enquêtes sur les Pratiques culturelles des Français depuis 1973).
Mais on voit aussi les publics suivre la mode qui les conduit à visiter de plus en plus de musées et
d’expositions (surtout d’expositions temporaires, les ‘‘block busters’’). Il semble bien que c’est avec le
musée de Beaux-arts que l’intérêt du public est le plus en rapport avec la mode. Non seulement parce
que les goûts pour la création artistique sont déjà dépendants de la mode, mais aussi parce que les
flux de fréquentation sont également très liés aux modes médiatiques. À témoin le succès des
grandes expositions comme celles sur Vermeer, Breughel, Bosch, Goya, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Monet
et tous les Impressionnistes. Mais aussi des « journées des musées » ou des « nuits des musées ».
Sous un certain angle, on peut donc regretter un certain « trop plein ». C’est ce constat qui, au début
des années 1980, dans le cadre de la programmation du Grand Louvre, avait conduit les
conservateurs à se demander pendant quelque temps s’il n’était pas préférable de concentrer dans le
56
grand hall du musée les quelques œuvres majeures, comme la Joconde, la Vénus de Milo et la
Victoire de Samothrace afin de limiter les bousculades dans les galeries et d’éviter d’en user
inutilement les planchers. Il a été conclu par les conservateurs que mieux valait risquer une
surabondance des foules dans les galeries s’il pouvait se trouver un seul visiteur, parmi des milliers,
qui reçoive la grâce de la découverte muséale et ait la révélation d’un chef d’œuvre de l’art. Argument
fort en faveur d’une quête effrénée de public, certes. Mais aussi reconnaissance de ce que la
découverte de l’expôt est une affaire individuelle, qui peut être sollicitée, mais qui ne peut être
imposée. La communication, voire la communion, reste individuelle.
Peut-être peut-on forcer la main d’un consommateur, mais on ne peut former de force un regardeur.
C’est pourtant de force que l’on a voulu élargir le volume du public, par les même méthodes de
marketing utilisées pour vendre des automobiles ou de la lessive. Pourquoi pas en effet ? mais à deux
conditions majeures. La première c’est que, si l’emballage, à savoir les conditions d’accueil et de la
lecture des expôts, doivent être améliorés pour que le contenu puisse être rendu accessible à tous et
que quiconque puisse y pénétrer, il n’est pas souhaitable que cet emballage soit développé au point
de cacher le contenu. La seconde condition est que le contenu lui-même ne soit pas modifié pour
faciliter cette accessibilité, par un escamotage partiel tenant par exemple au « politiquement correct »,
par la disparition d’une mise en perspective multiple.
ème
ème
Cette dérive n’est pas tout à fait une nouveauté. En effet, le musée a d’abord été (15
- 16
siècles) un lieu où l’on collectait des concepts et des idées pour l’étude. Puis on a donné ces
ème
ème
collections à voir en les exposant (à partir du 16 siècle). Ce n’est qu’à partir de la fin du 18
siècle
(de Mme Tussault au Musée Grévin, du Musée Barnum au Musée Spitzner), avec tous les musées de
foire, que l’on s’est engagé dans une formule de musée-attraction, de musée-spectacle, pour aboutir
ème
aux parcs à thèmes du dernier tiers du 20
siècle. Ces modèles de musée ont toujours eu un succès
constant auprès du grand public. On peut rencontrer des musées de cire où le public se bouscule,
2
pendant que le musée voisin reste presque vide .
Déjà en 1889, à l’occasion de l’exposition universelle qui se tenait à Paris pour commémorer le
centenaire de la Révolution, l’historien et homme politique Jules Simon soulignait que, dans le musée,
plutôt qu’une pratique scientifique, le visiteur « cherche surtout à se distraire tout en ne dédaignant
pas de s’instruire en s’amusant. » La première étape de l’évolution contemporaine a donc été pour le
musée de s’adapter à la société des loisirs en devenant aussi agréable à voir qu’un spectacle. Pour
de nombreux musées le toilettage n’était donc pas forcément inutile afin de les rendre agréables à
visiter. Mais, en les rendant en même temps amusants, une des conséquences, qui mérite réflexion, a
parfois été de modifier leur nature en accentuant leur aspect ludique au détriment de leur aspect
pédagogique. Un siècle après Jules Simon, lors des séances officielles de la Conférence générale de
l’ICOM de 1989, à La Haye, Neil Postman prenait l’exemple du Centre d’Epcot (Experimental Prototype
Community of Tomorrow), à Orlando, en Floride (USA), lequel se proposait d’apprendre la science et
la technique en se divertissant, pour nous montrer que cet établissement, à la programmation duquel
il avait lui-même collaboré, ne remplissait pas le rôle éducatif qu’il s’était préalablement fixé en
manquant de cet esprit critique que le musée doit garder dans ses missions (POSTMAN 1989 (1994) :
46-48 (424-430). Il semble bien que la Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie de La Villette, à Paris, a
évité ces travers, lorsqu’elle a ouvert ses portes vers la même époque.
Ce qui est en cause dans ce type de musée ou de centre de science, ce n’est pas la nature des
expôts car on imagine facilement qu’une mutation de leur nature ou de leur forme, depuis la cire et le
plâtre jusqu’à l’image virtuelle et l’image de synthèse (le public est en grande partie le même) ne
touche pas vraiment à l’essence du musée. Ce qui est souvent en cause c’est le niveau intellectuel de
ces musées, qui savent distraire leurs visiteurs pendant le temps de leur séjour, mais qui ne leur
laissent que peu à retenir une fois dehors. Le musée peut distraire, certes, même si ce n’est pas sa
principale mission, mais il doit d’abord transmettre des connaissances et développer l’esprit critique.
Pour atteindre le nouvel objectif, les termes du modèle ont été inversés. Là où l’écomusée avait mis
‘‘l’Homme’’ au centre de son projet, le nouveau musée y met ‘‘le Public’’. Mais, devant tous les
bouleversements qui s’opèrent sous nos yeux, il est raisonnablement permis de se demander si le
balancier n’est pas allé un peu trop loin et si le rééquilibrage entre objets et public n’a pas modifié
négativement les relations de ce dernier au musée, et s’il n’est pas même en train de modifier la
nature du musée.
2
Je pense, en France, à la ville de Saint-Malo.
57
Un autre exemple de l’influence de la mode sur la conception du musée nous a été donné par
Hermann Schäfer, avec la Maison de l’Histoire de la République fédérale d’Allemagne, à Bonn. En
1991, après un sondage sur les ‘‘moyens d’accès à l’information historique’’ qui avaient la préférence
des personnes interrogées, les musées d’histoire ayant été placés au huitième rang en moyenne, on
en avait déduit que ‘‘ce sondage montre la nécessité d’adapter l’histoire et le musée d’histoire à la
société des loisirs afin de rendre la visite au musée aussi attrayante que la vue d’un spectacle.’’
(SCHÄFER 2000 : 98) Un musée-spectacle, donc, mais qui dit spectacle entend d’abord divertissement.
Il faut donc que le musée ait un autre contenu que de simplement divertir. C’est d’ailleurs ce que
remarquait Schäfer en précisant
qu’il s’agit de concevoir ‘‘une institution de transfert des
connaissances des scientifiques vers le grand public, ce qui n’est réalisable qu’au gré d’un savant
équilibre entre éducation et divertissement.’’ (SCHÄFER : 99) Tout est en effet dans l’équilibre ! Et
Schäfer d’évoquer les moyens qui sont retenus pour aboutir à ce résultat : ‘‘Pour ce faire, il faut tenir
compte du développement de la société des loisirs vers l’image audiovisuelle et la communication.’’
(SCHÄFER : 99) Autre problème qui vaut d’être développé ! Là aussi c’est une question d’équilibre car,
autant les audiovisuels sont très utiles pour apporter le compléments contextuels qui donnent leur
sens aux objets, autant le musée ne saurait se transformer en salle de cinéma sinon ce n’est plus
qu’une salle de cinéma.
Mais l’étape qui a rapidement suivi le remodelage du musée, après la mutation, pour certains, de leur
système pédagogique en un système ludique, c’est la primauté qui a partout été donnée à l’efficacité
économique, voire au profit, sur l’enrichissement
éducatif et culturel. Parfois même les
établissements purement culturels ont été mis en concurrence avec ceux dont la finalité est d’abord
commerciale. Bien loin est l’intérêt qualitatif qui était porté au public pendant les années 1960-1990,
cherchant à savoir pourquoi il ne venait pas au musée. Les enquêteurs et analystes des publics ont
été piégés, comme l’avaient été, pendant les années 1960, les sociologues enquêtant pour les
industriels. Désormais, en effet, on cherche plutôt à savoir ce qu’il plairait au public de venir voir plutôt
que de le former pour qu’il soit apte à voir ce qui existe. « Il ne suffit plus de dénombrer les visiteurs,
de connaître les caractéristiques socio-démographiques des usagers, et de se fixer comme objectif le
renouvellement et l’élargissement des publics au nom de la démocratisation, mais d’obtenir la
légitimation des politiques mêmes des établissements confrontés à la concurrence, à l’accroissement
de leurs coûts et à la nécessité de rechercher des financements. Niveau de fréquentation et
satisfaction des attentes des usagers viennent largement relayer les notions d’élargissement et de
renouvellement des publics. » (KREBS et MARESCA 2005 : 9)
Car, en même temps que l’on cherchait à mieux satisfaire le public, à le diversifier de plus en plus,
puis à l’étendre au maximum, n’a-t-on pas abouti, la fin justifiant les moyens, à le transformer en
simple « consommateur » ? L’apparition du concept de ‘‘tourisme culturel’’ n’est d’ailleurs pas pour
rien dans cette transformation. La quête du nombre est souvent devenue une griserie sans limite et a
fini, en certains lieux, par être l’unique justification de l’existence du musée. De centre de
conservation, d’exposition, de transmission et de recherche le musée n’est-il pas en train de devenir,
si on ne l’en préserve pas, un simple lieu de divertissement pour grand public, mis en concurrence par
les autorités qui le financent avec les centres de loisirs, les parcs d’attractions et autres
« disneylands » ? On avait déjà confondu, à partir des années soixante, les relations publiques avec
l’action pédagogique, puis culturelle ; on ne parle plus désormais dans les grands musées que de
« marketing », d’ « étude de marché » . L’Icom a même créé un comité spécifique de ce nom : en
français, seulement ‘‘Comité des Relations publiques’’ mais en anglais ‘‘Marketing and Public
Relations’’ (= MPR). Ce changement d’objectif ne semble donc pas se faire sans dégâts collatéraux.
* * *
Il est au moins deux catégories de musées (et d’expositions) qui supposent un rapport différent au
public. Dans les deux cas il se produit d’emblée une plus grande proximité entre le contenu de
l’exposition et celui qui s’en accapare et qui n’est pas seulement visiteur, mais acteur. La première
catégorie est l’exposition qui met en œuvre des moyens interactifs. La seconde catégorie concerne
les musées de nature communautaire, comme l’écomusée. Mais une grande différence sépare ces
deux sortes de rapport au public. Dans le cas de l’interactivité physique, qui s’applique surtout dans
les musées et centres de culture scientifique et dans les musées pour enfants, c’est le concepteur qui
est le premier acteur et c’est lui qui suscite la médiation entre le contenu qu’il souhaite communiquer
et le manipulateur-acteur (TRIQUET et DAVALLON 1993 ; LE MAREC 1993). Dans le cas du musée
58
communautaire, selon l’expression d’Hugues de Varine, « le musée n’a pas de visiteurs, il a des
habitants »et il « ne peut pas avoir de conservateurs. Il n’a que des acteurs » (VARINE 1993 : 41et 44).
Quelles que soient les méthodes de médiation utilisées, ce sont les habitants qui en font le choix et
nous savons bien qu’elles peuvent souvent être réduites au minimum, dans la mesure où ces
habitants sont comme partie prenante de ce patrimoine qu’ils se donnent à voir à eux-mêmes. Si un
effort de mise en exposition est fait, c’est à l’usage d’un public extérieur à la communauté – des
‘‘visiteurs’’ !
Comme le théâtre, le musée ne peut exister sans public. Mais le public n’est pas la population. Et
ensuite la population n’est pas composée que de consommateurs, car le musée ne saurait être
considéré comme un magasin et ce qu’on lui offre comme une marchandise. En réalité, l’imposture
tient à ce que l’on a confondu population et public, participation aux décisions du musée et
consommation, échange de connaissances et encore consommation. Faire l’étude muséologique en
partant des visiteurs, et non pas de l’exposition, de ce qu’elle donne à voir et de la façon dont elle est
reçue, supposerait que les visiteurs aient conscience de ce qu’ils souhaitent et surtout connaissent à
l’avance ce qui peut leur être proposé – ce qui est rarement le cas. Tant qu’il s’agit d’intégrer la
population à la programmation d’un écomusée et de mettre en valeur avec elle son patrimoine, il n’y a
aucun problème à donner du sens. Par contre, lorsque le public est anonyme et se rend au musée en
simple consommateur, comme s’il allait au supermarché (au mieux : au cinéma), il est bien certain
que les responsables peuvent difficilement le questionner sur ce qu’il souhaite voir et il leur appartient
de faire eux-mêmes le choix de la politique du musée.
.
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Local History : 377-411.
BOURDIEU, Pierre et DARBEL, Alain, 1964. Le musée et son public, Paris, Ministère des Affaires
culturelles.
BOURDIEU, Pierre et DARBEL, Alain, 1966. L’amour de l’art. Les musées d’art européens et leur public,
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CAILLET, Élisabeth, 2000. ‘‘La professionnalisation et les nouveaux métiers des musées, une évolution
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184p + annexes.
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ème
congrès
KREBS Anne et MARESCA Bruno, 2004 ‘‘Le renouveau des musées. Avant -Propos’’. Problèmes
politiques et sociaux, n°910, mars 2005. La Documentation française, pp. 5-12.
LE MAREC, Joëlle 1993.’’L’interactivité, rencontre entre visiteurs et concepteurs’’, Publics et musées, 3,
juin1993 : 91-109.
LE MAREC Joëlle. et DESHAYES Sophie 1994 et 1996 Bilans des études muséographiques. Cité des
Sciences et de l’Industrie, Direction des expositions.
MAIRESSE, François, 1995. ‘’L’idée du musée dans la pensée de Jean Capart. Annales d’Histoire de
l’art et d’archéologie, ULB : 119
POSTMAN, Neil, 1994 (1989). ‘‘Pour un élargissement de la notion de musée’’. Icom, Conférence
générale de La Haye : 43-50, fr. (41-48, engl.). Repris en français dans Vagues, t.II : 420-432.
59
Pratiques culturelles des Français 1973, 1981, 1989, 1997. Paris, Ministère de la Culture, Service
études et recherches.
RÉAU, Louis, 1909. ‘‘Notes complémentaires sur l’organisation des musées. Les musées américains’’,
Revue de synthèse historique, t.19, pp.150-159.
SCHÄFER, Hermann, 2000. ‘‘Une conception orientée vers le visiteur’’. Publics et projets culturels. Un
enjeu des musées en Europe. Paris, L’Harmattan : 94-102 : 98.
TRIQUET, Éric et DAVALLON, Jean 1993. ‘’Le public, enjeu stratégique entre scientifiques et
concepteurs’’, Publics et musées, 3, juin1993 : 67-89.
VARINE, Hugues de, L’initiative communautaire. Recherche et expérimentation. W / MNES, 1991.
VERóN, Eliseo et LEVASSEUR, Martine, 1983. ‘‘Ethnographie de l’exposition’’, Histoires d’expo : un
thème, un lieu un parcours. Peuple et culture, CCI, Centre Georges Pompidou : 29-32.
Résumé
En quelques mots je voudrais évoquer deux problèmes concernant les rapports entre le public et le
musée, et plus particulièrement dans ses expositions. Le premier est l’ignorance dans laquelle nous
laissent souvent les études de public quant à ce qui se passe exactement entre le regardeur et ce qu’il
voit. Le second problème est la menace de dérive qui pèse sur le musée à partir du moment où l’on
ne se contente plus d’étudier les publics : on tend désormais à devancer ses attentes et l’on fait des
études de marché pour adapter le musée à sa cible, au lieu d’éduquer le visiteur pour l’élever jusqu’au
niveau où le musée peut lui apprendre quelque chose sans ramener pour autant le niveau au ‘‘moins
disant’’ intellectuel.
Deux propositions sont faites pour permettre au musée de s’adapter sans trahir sa vocation. La
première c’est que, si l’emballage, à savoir les conditions d’accueil et de la lecture des expôts, doivent
être améliorés pour que le contenu puisse être rendu accessible à tous et que quiconque puisse y
pénétrer, il n’est pas souhaitable que cet emballage soit développé au point de cacher le contenu. La
seconde condition est que le contenu lui-même ne soit pas modifié pour faciliter cette accessibilité,
par un escamotage partiel tenant par exemple au « politiquement correct », par la disparition d’une
mise en perspective multiple.
Summary
In a few words I would touch on two problems concerning the relation between public and museum
and especially in his exhibitions. The first problem is public’s studies leave us in ignorance about the
relation between somebody watching and something watched. The second problem is the drift which
threatens museum since not only one investigate publics but one tend from now to anticipate their
expectations. One do market readings to adapt the museum and his target instead to train the visitor
to be educated till the level in which the museum can learn it something and don’t reduce it in the
lowest intellectual level.
Two proposals are offered to allow the museum be adapted without betraying its mandate. The first
proposal: the packaging, reception and reading of exhibits conditions, has to be improved in order to
the content can be accessible to all and everybody can fathom inside; but it would not be desirable if
this packaging would be develop so that to hide the content. The second proposal: the content itself
has not to be altered to make this accessibility easier by avoiding in order to be “politically correct”, by
erasing a multiple perspective.
60
Towards a Critical Pedagogy for Museums
Heather Devine - Canada
Visitors to museums do not come as blank slates. They come with a wealth of previously acquired
knowledge, interests, skills, beliefs, attitudes, and experiences, all of which combine to affect not only
what and how they interact with educational experiences but also what meaning, if any, they make of
1
such experiences.
Introduction: A Few Case Studies
Case Study #1
A group of Aboriginal Elders inform a museum outreach employee that they are prepared to set up an
Oka-style road-block if the recreational development around their traditional burial ground is not
stopped.
Case Study #2
Government archaeologists at a vision quest site are threatened with violence by a group of Native
men, who demand that they leave the area, despite the fact that the sacred site is part of a larger
cultural site complex administered by government agencies.
Case Study #3
A group of Native activists appeal to an untrained museum employee to ‘repatriate’ artifacts from the
collections to them. Items are removed from the collections without the knowledge or consent of
museum management or the original source community, and illegally transported across the border.
Case Study #4
A Native museum visitor is snubbed by the docents when visiting a historic house formerly owned by
her ancestors.
Reflecting on Museum Encounters
Could these situations have been prevented? Possibly. But the kinds of operational shortcomings
that might have been identified, and even corrected, as a result of these encounters will probably not
remedy the existential sense of alienation, anger, and sadness experienced by many cultural
minorities who visit museums and cultural sites where their lifeways and histories are presented.
Over the years I have had the opportunity to accompany different visitor groups and
individuals as they come face-to-face with the artifacts, historical landscapes, and written documents
that embody their culture. I can remember very vividly sitting on a hillside in Northern Alberta,
overlooking a lake, having an informal picnic with band members who were trying to prevent a
recreational development from being built around one of their burial grounds. The hillside where we
sat was once the site of their summer fishing camp, and the location of the former mission and burial
ground. It was a beautiful sunny spring day; the perfect time to visit the former camp. When I
commented on the lovely afternoon, and asked the Elder with us how she felt at visiting the site on
such a wonderful day, she said “It makes me feel sad”. - Discomfort. Sadness. Anger. Resentment.
Frustration. Despair. These are common feelings experienced by cultural minorities in museum
environments. They are not the feelings that are conducive to constructive long-term working
relationships between museums and source communities.
1
“Museums and the Individual”. In John H. Falk and Lynn D. Dierking, Learning From Museums: Visitor
Experiences and the Making of Meaning (New York: AltaMira Press, 2000): 69-89; 87.
61
Healing in the Museum: A Critical Pedagogical Approach
Most museum curators are subject-matter specialists in the field where they are expected to carry out
their research and exhibition development activities. As such, their intellectual horizons are defined by
the theoretical and methodological approaches characteristic of their specialties, whether they be
anthropologists zoologists, art historians, botanists, etcetera. Not surprisingly, scholars with advanced
training in these disciplines have largely “bought in” to the epistemologies of their specialties. Not only
do they believe their professions to be inherently ‘good’, but, not surprisingly, they tend to resent
criticism of their work by people they consider to be non-practitioners.
When museum audiences (i.e. “stakeholder groups”) possessing specialized understandings
or affinities with particular museum exhibitions respond negatively to museum activities, curators,
conservators, and other museum professionals feel bewilderment and resentment.
In the past, dealing with recalcitrant museum visitors was considered to be the domain of the
visitor services personnel, the docents or interpreters that occupy the bottom layers of the museum
“food chain”. However, over the last twenty-five years, controversies arising from audience reaction to
a few high-profile exhibitions have brought the inadequacies of museum operation into sharp relief. It
is clear that the problems with museum exhibitions have their origins much higher in the museum
2
structure.
My own introduction to the heritage world came twenty years ago, when I was hired as an
education officer with the Historical Resources Division of Alberta Culture (now Alberta Community
Development). Very quickly I learned the function of educators in this particular domain, dominated by
esoteric subject-matter experts. Educators in these environments did not have any meaningful input
regarding the development and delivery of educational programs, or the design of exhibitions, for that
matter. These were the domain of curators, many of whom were woefully inadequate in dealing with
the cognitive needs and sociopolitical concerns of visitors. Educators in these environments were
expected to digest and regurgitate the exhibition content in a manner that did not challenge the
curatorial status quo. Indeed, they were – and still are – considered to be little more than tour guides,
regardless of their professional background.
My training prior to entering the cultural heritage world revolved around curriculum
development and educational media. In my graduate methods courses, we learned phenomenology,
hermeneutics, and other qualitative forms of research designed specifically to assist us in uncovering
the lived-world of the learner, and how the learner’s epistemology invariably conflicted with that of
mainstream institutions. More importantly, I was thoroughly immersed in the theories of critical
pedagogy. What is “critical pedagogy”, you ask?
Numerous definitions of the term are available on the Web, but for our purposes, the definition
below is provided as a beginning:
Critical pedagogy' is a teaching approach which attempts to help students question
and challenge domination, and the beliefs and practices that support the proposed
domination. In other words, it is a theory and practice of helping students achieve
critical consciousness. In this tradition the teacher works to lead students to
question ideologies and practices considered oppressive (including those at
school), and encourage liberatory collective and individual responses to the actual
conditions of their own lives.
The student must begin as a member of the society (society including religion,
national identity, cultural norms, or expected roles) they are cynically studying. After
they reach the point of revelation where they begin to view their society as deeply
flawed, the next behavior encouraged is sharing this knowledge with the attempt to
3
change the oppressive nature of the society or withdrawal from society.
2
In the Canadian context, I am referring to the controversies arising out of the Glenbow Museum’s The Spirit
Sings exhibition and the Royal Ontario Museum’s Into the Heart of Africa exhibition. See Shelley Ruth Butler,
Contested Representations: into the heart of Africa
3
“Critical Pedagogy - Definition of Critical Pedagogy”, in Dictionary.LaborLawTalk (on-line).
http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Critical_pedagogy (accessed May 15, 2005). See also “What is Critical
62
In the early 1980s, when I was a graduate student in Education, the leading proponents of critical
pedagogy were theorists such as the late Paulo Freire, who believed that any form of education
should enable the learner to critically reflect upon the world, and transform the societal structures that
created and maintained oppression. Freire described this phenomenon thusly: “conscientization refers
to the process in which men, not as recipients, but as knowing subjects, achieve a deepening
awareness both of the sociocultural reality that shapes their lives and of their capacity to transform
4
that reality.”
Paulo Freire believed that education and human rights were inextricable, and that educational
activities involve critical action and reflection, or praxis, which in term would empower the pupil to
transform the structures of oppression. While the Marxist tone of these theories is very much a product
of the Third-World liberation movements of the 1950s and 60s, they are, nonetheless, still relevant
5
today.
Modern critical pedagogy has expanded the site of educational environments, in order to
embrace the many places outside the realm of schools where pedagogical interactions take place.
Theorists such as Henry A. Giroux have exhorted educators to look at the broader messages being
delivered to students via the mass media, the Internet, and other modes of information transmission:
Like Paulo Freire, Giroux believes that educators need to understand their students
and to address the contexts of their everyday lives. As such, he argues for a
pedagogy that critically examines the media and other cultural artifacts that shape
students' cultural contexts but that are nevertheless frequently ignored in classrooms.
The media enacts its own invisible pedagogy, constructing representations of race,
class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, occupation, age, etc. on the screen. A critical
media pedagogy seeks to make visible how and why these representations are
constructed, to ask whose interests they serve, and to locate sites of resistance to
6
disabling representations and oppressive cultural narratives.
What are the implications of these theories, when applied to the “hidden curriculum” of museum
institutions?
First of all, these theories suggest that cultural heritage facilities and sites (like other forms of
mass media) are pedagogical places that construct representations of race, class, gender, ethnicity,
and spirituality that generally mirror society’s status quo. Furthermore, they also suggest that the
mainstream (i.e. scholarly) perceptions of reality presented by museums may serve to repudiate the
world views, the values, and aspirations of some of the communities of learners that they serve. The
reaction of minority groups to ‘disabling representations’ and ‘oppressive cultural narratives’ are
embodied in the protests, blockades, boycotts and other forms of activism directed against heritage
institutions over the last two decades. Such measures are the result of disenfranchised groups that
feel they have no avenues to gain power and control over the artifacts that comprise their heritage,
and how their cultural values and history are communicated through those objects.
Secondly, critical pedagogical theory suggests that if museum institutions are not part of the
solution, they are part of the problem. Such a perspective demands that museums change the way
that they do things in order to embark on fruitful relationships with visitors in general, and members of
source communities in particular. Fortunately, the theoretical literature in museology is finally
7
beginning to recognize this reality.
However, some museum administrators subvert this process by making superficial, cosmetic
changes to museum practice that do not make substantive changes to the mission and overall
functioning of the institution. For example, inviting source community members to participate in
exhibition planning committees is mere tokenism if they are not allowed substantive influence (e.g.
Pedagogy?” Christy Stevens, “from Critical Pedagogy on the Web (on-line) (2002). http://mingo.infoscience.uiowa.edu/~stevens/critped/definitions.htm. Accessed May 15, 2005.
4
See Note 1 of Paulo Freire, “Cultural Action and Conscientization,”Harvard Education Review Vol. 68 No. 4
(Winter 1998), 499-521; 519.
5
See “Cultural Action for Freedom: Editors Introduction”. Harvard Education Review Vol. 68 No. 4 (Winter 1998),
471-475.
6
Christy Stevens, “Henry A. Giroux” from Critical Pedagogy on the Web (on-line) (2002). http://mingo.infoscience.uiowa.edu/~stevens/critped/giroux.htm. Accessed May 15, 2005.
7
See Trudy Nicks, “Introduction”, in Laura Peers and Alison K. Brown, eds. Museums and Source Communities:
A Routledge Reader (London and New York: Routledge 2003), 19-27.
63
veto power) over elements of collection, conservation, and interpretation. Engaging docents from
source communities without involving them actively in the development of programming for different
visitor communities is also tokenism. Unfortunately, this is the route that many museums take,
because the alternative would involve a radical restructuring of the museum’s decision-making
hierarchy and a corresponding reallocation of resources to museum departments (e.g. Educational
Services) generally denigrated or ignored altogether by the subject-matter specialists who comprise
museum management.
Having said this, there are good reasons for not abandoning standard museum practices,
such as those which involve the safety and integrity of museum collections, historical landscapes,
etcetera. However, these too, can be examined critically, and altered appropriately to reflect the
concerns of source communities.
Much of the distrust between museums and source communities could be eased, or
eliminated altogether, by making the museum more transparent to outsiders. Although some
institutions use behind-the-scenes tours to accomplish this goal, on-going education programming in
museum practices, designed specifically for members of source communities, and co-delivered with
community-based experts, might be a workable solution.
The Museum and Heritage Studies at the University of Calgary, has initiated one such
program for the Fall of 2005. The introductory course in basic museum practice (Museum and
Heritage Studies 201) will be offered in an intensive one-week format at the Siksika (Blackfoot)
Reserve in Gleichen, Alberta the first week of September. The goal of the course is to provide band
members, band councillors, and university undergraduates with a basic knowledge and understanding
of museum practice, to serve as a prerequisite for further training in the field. By offering the program
on the Reserve, the course instructors can utilize the various historic sites on the reserve as teaching
tools. A brand-new interpretive centre, slated to open to the public in the Fall of 1996, will also provide
access to Blackfoot ethnographic collections. The ‘best practices’ regarding their care and
interpretation, from a Blackfoot cultural perspective, will be presented jointly by Blackfoot
ceremonialists and university specialists in museum practice.
Another project, this time dealing with exhibition development, is being pursued by the Nickle
Arts Museum in conjunction with Red Crow Community College on the Kainai (Blood) Reserve. The
project consists of the planning and installation of an exhibition of Native art under the co-sponsorship
of both organizations. In this scenario, the Curator of Indigenous Heritage at the Nickle Arts Museum
will not take sole responsibility for planning the content and interpretive messages of the exhibition.
Instead, the curator will act as a facilitator, assisting the development of an exhibition that takes its
message, direction and impetus from the Kainai members of the exhibition development team.
The long-term goal here is the establishment of ongoing, democratic pedagogical and
curatorial relationships, which will serve to educate source communities on the elements of museum
practice. The hope is that this involvement will not only correct misconceptions about museum
operations by making these processes more transparent, but will also bring the members of source
communities into the museum profession itself. This cannot take place until culturally-sensitive
training initiatives are in place.
Another goal of these joint initiatives is the sensitization of mainstream museum personnel
into the contemporary realities of life for many ethnic and racial minorities. The long - term future of
ethnographic museums depends on a continuation of collaborative research with indigenous
communities and groups, such as those carried out in the projects discussed above. However,
working in multi - disciplinary, cross cultural settings is not easy. Museum professionals operating in
these capacities are expected to assume a multitude of responsibilities when supervising crosscultural research and educational projects. As a consequence, it is the ability of museum specialists
to carry out these people-oriented functions, rather than their academic skills, which often influence
the overall success of cross-cultural partnerships with source communities.
Appropriate interpersonal attitudes, skills, and behaviors are crucial to successful work with
aboriginal communities. Outsiders cannot expect to come into indigenous communities, collect
artifacts and sensitive cultural information at will, and leave. Researchers must be prepared to devote
the time necessary to establish good interpersonal relationships with the community-based
participants in the research, and to demonstrate the flexibility needed to react to the vagaries of daily
life in Native communities. Research in Native communities rarely proceeds according to the plans
64
and the time frames envisioned originally. Therefore researchers have to learn to relax and take work
interruptions or slowdowns in stride. During these periods, informal interaction with community
members can be as valuable, intrinsically, as research tasks.
As Murray L. Wax notes in “The Ethics of Research in American Indian Communities” (1991),
“What is crucial is participation in the life of the community; being present at gatherings and
ceremonials; listening to others and responding in a manner that indicates one has reflectively heard
[my emphasis] and giving of one’s self and one’s possessions in the sense of sharing and maintaining
reciprocity with one’s peers. These are also keys whereby a stranger gains acceptance.” At the same
time, however, museum professionals must be careful to avoid involvement in political factionalism or
other elements of reserve life which may negatively affect research.
The most successful museum-community partnerships resonate with the qualities of
collegiality and respect in aboriginal community settings. The resulting projects, more often than not,
are the result of work conducted over several years - the time required, in many cases, for outsiders to
gain a degree of acceptance. One notable example of a long - term research partnership is that of
Yukon ethnohistorian Julie Cruikshank and her Tutchone Indian partner/interpreters, who have
engaged in an extended process of interview, translation, and collaborative interpretation of Native
oral discourse over a period of several years, a process documented by Julie Cruikshank in Life Lived
Like a Story: Life Stories of Three Yukon Native Elders (1990). According to Cruikshank, her
investigations are based on the premis “that life - history investigation provides a model for research.
Instead of working from the conventional formula in which an outside investigator initiates and controls
the research, this model depends on outgoing collaboration between interviewer and interviewee.
Such a model begins by taking seriously what people say about their lives rather than treating their
words as an illustration of some other process [my emphasis].”
Of course not all museum workers are willing or able to make long - term, field - based
research commitments of this nature. Nor do all museum researchers need to do field research;
documentary analysis may well suffice depending on the area under investigation. However, all
parties benefit from the field work of researchers such as Julie Cruikshank; we owe them a debt of
gratitude.
The willingness of museum-based specialists to work with other specialists outside the
museum in multi-disciplinary partnerships is crucial to the future of research with indigenous groups.
The level of methodological sophistication in Native Studies has grown to such an extent that
teamwork, or at the least consultation among specialists, has become a necessity. This is particularly
true in the field of indigenous history, often called “ethnohistory” because of its multidisciplinary
character.
In “Strange Bedfellow, Kindred Spirits” Jennifer Brown suggests that “ethnohistorians are
often intellectual free traders; we borrow other people’s methods, concepts, and tool kits, from
linguistic, archaeology, geography, and literary criticism, and we thereby enrich our analyses, even if
we risk making them more complicated and ourselves more confused. . . what ethnohistory is all about
is the crossing of boundaries, of time and space, of discipline and department, and of perspective,
whether ethnic, cultural, social, or gender - based.” This can create problems, however, as René
Gadacz points out in “The Language of Ethnohistory” (1982). Because the field has become so
multidisciplinary, borrowing, as it does from anthropology, sociology, history, psychology and other
disciplines, there is the danger that not only terminology, but approaches are being misused, creating
problems in research and interpretation.
As the trend towards forming multi-disciplinary research teams continues, we must be able to
confront, and to resolve, the inevitable conflicts that arise. Several years ago I participated in a
multidisciplinary, community-based, cross-cultural curriculum development project designed to
develop instructional materials dealing with aboriginal history (described in “Archaeology, Prehistory,
and the Native Learning Resources Project” (1994)]. Key to the project was the acceptance of a
developmental framework that respected the perspective of aboriginal people regarding their
interpretation of their own history. The textbook committees consisted of Native community
representatives, classroom teachers, Native subject matter experts, and curriculum development
specialists. In addition, subject matter experts, primarily academics based in museums and
universities, were also consulted when deemed necessary. Unfortunately however, this approach,
which reflected the curriculum development philosophy identified at the outset, was unacceptable to a
few subject-matter experts connected in a peripheral way to the project. In one instance, a subject-
65
matter expert took issue with the development approach, claiming that the members of the steering
committees were conducting ethnographic research and, as educators, were unqualified to do so. Our
problems with subject-matter experts did not end, unfortunately. An unauthorized critique of a
textbook in the draft stages also drew criticism because of perceived historical and ethnographic
inaccuracies . Because some steering committees chose to interpret historical and cultural
information from the Native perspective (which, in some cases, diverged considerably from the
standard ethnohistorical perspective), the material was perceived to be inaccurate.
Unfortunately, problems with subject-matter experts are not uncommon in multi-disciplinary
settings where lay-people and professionals are required to work as equal partners. This kind of
‘assistance’ from subject-matter experts, if tolerated, has an even more insidious effect on group
dynamics in cross - cultural initiatives like the Native Learning Resources Project. When subjectmatter experts - anthropologists, historians or whoever - attempt to "validate" content by contradicting
and repudiating the folk knowledge of the Native subject-matter expert, it serves to undermine and
coopt the dialectical nature of cross-cultural collaborations.
To be fair to specialists, however, one must acknowledge the legitimate concerns they
express. Subject matter experts might well question the merit of a project where some of the content
generated seems to fly in the face of generally - accepted fact. They could argue convincingly that
educational materials produced about Natives by Natives may serve to promote the kind of
revisionism that perpetuates a whole new set of inaccurate stereotypes, this time from the Native
perspective.
While this concern may have some validity, it nonetheless does not justify the entrenchment of
power and control over the presentation of Native heritage in the hands of non-Native subject-matter
experts. I would like to point out that in most cases, differences of interpretation can be resolved to the
satisfaction of both parties. What Native people object to most is the fundamental lack of respect
exhibited by non-Natives, particularly subject matter experts, towards their opinions and perspectives.
The result has been a polemical backlash to cross-cultural research partnerships, epitomized by the
attitudes expressed by Wendat historian George Sioui in his book For an Amerindian Autohistory
(1992).
Sioui implies, first and foremost, that the purpose of Amerindian research is, primarily, a
didactic one; that is, to teach non-Amerindians the error of their ways regarding their treatment of
aboriginal people. This presupposition immediately renders suspect the underlying motives and ethics
of any intended research project, and also calls into question the validity of any historical interpretations
arising from such research. Second, Sioui subscribes to the activist truism that all outsiders,
particularly non-Natives, are incapable of acquiring the contextual knowledge or cultural nuances
specific to aboriginal society required to interpret Native world-view successfully. Therefore, nonNatives are expected to assume a scholarly role that appears to concern itself less with historical
research but instead with public education. In Sioui's research scenario, non-Native historians are only
there, presumably, to package the completed research for mainstream consumption.
I would argue that the research model that Sioui proposes is fundamentally racist in
conception, and reflects the same kind of ethnocentrism characteristic of the worst 19th century
historiography. This alternative research paradigm does little to encourage researchers or aboriginal
people to challenge and alter their respective worldviews. Nor does it encourage the additional skill
development required for carrying out competent ethnohistorical research. It appears, instead, to
simply accept and maintain two ethnic, methodological solitudes existing side by side in Native Studies.
An alternative approach is to develop historical philosophy and methodology courses which
explore alternative epistemologies and provide approaches for researching the indigenous past in a
manner appropriate to the cultural groups under study. This is not to be considered a form of political
appeasement, but should be considered a necessary precurser to doing accurate history. Committed
researchers in indigenous studies should be encouraged to develop a familiarity with the
contemporary cultures of the groups they wish to study in order to understand the political and social
milieu which the historical experiences of these groups has engendered.
As a museum professional, it is my responsibility to conduct research which is both thorough
and ethical. Can one do both? I believe that the methodological tools of contemporary ethnohistory
66
are sound, and that the ethnohistorical research approaches of the last few decades have served to
address many of the controversial issues raised by aboriginal critics. Furthermore, the postmodernist
philosophical approaches now being debated in the field of anthropology continue to raise new,
important questions about field - based research, textual analysis, interdisciplinary methods which can
8
be applied to historical scholarship.
In order to practise one's discipline yet truly respect the actors of history, there must exist a
state of critical awareness, rather than complacency, in the mind of the heritage professionals.
Museum practitioners must realize that their research, that their exhibitions, and their interpretation of
indigenous heritage does have a critical influence over how mainstream society views its past and
present relations with aboriginal peoples.
Native communities are asking that museum professionals acquire, and demonstrate, an
accurate understanding of the aboriginal world view in their analyses of indigenous heritage. They are
asking for respectful, ethical research practices to be implemented in aboriginal communities. Most of
all, they are asking for cultural heritage agencies to acknowledge that there does exist a degree of
moral accountability toward the Native subjects of their research, if only in demonstrating that they are
willing to adopt the methodological approaches needed to finally "get aboriginal history right".
I leave the final word on these matters to Georges Sioui:
When wampums have been offered to all who are touched by history – to all human
beings – whether to wipe away the tears that interfere with their vision, to ease their
breathing, to render their ears sensitive again, or to smooth the paths of meetings
until the beauty of life illuminates the eyes of all and reason, soothed, "comes back to
9
its seat", then shall we be able to listen to and understand Amerindian autohistory.
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Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992.
67
Simpson, Moira. Making Representations: Museums in the Post-Colonial Era (revised edition).
London and New York: routledge, 2001.
Sioui, Georges E. For an Amerindian Autohistory: An Essay on the Foundations of a Social Ethic.
Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992.
Stone, Peter G. and Brian L. Molyneaux, eds. The Presented Past: Heritage, Museums, and
Education. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
Van Manen, Max. Writing in the Dark: Phenomenological Studies in Interpreting Inquiry. London,
Ontario: Althouse Press, 2002.
Vergo, Peter, ed. The New Museology. London: Reaktion Books, 1989.
Walsh, Kevin. The Representation of the Past: Museums and Heritage in the Post-Modern World.
London and New York: Routledge, 1992.
Wax, Murray L. "The Ethics of Research in American Indian Communities". American Indian Quarterly,
Vol. XV, No. 4, Fall 1991: 431-456.
Summary
Museums have become contested spaces – contact zones - where colonial conflicts play themselves
out to the detriment of both museum professionals and indigenous groups. This paper argues that until
museum and heritage institutions come to understand the phenomenological experiences of
indigenous people in the museum space, they will be unable to bring about the changes needed to
develop constructive relationships with indigenous minority groups. This paper further argues that it is
not enough to apply educational theories piecemeal in the museum setting. Cognitive theories must
be placed in a sociocultural context, and the work of critical pedagogical theorists such as the late
Paulo Freire, Michael Apple, and educational phenomenologists such as Max van Manen may offer
the best approaches to developing positive educational relationships with “source communities”.
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A diferentes denominiaciones, diferentes ideologías: pero
siempre se trata de la gente
Mónica Gorgas / Jeannette de la Cerda - Argentina
________________________________________________________
“El hecho museal es una profunda relación entre el hombre y el objeto”
Waldissia Russio
Nuestro objeto de estudio
La historia de los museos es la historia de las miradas que las sociedades han hecho de sí mismas,
es la historia de los paradigmas sociales de cada época y lugar. La historia de las teorías sobre
museos y museología es la historia de cómo fue observado e interpretado el museo como fenómeno
capaz de producir diferentes efectos socioculturales. Así como los museos no han sido ingenuos a la
hora de seleccionar qué objetos conservar y qué ideologías sostener, las teorías museológicas, al
escoger su campo de acción y enfoque están también teñidas de ideología; los museólogos no
escapan de los contextos culturales y filosóficos de su tiempo y espacio.
Cabe reflexionar sobre el porqué del tema que hoy nos ocupa, el porqué ICOFOM elige tratar las
bases teóricas o más bien pretende hacer teoría museológica sobre las audiencias de los museos.
Por qué y en qué contexto elegimos denominar audiencia a los sujetos de la relación museal.
Históricamente, y quizás sobrentendiendo que los museos son instituciones que sirven a grupos
sociales más amplios que sus destinatarios directos, las discusiones de ICOFOM se han centrado
sobre Museología y Comunidad, Museología y Sociedad, Museología e Identidad. Hoy en Canadá, en
el seno de ICOFOM se ha elegido hablar de Museología y Audiencia, focalizando nuestro objetivo en
un grupo social más restringido, y considerando a la Audiencia como los públicos reales y
potenciales de los museos.
¿Será quizá porque en un mundo cada vez más influenciado por intereses económicos globales
estamos supeditando la existencia misma de los museos a su capacidad de atraer públicos cada vez
más numerosos? O es que finalmente estamos reconociendo que siendo el museo un fenómeno por
el que se produce un encuentro transformador entre el hombre y una realidad específica, hemos
dedicado todos nuestros esfuerzos en conceptualizar la musealidad como esa realidad específica (la
del objeto) dando por supuesto la del sujeto de esa relación?
Si analizamos los esfuerzos realizados para intentar formular un concepto de museo y de musealidad,
notamos que el acento ha sido puesto en tratar de definir la clase de ¨realia¨ que constituye el acervo
museal. Los objetos fuera de su contexto original, son transferidos al contexto museal. El objetivo del
museólogo será explorar sus múltiples sentidos y significaciones. Musealidad es la característica de
un objeto material que en una realidad documenta otra realidad: en el tiempo presente es un
documento del pasado, en el museo es un documento del mundo real, dentro de un espacio es un
documento de otras relaciones espaciales. Así, objetos de un determinado tiempo y lugar pueden
documentar diferentes sociedades, al ser testigos de su desarrollo. Objetos de un lugar determinado
pueden documentar el tiempo de su origen o el paso del tiempo y del status social que representan.
Un objeto usado y descartado puede documentar el tiempo y lugar al que pertenecieron, o algún otro
momento del tiempo de principal importancia del que subsisten sólo indicaciones tenues. Musealidad
1
es el valor no-material o significado de un objeto que nos da el motivo de su musealización.
Pero si la misma naturaleza de la experiencia de museo es la de la relación entre el hombre y una
realidad específica ¿no será tiempo de reflexionar sobre el hombre, la contraparte de esa relación? Y
1
Maroevic,Ivo. ICOFOM Study Series1993:96-97
69
no nos estamos refiriendo a cualquier clase de hombre, estamos pensando en un hombre o una
mujer puestos en una particular situación: la del museo.
Los museos son espacios de comunicación; la significación de sus mensajes podría indagarse a
partir de las condiciones histórico-sociales en que éstos se producen. Esta reflexión no puede
realizarse sin tener en cuenta la experiencia sociocultural de los visitantes en tanto sujetos activos de
la experiencia museal. El primer problema a analizar sería sobre la forma de ese encuentro, desde
dónde se lo resignifica, desde qué ideología, es decir desde qué relación con el mundo. Es verdad
que los mensajes elaborados por los museos comportan significación, pero ésta sólo se realiza,
significa realmente, en el encuentro con el otro, el que la recibe. La capacidad de relacionarse con
una realidad específica estará estrechamente ligada a los varios planos ideológicos que conviven en
la persona puesta en la situación museal. Aquél, que en nuestro uso cotidiano denominamos
genéricamente visitante.
La pregunta ¿qué es este visitante? Nos instala en los confines de lo ontológico. Indagar qué es
alude obviamente al ser. Hablamos de reflexión crítica y no de técnicas instrumentales. Nos referimos
a la preocupación por lo que significa una presencia y no sólo cómo hacerla posible.
Sobre los términos que usamos para referirnos al sujeto de la relación museal
Si repasamos mentalmente la forma en que denominamos a las personas o grupos de personas que
concurren o asisten a determinados sitios relacionados con el patrimonio y su comunicación, no
encontramos mayores dificultades, al menos en español, para decir que el que asiste a una
conferencia es un oyente, el que participa de una representación teatral o cinematográfica es un
espectador, que en el ámbito de las bibliotecas hablamos de lectores, en el de los archivos de
investigadores.
En el contexto de las empresas u organizaciones que ofrecen servicios públicos, agua, luz, correo,
etc., nuestro sujeto se denomina tradicionalmente usuario y a veces cliente, término éste que ha sido
tradicionalmente más usado cuando se establecen relaciones comerciales o contractuales. En
general todos ellos constituyen el público o públicos de esas instituciones, organismos o empresas.
Este trabajo aborda los diferentes nombres que usamos cuando nos referimos a la gente en el
contexto del museo: visitantes, audiencia, público, públicos, espectador, usuario, cliente...
Creemos firmemente que esos términos no son sinónimos y que su uso no es ingenuo. Sabemos que
detrás de los nombres, hay conceptos e ideología. Trataremos de establecer qué ideología está
detrás de cada denominación, porque pensamos que a cada término corresponde un diferente
concepto de museo.
Algunas cuestiones metodológicas
El primer acercamiento al tema lo hicimos buscando en libros y revistas especializados diferentes
artículos sobre los museos y sus visitantes, tratando de encontrar los nombres con los que los
autores se referían a nuestro ¨sujeto¨ de conocimiento y en qué contexto lo hacían.
En general, la consulta de la bibliografía correspondiente a los años anteriores a los 90’, nos permitió
conocer que los términos más utilizados son visitantes y público. En artículos especializados en el
tema de museos y educación, cuando fueron escritos originalmente en inglés, aparece la palabra
audiencia y también la de participante, pero más bien como adjetivo que como sustantivo.
Ya más recientemente, casi paralelamente a los estudios de marketing cultural, aparece la palabra
cliente usada a veces indistintamente con usuario. Se empieza a hablar de clientelizar o fidelizar
la audiencia. Algunos autores -y eso lo notamos en artículos sobre investigación o evaluación de
públicos traducidos al español- reemplazan unos términos por otros, como para no repetirlos en un
mismo texto. Aparece el término espectador, casi siempre en relación a los museos de arte
Nos llamó la atención que cuando los estudios de visitantes estaban hechos con fines económicos o
políticos, con el propósito de saber qué caminos tomar para aumentar la cantidad de público a fin de
engrandecer el campo de actuación del museo y así justificar una mayor obtención de fondos, los
70
términos más usados eran cliente, usuarios y audiencia. El visitante, hasta ayer blanco de
intencionalidades o proveedor de datos para encuestas, fue adquiriendo una dignidad de tal
envergadura que de casi esclavo pasó a ser casi amo: abandonó su condición de visitante para
2
volverse usuario (cliente) .
En los estudios realizados para medir el impacto de una determinara exposición y así mejorar los
canales de comunicación, la denominación usada casi exclusivamente es visitante o públicos,
escrito en plural como una forma de denotar diversidad y variedad.
A partir de estas lecturas que nos fueron afirmando en nuestra postura, hicimos consultas a
diccionarios en castellano, inglés y francés y allí nos dimos cuenta que muchas de las palabras
utilizadas son neologismos de reciente uso en idioma español. Visitante como traducción de visitor y
audiencia como auditorio ni siquiera figuran en las más recientes versiones de diccionarios en
español.
La consulta a una enciclopedia temática (en inglés) nos permitió hacer comparaciones. En el capítulo
dedicado a Sociología, más precisamente en el apartado correspondiente a Grupos Sociales pudimos
leer “La gente que actúa conjunta o concertadamente puede denominarse grupo social... Podemos
encontrar un buen ejemplo de acción concertada en la “audiencia” o masa, que actúa conjuntamente
sobre la base de un estímulo común, sin interacción entre los miembros.....Otro tipo de grupo es el
público, un número de personas que se comunican de alguna forma unas con otras, que tienen un
interés común, al que se refieren y que califican según sus méritos y deméritos, pero que no
necesariamente llegan a un acuerdo. Los públicos están especializados para su interés común y las
discusiones en las que participan son más o menos racionales. Estos grupos sociales son campos de
estudio para la sociología que analiza los patrones de comportamiento y la conformación de la
llamada “opinión pública”.
Más adelante se especifica que las audiencias son grupos de corta vida y en continuo cambio.
Aunque el comportamiento de las audiencias implica un mínimo de interacción social entre los
miembros, han cobrado importancia en los tiempos del predominio de los medios masivos de
comunicación y cuando hay mayor movilidad social. Los autores agregan una consideración de
interés “Aunque se han presentado algunas reacciones a este grupo social, nuestra sociedad tiene
mucho del carácter superficial y pasivo de las audiencias”.
Sobre el público acotan, “es un grupo de discusión grande, en el que los miembros no están
necesariamente en contacto unos con otros...El público se comunica en términos de significados y
valores establecidos en la sociedad, pero sus miembros no necesariamente aceptan los valores
tradiciones y están constantemente creando nuevos valores.”
Estas palabras no tienen la misma significación en español, por lo menos en los diccionarios y
enciclopedias consultados, pero la acepción anglosajona se ha ido incorporando a partir de un uso
cada vez más frecuente en el campo de las ciencias sociales.
Así leemos en Schmucler “¨Ser público, insiste M.C.Mata, no es una mera actividad, es una
condición que se funda en la aceptación de un rol genérico diseñado desde el mercado mediático que
abre sus escaparates para diversificadas elecciones y usos de sus productos, con arreglo a
normas y competencias que el mismo provee y que se entrecruzan con las adquiridas por los sujetos
3
en otros ámbitos de la actividad social¨
Cabría aclarar que audiencia, según la acepción de los diccionarios en español, hace referencia al
acto de oír los soberanos u otras autoridades a las personas que exponen o solicitan algo, y que
jurídicamente es el tribunal colegiado que entiende en los pleitos o causas de determinado territorio.
Para espectador, usuario y cliente los diccionarios consultados en los distintos idiomas asignan
acepciones similares. Y en el caso de los dos últimos están generalmente asociadas a operaciones
comerciales.
2
3
Schmucler, Héctor. Memoria de la Comunicación.....
Schmucler, ibidem
71
Comentarios finales
En una época signada por la pérdida de significación de las palabras, la reflexión sobre la manera en
que denominamos al sujeto de la experiencia museal no es un tema menor. Sobre todo, y es bueno
recalcarlo, porque detrás de las palabras y de los nombres están los conceptos y las ideas.
No se trata de buscar respuestas nuevas a viejos interrogantes, si no de reformular el problema.
Cabe preguntarse sobre las condiciones reales en las que los ¨públicos¨ se construyen y sobre los
equívocos que surgen cuando se los imagina.
Creemos que la clave de la musealidad, debe buscarse en el sujeto que resignifica. Si bien tenemos
por un lado objetos polisémicos, la capacidad de relacionarse con una realidad específica estará
estrechamente ligada a los varios planos ideológicos que conviven en la persona puesta en la
situación museal.
Bajo esta perspectiva, los estudios de público que se han venido realizando no son los más aptos
para el conocimiento de este visitante como sujeto de la experiencia museal. Es innegable la
validez y el rigor científico de los muchos estudios de visitantes realizados con la intención de mejorar
el servicio al “público”. Diríamos más, debería ser parte del trabajo responsable de cada museo la
búsqueda de datos conducentes a aumentar la cantidad de visitantes y mejorar los sistemas de
comunicación e interpretación.
Pero no se trata acá de conocer a nuestros “clientes”, para poder ofrecerles lo que mejor los
complazca, ni a nuestros “usuarios” para brindarles un servicio satisfactorio y aunque es válido,
tampoco se trata de aumentar nuestras ¨audiencias¨. Se trata de comprender mejor el fenómeno
museo, la experiencia museal que siempre es íntima y personal, aunque nuestro visitante pertenezca
a uno o muchos grupos sociales y que el mismo museo sea una espacio válido de socialización.
Para elucidar el problema de la musealidad, sería más conveniente un abordaje filosófico que se
pregunte por el ¨ser¨ de nuestro objeto de conocimiento, así como se preguntó sobre el ¨ser¨ del
objeto de museo.
Durante el acto de incorporación a la Academia de Periodismo, Ernesto Schoo pronunció un discurso
en el que nos ofrece un punto de vista desde el espectador, que creemos es digno de tener en
cuenta:
” Cada vez que miro un cuadro, aunque lo haya mirado cien veces, o escucho una partitura,
o leo un libro, ese cuadro, esa música, ese libro, renacen tan nuevos y frescos como
cuando fueron creados. Y nosotros, espectadores, oyentes, lectores, renacemos con ellos.
No sólo revivimos, a la manera ‘proustiana’, la experiencia pasada sino que nos abrimos a
otra nueva y acaso inesperada. ¿No nos ocurre esto, acaso, con nuestras lecturas de
juventud, que al retomarlas años después, cuando llega la hora inevitable de releer,
descubrimos que a los 20, 25 años, no habíamos entendido nada, que lo esencial se nos
había escapado y que tan sólo ahora apreciamos otros sabores, otros matices, como si se
tratara de otro libro? Nosotros hemos cambiado y con nosotros, nuestros autores favoritos.
No hay egoísmo en el placer solitario de la lectura o en la contemplación de la obra de arte.
Yo, lector, espectador, la estoy compartiendo con quienes la apreciaron antes, cientos o
miles de años atrás; y en cada hombre que la apreció o la aprecia hoy, esa obra resuena de
una manera distinta, recupera la novedad”.
El museo ofrece a sus visitantes ese perpetuo enriquecimiento del espíritu y de la mente, que ayuda
a hacer del individuo una persona, y es eso, más que la cantidad de público que lo visita, lo que
justifica su misma existencia.
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74
The Emerging Roles of the Museum in the Era of the
Collapse of Linear Communication Models of Audience
Learning
Jennifer Harris – Australia
Debates about the relationships between audiences and museums usually assume that museums
hold and, more or less, control knowledge. Discussions focus on the way in which museums make
information available to audiences and the sense that audiences make of that information.
Although most commentators emphasise the powerful role of the museum in conveying knowledge,
some are beginning to respond to the idea of the active audience (Berry &Mayer, 1989; HooperGreenhill, 1994; Moffat & Woollard, 1999; Stone and Molyneaux, 1994). Although Hooper-Greenhill
(1994: 17-26) argues strongly that museums should incorporate non-linear communication models of
audience learning, it is Falk and Dierking (2000) who make the decisive break from former
conceptions of museum dominated learning by arguing that audience learning is an event outside the
museum’s control. But what is the relationship between audience and museum when the museum
does not hold knowledge? What if knowledge must come from outside the museum, from the
audience?
Decline in museum “authority” in Australia has accompanied the changing value given to other cultural
institutions, nevertheless, it has been rare to find the museum institution understood as a virtual nonpossessor of knowledge and without the authority based on an assumed claim to knowledge. A
recent Western Australian exhibition provided an extreme case in which to observe audience learning
in the context of the situation of the museum as a non-possessor of knowledge.
I led a curatorial team in Perth, Western Australia in 2004 which highlighted a shift in the conception of
learning in a museum. Under the Lap, Over the Fence: Foreigner Production in the Midland Railway
Workshops was an exhibition in which the curators did not hold knowledge. All knowledge of the topic
came from one audience which also composed the chief part of the total audience. This meant that
the curators necessarily had to find all their information from that audience and then exhibit it to the
same audience. In a case such as this, conceptions of learning through an exhibiting body need to be
reassessed.
This paper uses the experience of development of this exhibition to examine what happens when the
museum is a non-possessor of knowledge and unable to direct audience learning. It reflects on what
can be understood from this in terms of broader museum and audience experiences. It asks first,
what could this audience learn when it already possessed an extraordinary depth of prior knowledge?
Secondly, this paper asks how could this audience learn in this particular case, when the museum
seemed to be restricted to an exhibiting function. In the case of Under the Lap, Over the Fence two
issues emerged. The first was that the museum became the learner thus demonstrating that
knowledge is able to flow in the opposite direction from that almost always implied by museum
commentators, for example those named above, for whom the concept of the active audience is still at
a minor stage of being incorporated into theory and practice. The second was that as the teaching
role of the museum was altered, the museum’s role as an affirmer of community was highlighted. The
museum as a focus of community has been extensively explored (Karp, Kreamer & Lavine, 1992), but
in this case the value of the exhibition as a focal point for a community emerged as a crucial function,
and significantly this was in the absence of museum knowledge.
The term “museum” is used in this paper to designate the bundle of characteristics which we associate
with museums: their prestige, authority, knowledge base and role in learning (Hooper-Greenhill, 1992).
Although the exhibition took place outside the umbrella of a physical museum building – a common
event today noted by Hooper-Greenhill, 1994: 1) - the process of exhibition development had the
force of museum authority because it was undertaken by Curtin University of Technology postgraduate museum and heritage students. The teaching of Cultural Heritage has been established at
75
this university for more than ten years and lecturers and students undertake many museum and
heritage projects. In addition, the campus has one of Australia’s premier university art galleries. In
short, although the exhibition was located outside of a usual museum building, the university’s
association with museums meant that the students had available to them the authority and prestige
which accompanies museums. The norm of museum authority was supplemented by university
authority. - This paper provides a brief background to the exhibition before considering the type of
learning available to the audience. The final part of this paper reflects on the altered role of the
museum when the audience is the chief possessor of knowledge.
Background
The exhibition took place on one day, October 24 2004, with an audience of many thousands. It was
featured at an Open Day which was used to commemorate the ninetieth anniversary of the Midland
Railway Workshops and the tenth anniversary of their abrupt and bitter closure. It focused on the vast
complex of workshops which operated from 1904 to 1994 in Midland, a suburb of Perth, one of the
biggest industrial complexes in Australia throughout the twentieth century. The exhibition was sited in
the Foundry at the heart of the workshops, a place of cathedral dimensions. The title of the exhibition,
Under the Lap, Over the Fence: Foreigner Production in the Midland Railway Workshops referred to
workshops’ slang: “foreigner”, meaning anything made in the workshops without an official work order
and “under the lap” meaning to do something without authorisation. “Over the Fence” referred to the
practice of hurling foreigners over the workshop fences where they were later retrieved and taken
home or sold for profit. During the ninety years of workshop operation tens of thousands of foreigners
were made, the astonishing variety attests to the ingenuity, cunning and collaboration of the workers in
the face of some harsh punishments when the culprits were caught.
The repressive Victorian atmosphere of the workshops was maintained almost to the day of their
closure. A rigid hierarchy between management and workers and a routine of whistles controlling rest
breaks and even toilet visits resulted in many workers feeling that they were treated
unsympathetically, some men described an atmosphere of worker anger. Tools of all kinds were
made, as well as luggage, furniture, toys, jewellery, lamps, kitchen utensils, erotica and even an
elaborate “samurai” sword and an ocean going boat. Larger items were smuggled out of the
workshops in pieces and assembled at home. Many items were designed to suit the possibilities for
smuggling, for example glass louvre slats for windows were usually no longer than the length of a
man’s arm from his armpit to wrist – the glass was hidden in a capacious coat sleeve and removed
slat by slat from the workshops.
More than two hundred objects were assembled for the exhibition, all of which were still in use in the
community. This meant that the members of the curatorial team had to make contact with dozens of
former workers, interview them, and persuade them to loan their foreigners for exhibition. Not all of
the workers who were contacted agreed to talk to the curators, many were still afraid of the
repercussions which would follow once their illicit use of work time and work materials became public.
How did this audience learn?
Complex models of communication (see for example, Fiske, 1982) have informed communication
studies in many countries at least since the early 1980s, however, the response of museums to these
radically different ways of understanding the generation of meaning has been slower to emerge
(Vergo, 1989).
There has been a shift in understanding communication. It was first theorised in terms of linear flows
of information, from a sender of a message to a receiver of that message. Today it is theorised as
interlocking, interactive relationships which enable meaning and this is having an impact on the
conceptualisation of learning. Falk and Dierking (2000) demonstrate that learning in a museum is
framed fundamentally by the visitor and that the museum’s curatorial intention is secondary in the
knowledge/learning process. This, of course, has radical implications for the authority of museums,
the status of which has been under steady attack for some decades through the democratic
philosophy of the New Museology.
Falk and Dierking (2000), and earlier, Dierking (1992) alone, elaborate the varieties of ways of
knowing and show that free choice learning rests on personal, socio-cultural and physical contexts
76
and that without understanding of these elements the efficacy of museum learning is imperiled. In
Under the Lap, Over the Fence the multi-dimensional flow of knowledge was clear. The audience
learnt from the experience of both developing the exhibition and also visiting it; wider family members
became involved; memory was triggered.
However, the curators also learnt from the audience.
During the day of the exhibition the curators remained constantly on site both answering questions
and receiving more information from the visitors. Remaining physically present with the exhibition
highlighted the strong flow of learning from the audience to the museum.
The audience learnt in this free choice environment in the first instance by being interviewed by the
curatorial team and lending their foreigners for the exhibition. The event of being interviewed was
significant because being interviewed suggested that long working lives of real hardship were
validated by a museum. The men interviewed (members of the later audience) were initially surprised
to be approached by a museum. This experience is also recorded by Tchen (1992) who describes
the humility of Chinese laundry workers when the Chinatown History Museum in New York asked
them to participate in a museum project. He comments: “the public representations of what has
usually been considered grueling and thankless work has lent a sense of the broader symbolic
importance to the workers themselves and their families” (Tchen, 1992: 292). This was the first aspect
of learning for the workers from the Midland Railway Workshops - a sense of validation and delight
that their pasts were worthy of a museum project. First comments from the men suggesting “how can
you be interested in me or that old thing?” very often turned to enthusiastic participation. At the end of
the exhibition the man who had made the ocean-going boat came to me with more ideas for pursuing
the finding of his long since missing boat and also suggested further avenues for historical research.
A second way in which the audience learnt was by talking to each other. This was particularly clear
during the exhibition day which attracted thousands of visitors. Falk and Dierking describe the
importance of interaction between visitors as one of the primary modes of free choice learning. During
the exhibition period of Under the Lap, Over the Fence there were animated conversations around the
Foundry. Visitors enriched the exhibition by supplementing its information and talking vigorously to
each other about their working lives. For example, in the tough atmosphere of the hidden production
of foreigners, workers had adopted the practice of helping each other with the manufacture without
necessarily knowing whom they were assisting.
It was common for an item, such as a
comemmorative plaque or a 21st birthday key (traditionally given to a person on attaining their majority
in Western Australia) to be worked on by many men as it passed through the Pattern Shop, Foundry,
Chroming Shop, Engraving Shop and Carpentry Shop. When the commemorative item was finally
housed in a gift box, it was sent back up the line to the person who wanted it, with few of the people
who worked on it knowing for whom they were working. Although the original secrecy surrounding the
manufacture of the foreigners was maintained during the development of the exhibition and the
publishing of a catalogue, the experience of the exhibition meant that it was possible for men to greet
each other and to display their foreigners, both proudly and sheepishly. This led to further discussion
and informal explorations of the way in which life had operated in the workshops. Throughout the
exhibition day people posed for group photographs with the foreigners behind them. Some of them
included the sweep of the exhibition of more than two hundred items which showed their item among
so many others. Decades of foreigners had never been assembled before.
From these events it can be seen that a third type of free choice learning was based on remembering.
The exhibition was necessarily selective in what it interpreted, but acted as a powerful trigger for a
stream of memories which filled out the exhibition and flowed back into the lives of the men and their
families. Everywhere in the Foundry people were greeting each other and talking about the making of
foreigners and workshops’ life.
A fourth way of learning became apparent at the end of the exhibition. As the exhibition was a one
day event only, there was, of course, much interest that continued after its closure and the return of
the foreigners to their owners. In the following months I was approached repeatedly by people
wanting catalogues to share with friends.
This way of learning was, therefore, based on
commemoration, or perhaps better understood as souveniring. The catalogue and photographs of
people taken with their foreigners on the day acted as souvenirs to trigger memories. The exhibition
clearly offered an important emotional catalyst to its audience. - The exhibition team created five large
panels which interpreted some of the background. From these, the audience could learn in a fifth way
– a more formal museum method - about the bigger picture of the historical manufacture of foreigners.
77
This had necessarily been hidden because of the atmosphere of secrecy and the tough disciplinary
environment.
As curators we had been very cautious about making any statements which suggested superior or
academic knowledge about the workshops given that we believed that most of what we could learn
must come from the workers themselves. No archival research was possible. Being mostly young,
middle class women we were acutely aware of the life experience gap between ourselves and the
much older men. Although we, therefore, restricted ourselves to the men’s experiences we used one
academic point which was almost certainly not available to the men. We used de Certeau’s (1984)
description of “la perruque”, the slang French expression for the petty thefts of workshop time and
property, in order to discuss acts of resistance in a disciplinary environment. I have outlined this
elsewhere (Harris, 2004) and described the curatorial dangers of seizing on de Certeau’s analysis as
an easy explanation for workshop transgression. However, this was the only point we made which
was not drawn directly from the men. This was the only part of the exhibition which could be seen to
use the museum’s traditional “superior” knowledge and authority. I did not hear any members of the
audience discuss de Certeau’s insight and do not know to what extent this piece of sociological
analysis added to their understanding.
Emerging roles for the museum
Falk and Dierking argue that the free choice museum environment offers a radically uncontrollable
learning scene and one in which all that is learnt cannot be known by the curators. Experience of
Under the Lap, Over the Fence confirms their argument. However, the unusual background to this
exhibition, in that the curators always knew less than their audience, allows the speculation on
audience learning in museums to go further.
Following Falk and Dierking, it would seem that the museum must now accept that the content and
method of audience learning is somewhat haphazard and that the message which it wishes to convey
might or might not reach its target. Is this a tenable position for a publically funded body which has
always used education as a raison d’etre? After all, so many debates concerning the disciplinary
environment of the museum (for example, Bennett, 1990; Hooper-Greenhill, 1992) assume implicitly
that there is a dominant cultural role for the museum. The New Museology has attempted to
democratise this role but, before Falk and Dierking, had not addressed the question of the possible
collapse of curatorial intent in exhibition. If the museum accepts that it could be simply a conduit for
various erratic flows of information and relinquishes its powerful role which was based partly on the
assumption that it controlled knowledge, then what more tangible role can the museum assign to
itself?
The experience of this project suggests that the museum has available two roles which it can grasp
firmly. The first is that it can see itself first as a place which does memory work. For this role the
museum could prioritise the random association which is often the basis of memory and accept that its
role is to enable and to foster the free flow of memory. It could then try to document some of the
memories which could be added to the museum archives as knowledge drawn from the community
rather than from the academy or the museum. The museum would, therefore, insist on the priority of
the audience as a source of knowledge and itself as a facilitator of access to knowledges about any
particular theme. This would necessarily lead to the concretisation in the public arena of the reality of
the plurality of knowledge – an essential aspect of any society such as Australia’s which has a formal
national policy of multi-culturalism in place, but which agonises over the enduring dominance of the
old Anglo-Saxon settler culture.
The second tangible role of the museum as it acknowledges its loss of control over learning is to be an
affirmer of community. Observations of the audience and discussions with individual members during
the Under the Lap, Over the Fence exhibition demonstrated that the event had brought people
together and helped to consolidate their sense of community. Karp, Kreamer and Lavine (1992) show
the vital role of museums in the fostering of the idea of community. The workshops exhibition showed
that the loss of control of audience learning could be understood as linked to community. In this
exhibition the curators were forced to go to the audience in order to understand anything about the
theme of the foreigners. By going to the workers the museum unwittingly acted to reaffirm an old
community. This assessment is not intended to diminish the important role of other commemorative
acts which occurred at the workshops, however, these other events often acted to deflect attention
78
from the sudden and contested closure of the workshops. This exhibition focused on the bold actions
of the men in a repressive workplace and, therefore, implicitly could be interpreted as celebrating their
survival. In
the
face
of
the
powerful
theory
described
by
Falk
and
Dierking,
that
the
museum
does
not
control
knowledge
or
audience
learning,
there
are
still
significant
roles
for
the
museum
in
wider
community
memory
work.
Bibliography
Bennett, Tony, 1990, “The political rationality of the museum”, Continuum, An Australian Journal of the
Media, 3 (1), pp.35-55.
Berry, Nancy and Mayer, Susan, (eds) 1989, Museum Education: History, Theory and Practice, The
National Art Education Association, Reston, Virginia.
De Certeau, Michel, 1984, The Practice of Everyday Life, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Dierking, Lynn, 1992, “Contemporary theories of learning”, The Audience in Exhibition Development,
American Association of Museums, Washington.
Falk, John and Dierking, Lynn, 2000, Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of
Meaning, Altamira Press, Walnut Creek.
Fiske, John, 1982, Introduction to Communication Studies, Methuen, London.
Harris, Jennifer, 2004, “Agency? Resistance?: Foreigner Production in the Midland Railway
Workshops”, paper, Cultural Studies Association of Australia National Conference, Perth,
December.
Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean, 1992, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge, Routledge, London and
New York.
Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean, (ed.) 1994, The Educational Role of the Museum, Routledge, London and
New York.
Karp, Ivan. Kreamer, Christine and Lavine, Steven, (eds), 1992 Museums and Communities: The
Politics of Public Culture, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London.
Moffat, Hazel and Woollard, Vicky, 1999, Museum and Gallery Education: A Manual of Good Practice,
Altamira Pres, Walnut Creek.
Stone, Peter and Molyneaux, Brian, (eds) 1994, The Presented Past: Heritage, Museums and
Education, Routledge, London and New York.
Tchen, John, (1992) “Creating a dialogic museum: the Chinatown History Museum experiment” in
Karp, Ivan, Kreamer, Christine and Lavine, Steven, (eds) 1992
Vergo, Peter, (ed.) The New Museology, Reaktion Books, London.
Summary
The cultural authority of the museum has been based on the idea of the museum as the site of
knowledge. Now, as museums begin to respond to communication research which theorises the
audience as active, that authority is being questioned. This paper examines the fundamental shift in
the relationship between museum and audience when the museum does not have knowledge, when it
must turn to its audience in order to learn. The findings of Falk and Dierking (2000) are confirmed in
this paper and this radical situation - of non-possession of knowledge - is found to lead to a reversal.
The museum can learn from its audience. This paper argues that as curatorial authority collapses the
museum has available two emerging roles: the first is to enable memory work and the second is to
affirm community.
Resumen
La autoridad cultural del museo ha basado en la idea del museo como sitio del conocimiento. Ahora,
como los museos comienzan a responder a la investigación de la comunicación que teoriza à la
audiencia como activa, se está preguntando esa autoridad. Este articulo examina la inversión
fundamental en el relación entre museo y la audiencia cuando el museo no tiene conocimiento,
cuando debe consultar con su audiencia para aprender. Los resultas de Falk y Dierking (2000) son
confirmados en este articulo y la situación radical de ‘desposeción’ del conocimiento se encuentran à
conducir a una revocación en ese relación. El museo puede aprender de su audiencia. Este articulo
discute que como se derrumba la autoridad directoria el museo, como un institución tenga disponibles
dos propósitos que emergen: el primer es de facilita trabajo de la memoria, y el segundo es de afirmar
la comunidad.
79
Confiance et malentendus : le public au risque du
musée…
Joelle Le Marec – France
___________________________________________________________________
Il est désormais fort courant d’entendre des déclarations selon lesquelles le public serait au centre des
préoccupations et des dynamiques de changement dans les musées.
Qui plus est, ce serait au nom des intérêts de ce même public qu’on réformerait le musée, en
développant les démarches qualité et la professionnalisation de la communication muséale.
Pourtant, ayant moi-même mené de nombreuses enquêtes auprès de visiteurs de nombreux musées
depuis seize ans, comment se fait-il que j’ai le pénible sentiment que le musée, loin de se rapprocher
des publics, les méconnaît de plus en plus : au sentiment de savoir toujours trop peu de choses à leur
sujet, se substitue la dangereuse conviction d’en savoir beaucoup. Mon sentiment est partagé par de
nombreux collègues ayant mené des études auprès des public en ayant recours à des entretiens,
c’est-à-dire en s’engageant véritablement dans des situations de communication avec des enquêtés.
Ce n’est que dans ces conditions que peuvent s’éprouver, à travers la situation d’enquête, certaines
dimensions du statut de membre du public. En effet, les visiteurs enquêtés acceptent le statut de
représentants de membres du public lorsqu’ils sont interrogés en tant que tels, et attribuent en retour
à l’enquêteur le statut de représentant de l’institution muséale. L’entretien d’enquête n’est alors pas
simplement un mode de recueil de matériaux discursifs, d’information, que l’enquêteur analyse pour
reconstituer a posteriori un point de vue du public. L’entretien est déjà en lui-même, bien souvent, une
manière dont s’actualise la relation entre l’institution muséale et ses publics. Entendre ce que disent
les enquêtés en prenant en compte la nature de la communication sociale qui est en jeu à travers elle,
c’est se mettre en condition d’entendre la manière dont les visiteurs enquêtés se représentent le
rapport entre l’institution muséale et ses publics.
Les arguments concernant les attentes et les pratiques des publics sont désormais assumés avec
assurance par de nombreux professionnels, dont les conservateurs, qui ne se positionnaient guère
sur le sujet il y a dix ans.
C’est pourquoi je souhaiterais proposer dans cet texte une réponse à quelques-uns des arguments,
recensés lors d’une réunion récente et à l’appui desquels les conservateurs font pourtant référence à
ce que leur inspirent les nombreuses enquêtes de public qui se développent dans les musées,
notamment les approches marketing.
« Comment conquérir des non-publics, ceux qui ne viennent pas ? », « Les visiteurs ne viennent pas
pour apprendre, mais pour se divertir », « les visiteurs lisent peu et se fatiguent vite », « les visiteurs
sont de plus en plus exigeants, de plus en plus difficile à satisfaire, et de ce fait, nous sommes en
concurrence avec les industries du loisir », « de toutes façons les visiteurs n’en font qu’à leur tête car
ils interprètent en fonction de leurs préoccupations et de leurs centres d’intérêt propres ».
1
Je m’appuierai pour répondre sur les résultats de nombreuses années d’études et recherche
concernant les représentations et les pratiques des visiteurs d’expositions dans des musées de
sciences, des musées d’art, des musées de société.
Il s’agit de différents types d’études :
-
des études préalables d’attentes et représentations menées en amont de la programmation et
de la réalisation d’exposition thématiques à la cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie sur les
2
thèmes de l’environnement, la santé, l’informatique, les énergies, l’espace, la ville, le littoral ,
des études menées à l’occasion de la conception d’éléments d’exposition, en particulier des
3
textes, et des éléments interactifs à scénarios ,
Mes premières enquêtes remontent à 1988, au moment du début de ma collaboration avec le service Etudes et
Recherches du Centre Georges Pompidou sous la direction de Jean-François Barbier-Bouvet, pour des études
du public de la bibliothèque et des expositions. J’ai ensuite créé en 1989 la Cellule Evaluation à la direction des
expositions de la Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, avant d’intégrer l’enseignement supérieur et la recherche en
1997, en poursuivant des recherches sur les pratiques des publics des musées dans toutes sortes de contextes.
2
Voir Le Marec Joëlle, « Le musée à l’épreuve des thèmes sciences et société : les visiteurs en public »,
Quaderni, 46, p. 105-122,hiver 2001-2002
1
80
-
d’analyses de visite d’exposition ou d’usages d’éléments d’exposition,
de recherches-développement dans le cadre de la conception de nouveaux dispositifs de
4
médiation, comme le dispositif « Visite + » à la cité des sciences et de l’industrie , ou bien le
recours à l’audio-guidage par téléphone portable dans le cadre d’une collaboration avec le
musée Gadagne à Lyon.
Ont également été réalisées des enquêtes en dehors des espaces muséaux proprement dits, au
domicile des personnes par exemple, ou par téléphone, ou dans d’autres locaux, à l’occasion
5
d’analyse des usages de cédéroms co-produits par des musées d’art , ou de l’exploration de la
6
signification de la visite scolaire au musée , ou encore de consultations préalables à des projets de
musées, comme dans le cas d’un projet de musée des Culture du Monde à Lyon en 2000.
Les points communs entre toutes ces recherches menées, dans des contextes très différents est la
méthode d’enquête d’une part, mais aussi la manière dont se construit dans toutes ces enquêtes, le
statut de membre d’un public, avec ses dimensions sociales, culturelles, et politiques, trop souvent
oubliées dans la plupart des études qui pré-constituent le public comme une cible (d’une action
éducative, ou d’une démarche marketing), ou comme bien une population considérée somme
7
d’individus singuliers .
Il s’est agi dans tous les cas d’études dites « qualitatives », par entretiens, destinées à recueillir le
point de vue des personnes interrogées sur leur propres attentes, représentations, pratiques,
expériences. Si chacune des enquêtes menée depuis 1988 est basée sur des échantillons
nécessairement restreints, ce sont au total des centaines de visiteurs qui ont ainsi été interrogés de
manière approfondie. Ce qui transparaît en dépit de l’hétérogénéité des contextes et des périodes,
c’est la remarquable permanence de certaines attitudes et attentes que nous allons détailler plus loin.
Ces enquêtes sont caractérisées par une autre aspect, moins technique : la plupart du temps, nous
nous sommes intéressés pour ces enquêtes à visiteurs de musées, c’est-à-dire à des personnes qui
avaient déjà choisi de se constituer en membres d’un public. Cette caractéristiques des enquêtes
nous a souvent été reprochée comme étant une limite, qui ne permettait pas d’avoir accès aux
discours, attentes et pratiques de ceux qui ne viennent pas au musée et dont la « conversion »
constitue souvent l’enjeu véritable des politiques de public. Les professionnels des musées déclarent
ainsi, parfois explicitement, que ceux qui les intéressent le plus sont ceux qui ne viennent pas. C’est là
une étrange position, en termes de communication sociale. Quoiqu’il en soit, s’intéresser à ceux qui
viennent, c’est aussi restituer un peu de l’intérêt que ceux-là ont choisi de porter au musée, et explorer
les raisons pour lesquelles ils ont créé ce lien au musée.
Il nous est cependant arrivé de solliciter des personnes en dehors du musée, comme dans le cas
d’une étude préalable à un projet de musée des cultures du monde à Lyon en 2000, pour lequel nous
avions réuni des groupes de Lyonnais qui pouvaient se sentir concernés par la thématique (membres
d’associations intervenant dans le champ de l’interculturel, immigrés résidents, étrangers en séjour en
France, lycéens). Dans la mesure où toutes ces personnes se sont constituées volontaires pour
participer à cette consultation, nous ne les avons pas considérées comme un public potentiel du futur
musée, mais comme un public réel de la consultation autour du projet.
Quant aux individus interrogés à domicile sur leurs usages privés des cédéroms de musées, leurs
réponses ont montré par contraste à quel point les usages des scénarios interactifs multimédia étaient
différents selon qu’on les utilise à la maison, ou dans un espace d’exposition, c’est-à-dire, selon qu’on
les utilise en tant que « public » d’un musée, en lien avec la sphère des concepteurs dont on tente de
deviner les intentions qu’ils ont eu votre égard, ou en tant que propriétaire seul responsable de l’usage
des objets que l’on acquiert.
3
Voir notamment Joëlle Le Marec, « L’interactivité, rencontre entre visiteurs et concepteurs », Publics et
Musées, 3, p 91-110, 1993.
4
Voir Le Marec Joëlle et Topalian Roland, « Le rôle des technologies dans les relations entre institutions et
publics : peut-on (vraiment) innover en matière de communication ? », Actes de ICHIM 2003, 8 -12 septembre
2003, Ecole du Louvre, Paris.
5
Davallon Jean, Gottesdiener Hana, Le Marec Joëlle. Premiers usages des cédéroms de musées, Dijon : OCIM,
2000
6
Le Marec Joëlle, Rebeyrotte Jean-François « Les relations écoles - musées en contexte exotique : l’interculturel
au carré », dans les actes des journées d’étude du groupe médiation de la Société Française des Sciences de
l’Information et de la Communication Médiation des cultures. Université Charles de Gaulle, Lille 3, 26-27 mars
1999.
7
Voir Le Marec Joëlle « Le public : définitions et représentations », p. 50-56, Bulletin des Bibliothèques de
France, 2. 2001
81
Avant tout, un des résultats les plus marquants de l’ensemble des enquêtes menées est le suivant :
être usager d’un musée n’est pas forcément la même chose que d’être membre du public de
l’institution muséale.
« Comment conquérir des non-publics, ceux qui ne viennent pas ? »
C’est ici la manière de poser les questions qui fait problème : « Comment conquérir des non-publics,
ceux qui ne viennent pas ? ». Elle est sous-tendue par un ensemble d’associations d’idées implicites :
les publics sont ceux qui viennent, et par conséquent, ceux qui ne viennent pas sont des non-publics.
Un des objectifs que doit se donner le musée est de les faire venir.
Y a t’il équivalence totale entre le fait d’être membre du public et le faire de venir au musée ? Ceux qui
ne viennent pas sont-ils des non-publics ? La fréquentation du musée est-elle le seul mode de relation
entre le musée et le public ?
Le public est en effet souvent synonyme, dans le sens commun, d’un « pôle récepteur » toujours
défini par rapport à un « pôle émetteur » qui fabrique, crée, diffuse une offre destinée à être proposée
à des individus dans des conditions déterminées. Ces conditions constituent les individus en
« public », éventuellement à leur insu, voire à leur corps défendant : la constitution du public en
« cible », la formulation des objectifs en terme « d’impact », ne sont pas des métaphores anodines.
Une des opérations les plus fréquemment effectuées pour constituer un ensemble hétérogène
d’individus en public comme entité structurée, est la construction du phénomène de l’audience. La
mesure de l’audience constitue ainsi en public un ensemble de personnes en fonction de critères
nécessairement pré-déterminés en dehors des principaux intéressés.
Le « public » ne peut pas être une instance décidant de sa propre définition dans la mesure où il
n’existe pas en tant que collectif social préexistant à sa constitution. C’est souvent une instance
externe autorisée à constituer ou à définir le public (instance de production comme l’institution qui
offre ou bien instance d’analyse comme l’institution de recherche) qui surajoute à tous les statuts
explicitement assumés et à toutes les caractérisations sociologiques externes d’un individu, le statut
provisoire de membre du public. Cette constitution du public peut être basée sur des données
empiriques, mais aussi ne reposer que sur des critères non explicités.
La démarche qui crée le statut consiste, pour la définition de la notion de « public », à faire franchir
aux individus un accès, réel ou symbolique. Lorsque cet accès ouvre sur un espace physique, la
superposition exacte du statut de membre de public et de celui de visiteur est une forme privilégiée de
la constitution du public qui favorise un consensus culturel : étant physiquement intégré à l’espace où
« ça se passe », l’individu peut en principe être totalement engagé dans le fait de n’être que public
pendant un temps donné dans un lieu donné.
On pourrait nuancer cette affirmation : dans les situations, il n’est pas rare que les visiteurs enquêtés
indiquent dans le fil du discours, au cours de l’entretien, les moments où ils parlent en tant que
membres du public, et les moments où ils s’autorisent à « sortir » de ce statut pour émettre une
opinion à un autre titre. Dans sa forme la plus explicite, on trouve par exemple : « moi je vais vous
dire, personnellement, mais ne le mettez pas dans votre enquête… »). Le statut de membre du public
pourrait d’ailleurs presque être vu comme la position d’énonciation consensuelle, presque
contractuelle, qui définit l’enquête comme mode de communication sociale : étant interrogée pour une
enquête de public, la personne répond en tant que membre du public.
On a en effet accès lors des enquêtes à la manière dont les enquêtés peuvent eux-mêmes se
percevoir ou non comme faisant partie du public. Et dans certains pas, certaines de ceux qui sont
considérés comme des « non publics », c’est-à-dire des personnes qui ne visitent pas les musées,
expriment de manière très explicite et parfaitement compétente, qu’elles ont lien au musée en tant
qu’institution publique à forte valeur symbolique, mais qu’elle ne font pas usage du musée comme lieu
de pratique culturelle.
Ainsi, la plupart des immigrés lyonnais enquêtés pour le projet du futur musée des cultures du Monde
à Lyon ne fréquentaient pas les musées et pourtant, ils se sont constitués volontaire pour l’enquête
préalable :ils se sentent être « public » de l’institution sans en être usagers. De fait, lors des
entretiens, ils ont précisé qu’ils ne fréquenteraient sans doute pas ce futur musée : aller en plein
centre ville visiter un musée serait aussi extraordinaire et incongru que d’aller manger au restaurant.
Mais le projet les intéressaient très fortement, et ils y investissaient l’idée que ce futur musée serait
peut-être un lieu où l’on verrait apparaître dans le patrimoine français des éléments provenant des
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différentes cultures qui constituent la population « on y verra peut-être nos belles assiettes berbères ».
Ils ont donc un sens aigu de ce qu’est le musée comme instance historique, de patrimonialisation,
c’est à dire comme institution au sens fort.
Le musée est une institution vivante dans la mesure où elle transmet un héritage de génération en
génération, dans un formalisme qui résiste au temps et aux différences de points de vue : Il partage
avec la famille, mais à l’échelle d’un collectif plus large, le rôle de transmission d’héritage d’une
génération à la suivante. Il est même émouvant que ces personnes aient pu penser que le musée
français assumait la patrimonialisation et l’exposition des valeurs d’une communauté immigrée, pour
l’intégrer à sa collection alors même que ces personnes ne peuvent guère mobiliser de pratiques
effectives du musée qui auraient pu leur servir de modèle pour construire cette représentation. C’est
signe que le musée est une institution vivante, mais justement dans la mesure où elle est une
référence stable, qui la fait apparaître comme institution morte et dépassée pour les autres.
Le musée est une institution patrimoniale qui n’est donc pas nécessairement un lieu de pratique
culturelle pour ces personnes-là : il est fondamental que le musée prenne en charge leur patrimoine et
réfère à leurs racines, mais pas forcément pour « aller voir », sinon pour que les enfants sachent qu’ils
peuvent aller voir. Leurs pratiques culturelles ordinaires quant à elles excluent la visite au musée et
d’une manière générale, les déplacements non utilitaires en centre ville.
Or, lors de cette même enquête, les étrangers résidents et les membres d’associations culturelles
sont apparus quant à eux usagers du musée, visiteurs d’expositions. Ils imaginent le futur musée
comme un lieu de pratiques culturelles plus que comme lieu de patrimonialisation.
C’est précisément ce qui fait toute la différence : c’est parce que le musée est lieu de pratique
culturelle ordinaire avant d’être le dépositaire d’une collection que les jeunes et les associatifs le
voient participatif, capable de donner envie d’y revenir, et débarrassé de ses vitrines poussiéreuses.
C’est parce que le musée est une institution patrimoniale vivante avant d’être un lieu de pratique
culturelle ordinaire que les immigrés le voient capable de conserver et de donner à voir leurs racines,
pour les générations, la visite pouvant rester exceptionnelle sans que sa portée diminue.
« Les visiteurs sont de plus en plus exigeants, de plus en plus difficile à satisfaire, et de ce fait,
nous sommes en concurrence avec les industries du loisir »
C’est avec l’analyse de l’ensemble des études préalables menées à la cité des Sciences de que nous
avons pu constater que les visiteurs mis en situation de membres du public pour l’enquête, révélaient
quel était pour eux la nature des relations entre le public et l’institution, et en particulier la confiance
très robuste et très durable accordée à l’institution : les visiteurs viennent au musée avec la conviction
que l’institution a fait au mieux par rapport au savoir et au patrimoine dont elle est garante, et par
rapport à la médiation qu’elle propose.
L’institution est jugée a priori compétente du point de vue des savoirs et du point de vue de la
médiation, et l’expérience de visite est souvent mise au service de cette conviction. Lorsque les
visiteurs sont en difficultés, ou se sentent frustrés, ils prennent sur eux les raisons pour lesquelles la
visite s’avère difficile ou frustrante : l’exposition s’adressait à un autre public qu’eux-mêmes, ou bien
ils ont peut-être mal compris…Il est très rare que des visiteurs soient mécontents ou non satisfaits
d’une exposition, car ils ne cherchent presque jamais à évaluer ce qu’ils visitent. Ils cherchent à le
comprendre. S’ils sont mécontents, c’est souvent d’eux-mêmes, ce qui leur permet de maintenir leur
confiance intacte dans l’institution.
Etrangement, lorsque les résultats concernant le crédit accordé à l’institution muséale ont été
présentés dès les années 90 aux concepteurs d’exposition, la réaction spontanée a été de l’ordre du
« c’est trop beau pour être vrai ».
D’une certaine manière, du point de vue de nombreux professionnels de musées, c’est la présomption
de méfiance qui s’impose, comme s’il valait mieux faire le pari, pour réussir son exposition, que le
visiteur est a priori méfiant et difficile à satisfaire, dans une logique du « qui peut le plus peut le
moins ».
Or, dans toute relation de communication humaine, la présomption de méfiance est destructrice,
surtout lorsque le fondement de la relation est justement basé sur la confiance.
C’est pourquoi les enquêtes de satisfaction opèrent sur un véritable malentendu : un peu comme si,
dans une relation amicale, l’un des individus en présence se demandait si son interlocuteur était
satisfait des moments passés ensemble.
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Le public s’en remet avec confiance aux intentions de communication de l’institution, considérée
comme ayant de bonnes raisons de faire telle ou telle proposition. Les attentes ne sont pas des
attitudes individualisées, cumulatives, définies à partir de ses besoins ou envies propres, même si
elles n’annulent pas ces dernières. Elles prennent sens par rapport à l’idée que l’on se fait des
missions de l’institution.
Au moment de la visite les visiteurs sont souvent en situation de chercher ce que le musée souhaite
leur montrer ou leur faire faire. Le sentiment de satisfaction naît également du sentiment de
comprendre ce qui est attendu du visiteur, de l’actualisation d’un pacte entre l’institution et le public.
Les implications de cette posture sont très nombreuses. Nous nous contenterons d’en donner un
exemple, tiré de l’analyse des visites de l’exposition « Cuirs toujours », présentée à la cité des
Sciences en 1994.
Cette exposition consacrée à la présentation d’une extraordinaire collections de cuirs et aux
différentes étapes de traitement de ce matériau, présentait un décalage entre les « promesses » de la
partie introductive annonçant une très grande variété de thèmes et d’approches, et les différentes
parties de l’exposition, qui ne pouvaient qu’effleurer l’ensemble des thématiques annoncées.
De nombreux visiteurs interprètent la partie introductive comme un mode d'organisation, un mode
d'emploi proposé de l'exposition, basée selon eux sur "une approche pluridisciplinaire du cuir" ou bien
sur "l'évolution du cuir depuis l'animal (nature) jusqu'à ses imitations (culture)". Ce parti-pris entraîne
l'adhésion du visiteur, il laisse une impression très positive et durable. Le visiteur reste parfois en fin
de compte avec une frustration qui se traduit non par des critiques, mais par des attentes ! L’essentiel
de ce qu'ils tirent de cette exposition devient précisément ces attentes, vécues positivement, de
manière constructive, comme l'anticipation d'autres visites qui auraient été possibles, et à laquelle
celle-ci a ouvert la voie.
Les visiteurs y mettent du leur pour adopter une démarche constructive à partir d'un contenu plus
potentiel que réel. Ils apportent notamment leurs représentations de ce qu’est une démarche
pédagogique pour optimiser la conversion des contenus potentiels en anticipations de ce que
l'exposition pourrait potentiellement modifier dans leurs propres représentations « on voit bien
comment on pourrait changer de vision sur le thème ». .
Nous avons également interrogés des muséologues et des professionnels de la médiation. A la
différence des visiteurs « ordinaires », ceux-ci se placent dans une posture d'évaluation, et ne se
sentent pas engagés par les objectifs annoncés de l'exposition.
Ils refusent de prendre en charge les difficultés d'interprétation et les frustrations causées par la visite,
et en recherchent la cause dans le dispositif d'exposition lui-même.
Un des ressorts de la confiance des visiteurs dans les missions institutionnelles réside dans un
positionnement des institutions culturelles dans un temps et un espace qui appartiennent à l’Histoire
et qui transcendent les enjeux partisans des acteurs sociaux immédiatement contemporains. C’est
ainsi que les visiteurs cherchent souvent à définir les missions institutionnelles par rapport à la relation
à d’autres institutions ou médias, avec l’idée que le musée est situé hors des pressions du marché.
Ainsi, on attend d’une exposition sur l’environnement ou sur la santé qu’elle se situe par rapport aux
discours médiatiques - lesquels paraissent souvent suspects. On attend également qu’elle reflète la
position d’une institution directement en contact avec les instances du savoir. Plus encore, on
s’attend, lorsqu’un thème est traité par l’institution, à ce que celle-ci s’implique dans son propre
discours.
Conclusion
Les rapports entre institutions et publics ne peuvent pas être gérés, du seul point de vue d’une
compétence technique et professionnelle particulière, et du seul point de vue interne à l’institution. Ils
s’ancrent dans des échelles historiques et dans des espaces culturels et sociaux larges. De ce point
de vue, ils suscitent toujours le sentiment d’une paralysante complexité, peu propice à la décision et à
l’action. Mais ce qu’ils montrent est cependant très simple fondamentalement : tout au long des
enquêtes, aujourd’hui comme hier, les publics enquêtés expriment une foi dans l’institution muséale et
dans la qualité de ce qu’on peut en attendre, qui ne ressemblent guère aux visions désenchantés qui
circulent souvent dans le milieu muséal. Face aux réactions des visiteurs dans les enquêtes,
l’évaluateur a très souvent envie de transmettre un message qui pourrait en substance être le
suivant : intéressez-vous aux raisons pour lesquelles ces personnes ont confiance dans le musée,
même lorsqu’ils n’en sont pas usagers, Non pas pour que rien ne change, mais tout au contraire, pour
fonder la dynamique du changement sur le lien entre l’institution et ses publics.
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Museology and Audience: In Search of Applause
Lynn Maranda, Canada
The dilemma
Some modern museums have been partnered with audiences in a way that has altered the dynamics
of their management. This shift of operation perception has targeted their visitors as entertainment
consumers who express their likes and dislikes with applause and attendance. This is an unsure
relationship for museums have been more comfortable providing thoughtful spectacles, or by parading
data for students and opportunities for explorers to uncover patterns of knowledge. Yet more and
more museums have been drawn into the competitive world of entertainment and so have been
seeking the applause of an entertained audience.
Non-traditional
The non-traditional museum visitor is a consumer who appears in person to ‘experience’ the products
offered by an institution. This visitor attends primarily as a passive recipient, but is prepared to
become an active contributor. His/her expectation is normally at the level where payment (where
applicable) is made for services rendered - entrance fee in exchange for privilege / right to view
exhibits, listen to lectures, and so forth and then to give applause in appreciation. As museums have
‘evolved’ in search of more applause, visitors have been encouraged to participate in interactive
programming, becoming both a partner and a stake holder in the museum enterprise.
The modern world
With the more recent proliferation of electronics and digitalization, the visitor no longer even has to
physically walk into the museum, but can easily access many of the necessary resources from a
distance. Museum audiences have expanded and now comprise virtually anyone who has ‘access’ to
the museum, not only by personal or electronic visitation, but also through such avenues as hearing /
reading media reports, attending off site exhibitions and programming, and by making telephone
enquiries.
Thus the museum’s perception of audience has to range widely and again, much of this ambivalence
has to do with its own ongoing explorations of creative programming, providing new reasons, raising
heightened expectations and hence, attracting varied visitations. It is extremely difficult to categorize
‘museum psyches’ for each has a personal relationship with its own motivations. Consequently, many
museums conduct surveys, classify their visitorship and adjust their product and its delivery
accordingly. Of course, for every generality, there are exceptions, most notable, those museums who
are constant, self-made, and self-fulfilled, such as the National Archeological Museum in Athens,
Greece. For these museums, their exhibition product tends to remain the same, they are well known
locally, nationally and/or internationally, and, they have a high visitorship. The desire for museums to
find visitor satisfaction at some level, especially when the more traditional approach cannot sustain a
large public, propels the managers to spend considerable resource to find and offer new experiences
to please an audience which they hope will grow.
Exhibitions and programmes can now be enhanced using whatever technology is available and many
museums implement these and other schemes to attract audience. While the object, for example, was
once the centre of attention in may museums, it too has undergone a transformation from a standalone presentation with no embellishments, to where it need not appear at all, being only represented
in virtual programming. As a result, the learning experience for the museum audience can range from
the viewing of many objects in display cases with minimal information on small labels, to highly
sophisticated presentations including fancy lighting, moving images, audio tracks, computer graphics,
and other electronic and sensory enhancements.
The fascination
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Museums have become drawn into the dimensions of dramatic presentation, partially attracted by their
own ability to offer cerebral or experiential encounters, and partially pulled by the political influence of
their own collections. Whatever the cause, there is a fascination to explore realms of social or
provocative thought. As such, museums now find themselves in positions of public influence. It is
hoped that how the visitor perceives the advanced messages will win more applause and thus enlarge
its audience and attendance.
The Subjects
The subjects that are deemed worthy of presentation are gleaned from just about any source, perhaps
initially inspired by in-house collections, but often are results of curatorial perceptions, the cultural and
socio-economic background of the community, and even the physical or ‘emotional’ atmosphere of the
museum space itself. Nevertheless, the museum consciously strives to box messages into
programming which it has judged to be germane, believing that it has a necessity to deliver additional
interpretive insight over and above its traditional museum mandate. In this way, it is perceived that
the museum will not only fulfill its role, but will also provide ultra-transmissions of new thought and
capture those visitors curious to see, learn, and experience. Of course, embarking on the journey of
creative interpretation, means that museums also run the risk of skewing the facts to promote
particular popular points of view, or becoming involved with idea promotion that looks more like
propaganda than science.
The Visitor
The visitor which the museum courts is not normally a ‘looky-loo’, that is, someone who is just passing
through, but rather, an individual with educated tastes who believes in the value of knowledge and is
therefore motivated to learn through different experiences. It is just such people that the museum
perceives they can attract to their latest offerings. It is thought that these visitors already possess a
strong notion that a ‘museum’ is a place which houses knowledge and is therefore an environ where
learning can be enjoyable. Many museums spend endless hours and sizeable sums of money
grooming these visitors to ‘give them what they want’. Attitudes of taste, however, are elusive and not
so pervasive that they can be counted on. It has proven difficult to find permanent acceptance of new
ideas, and indeed, many visitors find it hard themselves to articulate exactly what they want. So once
it is that museums have started down the road of supplying novel ideas to their public, they have come
face-to-face with the improbability of achieving consensus amongst visitors as to what a museum
should provide. Does the audience like what they see or not:?
Why do it?
Why museums want to look for a greater meaning to their existence has perhaps more to do with
economics than with long-term common sense. Most museums are notoriously short of financial wellbeing. Where this is the case, the base root of the ongoing relationship of museum-visitor is primarily
economic. Gone are the days when such museums existed for purely altruistic reasons, only devoted
to building collections and seeking and disseminating knowledge through research and travel. The
constant drive to pull the visitor in, often at any cost, has created patterns of behaviour on the part of
many museums that have diverged from the traditional.
The necessity of attraction
As it is the case that only a narrow segment of the population are ‘museum goers’, museum
management is aware of the inherent struggle to attract and keep its audience and so feel the
pressure to provide more and more attraction. In addition, it is recognized that museums must
consider not only concepts of population size and demographics, but also notions of leisure time and
intellect versus entertainment. Human population is increasing and that in itself is an allurement, but
that does not always mean greater attendance. So the museum can feel compelled to diversify in
order to keep pace with population growth which may have different ideas and thus it is quite easy for
management to get themselves and their institutions trapped, striving to win new audiences. They
woo. They constantly adjust to meet growing public demand for the fulfilment of leisure time activity.
The economic base motivation for such action does not go unnoticed. Museums have even adopted
styles which compete directly with other forms of ‘entertainment’, including interactive components,
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audio/visual presentations, special programming, and even the building of in-house IMAX and
OMNIMAX theatres.
The consequences of courting audience
One consequence is that the use of objects (from museum collections) often shifts from prime focus to
the other end of the scale where they may not appear at all. This has created its own dilemma, for
without anchoring the museum’s meanings to collections, the museum presenters feel the necessity to
rely on distinctive interpretation which is usually attended with embellishments. Over-powered, the
object retreats to a secondary role and the interpretive image-messages become supreme having
conducted the visitor through a world of idea-experience. It is this, then, which the visitor takes away
as the museum experience. Not only have objects been physically removed from their ‘functional’
environments, but also, now ex situ, they have been re-contextualized and new settings created in
which they ‘perform’. As a consequence, the museum employs strategies to enliven and enhance the
object which have the effect of removing it even further from its ‘reality’. The emphasis being placed
on exhibition design (as witnessed by the large sums being paid to specialized design firms which
create products as signature pieces) has posed a threat to the object-at-centre stage and has altered
the perception which the visitor has of the museum. The museum experience thus becomes more
sensory than cerebral, and it is uncertain whether the visitor actually ‘learns’ anything in the end.
By subscribing to shaping visitorship through the glitz-it-up methodology, some museums are
stretching their mandate into the realm of showmanship and entertainment. This begs the questions:
can museums really compete in this sphere?; do they really want to?; should they even try? And a
further, more serious question: by redirecting scarce resources, is the museum in danger of
neglecting its basic responsibilities? [While this does not mean that the museum cannot create a
pleasing atmosphere which the visitor finds conducive to an enjoyable learning experience, the
audience will still be discerning of the quality of the product offered. Museums who do not subscribe
to this methodology, allow objects to stand on their own merits, with varying degrees of interpretation
and/or contextualization. The object is still the focus of visitor attention and the basis for the learning
experience. The message is not cluttered with embellishments to make it more ‘attractive’.]
A more serious consequence of courting audience has been an extreme reaction to potential loss of
museum purpose, for it has even been contemplated that museums cease all cataloguing, labelling,
and historical interpretation. Taking a wide swing from tradition and moving in another direction,
opposite, it is argued that the museum’s ‘authoritative’ voice, should be countered. The museum
philosophy of deconstructionism declares that objects can ‘speak for themselves’, and therefore,
informative labels are not necessary because there is no single reality, no correct words of interpretive
expression. In this case, the object would stand alone to ‘communicate’ its own ‘authority’, and
museum visitors would go away with whatever impression they formulate in their own minds, oblivious
of any of its attending documentation. While the museum tinkers with deconstruction theory, is it
being responsible to its audience? Is it providing a learning experience in the meantime? Or does it
wish that visitors just accept what amounts as the ‘authoritative’ voice of the museum to provide no
information whatsoever?
Museums do have a cultural responsibility different from audience building
Most visitors come to museums primarily to see objects - whether these are theme organized or
contextualized or other, may not, in the end, really matter. The focus still remains the viewing of the
cultural or natural heritage through museum collections. How the museum presents and markets the
product to the community sets the initial stage not only of visitor perception but also of the learning
process. Unfortunately, all too often, there is a perception on the museum’s part that the visitorship
does not have the intellectual capacity for the comprehension of exhibition texts and labels. An effort
is made to reduce (dumb down) textual delivery to a low level common denominator so that anyone (of
approximately age 12 reading level) can understand same. In several cases, this has even led nonprofessional museum personnel to produce textual materials for display galleries.
From Experience
The stereotyping of the visitorship is also evident in the marketing of several exhibitions recently
developed by the Vancouver Museum. Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll are the headlines on one rack
card which promotes three exhibitions: Unmentionables, A Revealing Look at the History of
Underwear; Opium, The Heavenly Demon, a very sensitive subject; and The 50s Gallery. The
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marketing aesthetic portrays: an image of a young woman lounging on what appears to be a piece of
furniture, wearing a brassier; a poppy flower; and a jukebox. By ‘sexing’ up the message in the belief
that it will entice, the marketing objective here appears aimed at encouraging visitation by sections of
the population which more than likely neither do nor would frequent a museum. Unfortunately, for a
segment of the museum’s visitorship, this approach proved to be offensive and several school groups
in particular did not attend because of it.
Another exhibition entitled Reflecting Identities deals with the subject of tourist art. It is about the
people who make and buy these objects, the flow of their ideas, expectations and relationships; it is
about stories of encounter and acquisition, of cultural continuity and artistic uniqueness. It explores
the interface between producer and consumer, reflecting respective and creating new identities
through the selling and buying of this genre of symbolic capital, and promotes dialogue involving
multiple voices. Unlike most museum exhibitions, it challenges, provokes, and stimulates thought; it
does not present the museum’s authoritative voice. Here, the exhibition is being promoted as
Commerce Meets Culture in the Search for the Exotic, and the marketing aesthetic is a yellow
coloured photographic image of a wall full of ‘exotic’ looking African masks. Originally, the aesthetic
contemplated included images from exotica album covers portraying ‘sexy’ women - lounging on floor
cushions, standing, behind bamboo curtains, in water near a waterfall, surrounded by ‘exotic’ masks with such accompanying words as “Voodoo”, “The Exotic Sounds”, and “Primitiva”. Again, all aimed at
attracting audience, regardless of how far distant it is from the reality of the exhibition, and for this type
of distortion, audience criticism has been received in the past.
How some exhibitions are presented and how they are received by groups close to the subject matter
is also an area in which the museum stereotypes their audience. Take, for example, the thorny issue
of Into the Heart of Africa, the ill-fated exhibition set up by the Royal Ontario Museum, which contained
certain images offensive to the African-Canadian community. The museum did not accurately ‘read’
the audience closest to the message of the exhibition and certainly underestimated the outrage that
ensued. This must have come as a great shock and unfortunately, the museum’s response was one
of indignation and intractability which only served to fan the fires all the more. Had the museum
partnered with that community, even in just the interpretive aspects of the presentation, this would not
have happened. As it was, the whole experience fell like a house of cards and both the museum and
curator became the object of audience disdain. The argument in favour of the museum’s right to
maintain “intellectual honesty, scientific and historical integrity, and academic freedom” simply did not
apply under the circumstance. Audience passivity can no longer be taken for granted as more and
more sectors of the community are demanding a stake in the development and delivery of the
museum’s message. As museums holding First Nations, Native American, or other indigenous
material culture are all too aware, going it alone carries a growing burden of risk. Slowly, museums
are coming to realize that their audiences want their voice heard in the process and are seeking more
of a collaborative relationship with the various communities they serve.
In Conclusion
In their desire to increase audience through innovative programming, museums must be aware that
there is the potential threat of losing audience, of losing an already defined supportive public. In other
words, taking care when walking in new directions is a good prescription, for audiences are fickle, and
if they have turned their heads for a unique experience program, they are equally capable of turning
away from a sequel presentation. The public can easily change its attachment to an institution,
especially so if an institution is changing its own perception of itself. While it may be desirable on the
museum’s part to diversify and be more inclusive, in all of this, if it goes too far, it runs the risk of
alienating and, in the end, cutting off its true patrons. It is defeating to a community to have its
museum pander to an audience that is not really theirs. What would happen, for example, if opera
houses attempted to increase audience by introducing Broadway musicals into their repertoire? How
would the opera goers react? Just think of the effect of introducing classical music numbers into the
already ‘over-subscribed’ rock ‘culture’!! Rock fans would become alienated and classical music
aficionados would not attend in any case because ‘rock’ is simply not their ‘thing’.
The quest for the historic essence of human civilization is intrinsic to who we are, and to try to change
that would mean the loss of a focal point of our own existence. The museum treads a fine line in its
relation with its audience. It governs what it wants its visitors to learn, and how it packages its
exhibition and programming experiences will determine how they learn, or if they ‘learn’ at all. Visitors
will always ‘make meaning’ in museums, but is it the message the museum wants to send and be
received? If these delineations are ambiguous, the visitor will eventually no longer be satisfied and, as
the applause and attendance fade away, the museum will be left in a quandary of what to do next.
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Spectator in Expositions
Martin R. Schärer - Switzerland
_________________________________________________________________________
When an exhibition is in the planning stage, the potential visitors are very much in our mind. First of all
from the point of view of the exhibition concept: how to get the message across in an intelligible form?
What ways and means to use? How to make text panels easy to read? And much more. Then comes
the exhibition layout: how best to place objects and texts? What visitor routes to provide? Where
should rest points be located? And here too, much much more. All the time, curators and
expographers have a kind of cooperative model visitor1 in mind.
But once the exhibition has finally opened, things often look quite different. In the harsh light of reality,
actual visitor behaviour puts paid to many a beautiful theory. Not only do visitors move differently than
expected through the space, they often understand the message differently if at all, and leave with
completely different ideas than the authors of the exhibition intended.
There is not much we can do about this dilemma, even if visitor evaluation methods are getting more
efficient all the time. The museological reason lies in the quite particular position of the visitors – that is
to say, in the fact that they are an integral part of the exhibition.2 This is the meaning of the heading
"Spectator in expositione", which paraphrases the title of a book by Umberto Eco: "Lector in fabula".3
What he has to say there4, in particular his model for the levels of textual collaboration5, can be
applied analogously to exhibitions. To put it very simply, the model says that the observer first
perceives the exhibition as an expression, a spatial manifestation. With the help of encyclopaedias
(paradigmatic und syntactical structures) and possibly familiar contexts for the “sender” and
assumptions as to the type of exhibition, he updates the (or, rather, his) content, which has intensic
und extensic components, that mutually affect each other: recognition of contents and structures and
their application for individual and collective worlds.
The visitors are therefore a major unpredictable factor in any exhibition. They perceive the intended
messages (and, naturally, the hidden and unintentional ones as well) in different ways (or not at all)
against a background of different individual and social codes.6
For every exhibition, a message with exhibition elements (and possibly accompanying media) is
encoded by the author. But the original objects and other exhibits thus positioned (i.e. associated with
values) for a quite specific context, a system of non-linguistic signs, do not feature this message
directly and above all not in such a way as to be clearly identifiable by everybody who does not have
at least a similar sign repertoire (like, for instance, the message on a magnetic tape). Supplementary
media such as texts, images, audiovisuals, electronic and interactive programs are used for purposes
of elucidation. However, the visitor is always confronted with information and images which he has to
understand and integrate.7 He has to do an individual decoding job, which may also lead to quite
different “messages”.8 Furthermore, he attributes his own values to the exhibition elements according
to his individual and collective biography.9
The individual decoding takes place in the context of the specific situational museum code system,
which, as a kind of interpretational setting or sense-building typification element, not only evokes other
patterns of behaviour but also lets the visitor interpret what he has seen differently than if he were to
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Davallon 1999:19
The following observations follow Schärer 2003:108ff
Eco 1990; Fontanille 1989
Eco 1990:83ff
Eco 1990:89
Cocula 1986:43ff; Hooper-Greenhill 1994:35ff; Rumpf 1995; Świecimski 1979; Niquette 2000
Schiele 2001:66
Eco 1988:125
Dech 2003:45ff
89
see something similar in a different context.10 With reference to the reader, Eco speaks in this context
of "existence presuppositions".11 As no unambiguously definable reality exists either in the object or in
the observer, an exhibition situation is therefore always open, polysemic. It also contains – differently
in every case – a greater or lesser degree of "noise", i.e. elements which are not decodable for certain
people. Finally, the authors’ – not necessarily reproducible – intention: instruction, information,
elucidation, giving pleasure or attention to the visitor, making him think, must also be taken into
consideration.
The visitor’s first experience is always immediately associative not discursive, i.e. the encounter is
more important than the information take-up. Gazing or admiring12 is in the foreground; intellectual
comprehension comes later. Waidacher speaks of "understanding experience".13 Unlike much that is
said to the contrary, the museum is not a place of learning but primarily a place of experience. Which
does not mean to say that no learning goes on in a museum. It’s just a different kind of learning, that
takes place through experience, through a bridge of feeling. Falk/Dierking designate this as "learningoriented entertainment experience"14, also in the sense of visitor experience attitude. According to
Treinen, an exhibition is a poor place of learning because there are usually no instrumental
orientations (i.e. didactic provisions)15, although staging means can certainly take on such a function.
An exhibition is different for every visitor. The visitor compares (as a rule unthinkingly) his everyday
theories, necessary for a selection and an interpretation – i.e. for a subjective understanding, with the
objects presented in an exhibition. Eco distinguishes between “interpreting” (with the aim of
understanding) and (subjective) "using", as often happens in art exhibitions.16
Letocha summarizes these circumstances: “We consider that the objects in their respective natures
participate in the statement of the exhibition, as they can remain autonomous and convey dimensions
beyond the content of the exhibition. Consequently they should be seen and placed within the
narrative programme of the exhibition, that is to say in a representational sense, in the sense of
metonymic or metaphorical figures in the extension of the prime discursive statement, the verbal
message of the exhibition. But they also remain active independently of this context and pursue their
distinct semiotic function. It is by this structuring process that the exhibition marks itself out and is not
to be encompassed in the idea of language. Because it consists of a mediation of several languages
which remain operational outside this exhibition… In such a system, the visitor has the leisure to enter
into the spatialized narrative programmation by the scenic device of the exhibition, just as he remains
free to escape the dogmatic call of meanings of each of the objects co-presented in this ensemble.”17
The freedom of the visitor to go his own way in any exhibition therefore includes a possible resistance
to the exhibition – which, however, is not so easy: "Obviously, the visitor can resist this manipulation.
He must give proof of energy and show that he already possesses a different reference model, a
universe of presumed values which allow him to make his own reading and come to his own
judgments on what is placed before him. In other words, he must be competent and sure of his
values."18 The visitor’s intellectual freedom is also grounded in the fact that, in an exhibition, we are
basically concerned not with objects but with subjective statements on objects and circumstances
(attributed values), even if this may not appear to be the case at first sight. Maure describes the
changes that take place in the visitor when he comes from the "outside" to the "inside", from "life" into
the museum very clearly. "The visitor goes up the steps through the entrance door, crosses the
threshold, goes past the reception area towards the exhibits where the scene is set. The visitor leaves
the profane everyday life behind him and enters a closed and sacrosanct world of strange meaning
where the usual rules no longer apply. What is seen, said and done here must not be understood
literally but rather within the inner logic of the museum: 'This is a museum, not the real world.'"19
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Davallon 1999:34f
Eco 1996:133
Thürlemann 119ff; Vareille 2000
Waidacher 1993:166
Falk/Dierking 2000:87
Treinen 1994:31; Lepenies 2003
Eco 1996:142
Letocha 1992:37f
Hammad 1987:60
Maure 1995:165
90
Véron/Levasseur propose a formula (which, with its untranslatable wordplays, reads beautifully in
French): "Because if to exhibit is always to propose, to visit an exhibition is to compose, in both
senses of the term, i.e. to combine and to adapt. To adapt meaning to come to terms with, to
negotiate. To visit an exhibition is to negotiate one’s relationship with what is exhibited (and hence,
necessarily, also with the exhibitor). The latter being, in one way or another an institutional articulator
of culture, it is his relationship with the knowledge that the subject negotiates by the intermediary of
the exhibition."20 In this connection, Annis describes a kind of seduction by the museum: "The magic
which makes museums so attractive lies perhaps in the freedom with which each individual person
creates his own spaces there. Museums are much more than the sum of the labels or the layout of the
exhibitions; like the objects which are presented in them, they have no meaning [as they certainly do
have a meaning given to them by the authors, what I mean is: no meaning perceptible unambiguously
by the visitor] but rather receive and reflect the meanings one invests in them."21
Much stronger emphasis must therefore be placed in the beginning on the fact that the visitor is an
integral part of the exhibition, which – as an open system – is so to speak created afresh by each
individual visit; it takes a visit to the exhibition to generate communication, so that the communication
process is concluded. Before that, the exhibition is only a potentiality. This phenomenon corresponds
to constitution of the man–thing relationship. Grütter puts it like this: "Not only does the visitor decode
the intended statement of the exhibition makers, he also overlays it with his own connotations and
associations; he is always producing something new, his own ‘imaginary world’.22 Thus the exhibition
visitor is not only a recipient but also the producer of an ever new meaning." 23 This is so because
perception also takes place – through signs – as a creation of meaning, as Fischer-Lichte shows: "As
the meaning of an object depends on perception, the object itself becomes a sign: the mere state of
being has no significance. For man to attribute a meaning to it, it must become for him a sign.
Because only as a sign, that points beyond itself, can it acquire a meaning."24
So visitors certainly do derive (learning) benefit from their visit to the exhibition. Only in quite a
different way, according to the very particular context of the museum. And above all because the
learning message may not be immediately understandable, at any rate not (except in specifically
didactic exhibitions) like the discourse of a teacher in school or as in a textbook. What the visitor sees,
the exhibits, triggers infinitely more personal connotations, which deviate in part or in whole from the
intended meanings. Moreover – as in all learning – subsequent processing through reflection and
discussion in the personal context of experience plays a distinct role. It is quite possible that the "right"
message only comes through much later.
The narrow and one-dimensional traditional "sender-message-recipient-learning system" can therefore
hardly work because no feedback and corrections are possible and as a rule no checking mechanisms
are built in as at school, say. The personal, sociocultural and physical context, Falk/Dierking’s
"contextual model of learning"25, are much more significant here than in other learning processes.
To sum up: the visitor, who (like the things themselves) is subject to change, never experiences
circumstances directly in an exhibition situation. That is why interpretations and values are always
conveyed at the same time. It is only the presence of the visitor that brings about the exhibition
communication; in this sense, every visitor always makes up the exhibition afresh and differently.
Translated by David Pulman, icluding also the the non-English quotations
20
Véron 1991:28
Annis 1986:171
22
Heinisch 1987:342
23
Grütter 1992:183
24
Fischer-Lichte 1979:11
25
Falk/Dierking 2000:10
21
91
Espectator en expositiones
Martin R. Schärer – Switzerland
Cuando una exhibición se halla en etapa de planificación, los visitantes potenciales están siempre
presentes en nuestra mente. En primer lugar, desde el punto de vista del concepto de la exhibición:
¿cómo hacer comprender el mensaje de manera inteligible? ¿qué caminos y medios utilizar? ¿cómo
hacer que los paneles de texto sean fáciles de leer? y mucho más... Después viene la presentación
de la exhibición: ¿cómo situar de la mejor manera posible los objetos y los textos? ¿qué recorridos
ofrecer a los visitantes? ¿dónde deben estar localizados los puntos de descanso? y aquí también
mucho más... Todo el tiempo, curadores y expógrafos tienen en mente una especie de modelo
cooperativo de visitante.1
Finalmente, una vez que la exposición se ha abierto, las cosas suelen ser bastante diferentes. A la
cruda luz de la realidad, la conducta real del visitante echa por tierra más de una hermosa teoría. No
sólo se desplaza en el espacio en forma distinta a lo esperado, sino que a menudo comprende el
mensaje de manera diversa -si lo comprende- y finalmente se va del museo con ideas completamente
diferentes de las que hubieran deseado los autores de la exhibición.
Aunque los métodos de evaluación de visitantes sean cada vez más eficientes, no hay mucho que
podamos hacer respecto a este dilema. La razón museológica reside en la posición bastante
particular de los visitantes -es decir, en el hecho que conforman una parte integral de la exhibición2.
Este es el significado del encabezamiento “Spectator in expositione”, que parafrasea el título de un
libro de Umberto Eco: “Lector in fabula”3. Lo que allí expresa Eco4, en particular su modelo para los
niveles de colaboración textual5, puede ser aplicado análogamente a las exhibiciones. Para ponerlo
de una manera más simple, el modelo dice que el observador primero percibe la exhibición como una
expresión o manifestación espacial; con la ayuda de las enciclopedias, (estructuras paradigmáticas y
sintácticas) y posiblemente de contextos familiares para el “emisor” y de premisas tales como el tipo
de exhibición, pone al día el contenido o más bien “su” contenido, que posee componentes inténsicos
y exténsicos que se influyen unos a otros: reconocimiento de contenidos y estructuras y su aplicación
para mundos individuales y colectivos.
Por lo tanto, los visitantes son un factor importante e impredecible en cualquier exhibición. Perciben
los mensajes deseados (y naturalmente, los escondidos y no intencionales también) de diferentes
maneras (o no) contra un fondo donde juegan diversos códigos, individuales y sociales6.
En toda exhibición el mensaje es codificado por el autor con la totalidad de los elementos de la
presentación, posiblemente acompañados de medios interactivos. Los objetos originales, los exhibits,
asociados con valores y colocados en un contexto bastante específico, un sistema de signos no
lingüísticos, no muestran este mensaje directamente y, sobre todo, no de tal manera como para que
sea claramente identificable para todos aquellos que no tengan, por lo menos, un repertorio similar
de signos (como, por ejemplo, el mensaje en una cinta magnética). Los medios suplementarios tales
como textos, imágenes, audiovisuales y programas electrónicos e interactivos son usados con
propósitos de elucidación. No obstante, el visitante se ve siempre confrontado con información e
imágenes que tiene que comprender e integrar.7 Debe realizar entonces un trabajo individual de
1
Davallon
2
1999: 19
Las siguientes observaciones siguen a Schärer 2003: 108ff.
3
Eco 1990: Fontanille 1989.
4
Eco 1990: 83ff.
5
Eco 1990: 89.
6
Cocula 1986: 43ff; Hooper-Greenhill 1994: 35ff; Rumpf 1995; Swiecimski 1979; Niquette 2000.
7
Schiele 2001: 66.
92
decodificación que puede también conducir a percibir “mensajes” bastante diferentes8 porque atribuye
sus propios valores a los elementos de la exhibición, de acuerdo con su biografía individual y
colectiva 9.
La decodificación individual tiene lugar en el contexto del sistema específico de códigos del museo el
cual, como una especie de marco interpretativo o elemento de tipificación de sentidos, no sólo evoca
otros modelos de conducta sino también deja al visitante que interprete lo que ha visto en forma
distinta de lo que haría si fuera a ver algo similar en otro contexto10. Con referencia al lector, Eco
habla en este contexto de “presuposiciones existenciales”11. Como no existe ninguna realidad posible
de definir sin ambigüedades, ni en el objeto ni en el observador, una situación de exhibición es
siempre abierta y polisémica. Contiene también -en forma diferente en cada caso- un mayor o menor
grado de “ruido” (elementos que no son decodificables para ciertas personas) y finalmente, la
intención de los autores -no necesariamente reproducible- que debe ser tenida en cuenta: ofrecer
instrucción, información y elucidación; otorgar placer o atención al visitante y hacerlo reflexionar.
La primera experiencia del visitante siempre es asociativa y no discursiva. El impacto producido por el
encuentro inicial es más importante que el levantamiento de información. Mirar o admirar 12 ocupa el
primer plano y la comprensión intelectual viene después. Waidacher habla de “experiencia
comprensiva”13. A pesar de lo mucho que se dice al respecto, el museo no es un lugar de
aprendizaje sino, ante todo, un lugar de experiencia. Lo que no quiere decir que no haya aprendizaje
en un museo. Sólo que es una manera diferente de aprender que tiene lugar a través de la
experiencia, a través de un puente de sensaciones. Falk & Dierking llaman a esto “experiencia de
entretenimiento orientada hacia el aprendizaje” (learning-oriented entertainment experience”)14;
también en lo que se refiere a la actitud del visitante frente a dicha experiencia. De acuerdo con lo
que dice Treinen, una exhibición es un lugar pobre para aprender porque generalmente no existen allí
orientaciones instrumentales (disposiciones didácticas)15, aunque los medios de presentación puedan
ciertamente asumir esa función.
Una exhibición es diferente para cada visitante que compara (como norma y sin pensarlo) sus teorías
cotidianas, necesarias para la selección y la interpretación, para un entendimiento subjetivo con los
objetos expuestos. Eco distingue entre “interpretar” (con el propósito de comprender) y (lo subjetivo)
“usar”, como a menudo sucede en las exposiciones de arte16.
Letocha resume estas circunstancias: “Consideramos que los objetos con sus respectivas naturalezas
participan en la afirmación de la exhibición, ya que pueden permanecer autónomos y comunicar
dimensiones más allá del contenido de la misma. Por consiguiente, deben ser vistos y ubicados
dentro de su programa narrativo, vale decir con un sentido de representación, a la manera de las
figuras metonímicas o metafóricas en la extensión de la declaración discursiva primordial, el mensaje
verbal de la exhibición. Pero los objetos también permanecen activos independientemente de este
contexto y persiguen su señalada función semiótica. Es por medio de este proceso estructural que la
exhibición se distingue y no debe ser encuadrada en el concepto del lenguaje, porque consiste en
una mediación de numerosos lenguajes que permanecen operacionales fuera de la exhibición... En
tal sistema, el visitante tiene la comodidad de entrar (enter) en la programación narrativa
especializada por medio del recurso escénico de la exhibición, del mismo modo que es libre de
escapar (escape) del dogmático llamado de los significados de cada uno de los objetos copresentados en este conjunto17.
La libertad del visitante de recorrer su propio camino en cualquier exhibición incluye, sin embargo,
una posible resistencia a la misma: “Obviamente, el visitante puede resistir la manipulación. Debe dar
prueba de energía y demostrar que posee un modelo de referencia diferente, un universo de
8
Eco 1988: 125.
Dech 2003: 45ff.
10
Davalon 1999: 34f.
11
Eco 1996: 133.
12
Thürlemann 119ff; Vareille 2000.
13
Waicacher 1993: 166.
14
Falk/Dierking 2000; 87.
15
Treinen 1994: 31; Lepenies 2003.
16
Eco 1996: 142.
17
Letocha 1992: 37f.
9
93
presuntos valores que le permite hacer su propia lectura y juzgar por sí mismo todo lo que está
situado delante suyo. En otras palabras, debe ser competente y estar seguro de sus valores.”18. La
libertad intelectual del visitante se basa en el hecho que, en una exhibición, no está básicamente
involucrado con los objetos sino con las manifestaciones subjetivas sobre los mismos y las
circunstancias (valores atribuidos), aún cuando esto no parezca ser el caso a primera vista. Maure
describe los cambios que tienen lugar en el visitante cuando va desde “afuera” hacia “adentro”, desde
la “vida” hacia el museo. “El visitante sube los peldaños de la puerta de entrada, cruza el umbral,
pasa el área de recepción, encaminándose hacia las exhibiciones, donde está montado el escenario.
Deja atrás su profana vida cotidiana y penetra en un mundo cerrado y sacrosanto de extraño
significado, donde las reglas de uso no se aplican más. Lo que es visto, dicho y hecho aquí no debe
ser entendido literalmente, sino más bien dentro de la lógica interna del museo: “Este es un museo,
no el mundo real”. 19
Véron/Levasseur proponen una fórmula (que, con sus intraducibles juegos de palabras, suena
magnífica en francés): “Si exhibir es siempre proponer, visitar una exhibición es componer, en ambas
acepciones del término: combinar y adaptar. Adaptar significa negociar. Visitar una exhibición es
negociar nuestra relación con lo que está expuesto (y por lo tanto también con el expositor). Este
último sujeto es, en cierta medida, un articulador institucional de la cultura. Es su relación con el
conocimiento lo que negocia el sujeto por intermedio de la exhibición”20. En esta conexión, Annis
describe esa especie de seducción ejercida por el museo: “La magia que hace atractivos a los
museos descansa, tal vez, en la libertad con la que cada individuo crea allí sus propios espacios. Los
museos son mucho más que la sumatoria de las etiquetas o el montaje de las exposiciones; al igual
que los objetos presentados en ellos, no tienen significado (ciertamente sí tienen un significado que
les ha sido otorgado por los autores; lo que quiero decir es que para el visitante no tienen una
significación perceptible sin ambigüedades) más bien reciben y reflejan los significados que cada uno
invierte en ellos’21.
En un principio, se debe poner mayor énfasis en el hecho que el visitante es parte integral de la
exhibición que -como un sistema abierto- es por decirlo así, recreada por cada visita individual. Una
exhibición necesita el tiempo que dura una visita para generar comunicación y lograr que el proceso
esté concluido. Antes de eso, la exhibición es sólo potencialidad. Este fenómeno corresponde a la
relación hombre-objeto. Grütter afirma que “El visitante no sólo decodifica la presentación propuesta
para la exhibición por sus creadores, sino también que superpone sus propias connotaciones y
asociaciones; siempre está produciendo algo nuevo, su propio “mundo imaginario”22. Por lo tanto el
visitante de museos no sólo es un recipiente sino también un productor de significados siempre
renovados.23. Esto sucede porque tiene lugar la percepción, que crea significados a través de los
signos, como muestra Fischer-Lichte: “Como el significado del objeto depende de la percepción, el
objeto mismo se convierte en signo: el mero hecho de ser no tiene significado. Para que el hombre le
atribuya sentido, debe convertirse en signo para él. Porque sólo como signo que apunta más allá de
sí mismo puede adquirir significado.”24
Es así como los visitantes obtienen beneficios (de aprendizaje) de su visita a la exhibición, pero de
un modo bastante diversificado, de acuerdo con el contexto particular de cada museo. Y sobre todo,
el mensaje de aprendizaje puede no ser captado inmediatamente, sea como fuere (excepto en las
exhibiciones específicamente didácticas) como sucede con el discurso de un maestro en la escuela o
con un libro de texto. Lo que el visitante ve, los objetos expuestos, provoca infinitas connotaciones
personales, las cuales desvían en parte o en su totalidad los significados deseados. Además, como
en todo aprendizaje, el procesamiento subsiguiente a través de la reflexión y el debate en el contexto
personal de la experiencia, juega un rol notable. Es muy posible que el mensaje “correcto” sólo llegue
mucho más tarde.
El estrecho y unidimensional sistema de conocimiento tradicional, “emisor-mensaje- receptor”
difícilmente puede trabajar porque no es posible ninguna retroalimentación ni correcciones y no se le
18
Hammad 1987: 60.
Maure 1995: 165.
20
Véron 1991: 28.
21
Annis 1986: 171.
22
Heimisch 1987: 342.
23
Grütter 1992: 183.
24
Fischer-Lichte 1979: 11.
19
94
han incorporado mecanismos de control como en la escuela. El contexto personal, sociocultural y
físico del “modelo contextual de aprendizaje”25 de Falk y Dierking, es mucho más significativo aquí
que en otros procesos de aprendizaje.
Resumiendo: el visitante que (como las cosas mismas) está sujeto a cambios, en una situación de
exhibición, nunca experimenta las circunstancias en forma directa. Este es el motivo por el cual las
interpretaciones y los valores son transmitidos siempre a la vez. Es sólo la presencia del visitante la
que produce la comunicación; en este sentido, cada visitante siempre reinventa la exhibición una vez
más y de manera diferente.
Translated by Nelly Decarolis
References/ Referencias
Annis, Sheldon 1986: Le musée, scène de l’action symbolyque. In: Museum 151: 168-171.
Cocula, Bernard/Peyroulet, Claude 1986: Sémantique de l’image. Pour une approche méthodique des
messages visuels. Paris.
Davallon, Jean 1999: L’exposition à l’oeuvre. Stratégies de communication et mediation symbolique.
Paris.
Dech, Uwe Christian 2003: Sehenlernen im Museum. Ein Konzept zur Wahmehmung und
Präsentation im Museum. Bielefeld.
Eco, Umberto 1988/6: Einführung in die Semiotik. München.
Eco, Umberto 1990: Lector in fabula, Die Mitarbeit der Interpretation in erzählenden Texten. München.
Falk, John H./Dierking, Lynn D. 2000: Learning from museums. Visitor experiences and the making of
meaning. Walnut Creek.
Fischer-Lichte, Erika 1979: Bedeutung. Probleme einer semiotischen Hermeneutik. München.
Fontanille, Jacques 1989: Les espaces subjectifs. Introduction á la sémiotique de l’observateur
(discours – peinture – cinéma). Paris.
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historischer Ausstellungen. In: Erber-Groiss, Margarete et al. (ed.): Kult und Kultur des
Ausstellens. Wien 1992: 178-188.
Hammad, Manar 1987: Lecture sémiotique d’un musée. In: Museum 154: 56-60.
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Zeitgeschichte 15: 337-342.
Hooper-Greenhill, Eileen 1994: Museums and their visitors. London.
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Niquette, Manon 2000: Quand les visiteurs ne sont pas seuls: l’analyse sémiocognitive. In: Eidelmann,
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croisés sur la Grande Galerie de l’Évolution du Muséum national d’histoire naturelle. Paris
2000: 181-198.
Rumpf,
Horst 1995: Die Gebärde der Besichtigung. In: Fast, Kirstin (ed.): Handbuch
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9).
25
Falk/Dierking 2000: 10.
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Schärer, Martin R. 2003: Die Ausstellung. Theorie und Exempel. München (Wunderkammer 5).
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141-148.
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Präsentieren zum Vermitteln. Fachtagung Leipzig 1993. Karlsruhe 1994: 23-36 (Karlsruher
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96
Museums and Museology:
on the Other Side of the Mirror
Tereza C. Scheiner – Brazil
You can just see a little peep of the passage in Looking-glass House,
if you leave the door (…) wide open:
and it's very like our passage as far as you can see,
only you know it may be quite different on beyond.
(…) how nice it would be if we could only get through into Looking- glass House!
I'm sure it's got, oh! such beautiful things in it!
(Lewis Carroll – Through the Looking-glass)
Introduction
The interactions between modernity and the contemporary have been producing, everywhere, new
symbolic matrices, as part of the processes of reconstruction of the social tissue. The analyses
1
developed in the past years emphasize the hybrid character of such new representations, specially
those perceived as ‘cultural’. The insight on how, where and when such interfaces occur is thus an
essential step towards the understanding of the interactions between traditional, modern and
contemporary cultural dynamics.
In the present days, it is imperative to understand how social practices articulate and which
are the discourses established around them, specially in what refers to the narratives on identities and
the heritage – those metaphorical entities created by modern discourse, and which are used by
human society to give shape and consistence to all that seems ambiguous and incontrollable. The
search for security in identities and heritage is, in itself, an ilusional movement: what seems logical,
solid and consistent when seen from the outside, in reality is no more than a mere paste up of traces,
symptoms and behaviors, a fluid and inconsistent construction, in permanent process of
crystallization, fusion and redefinition.
How do the different social agencies elaborate and communicate the idea of heritage, in
contemporary times? Which are the views and discourses articulated over such idea? How do such
views and discourses contribute to delineate heritage as a new sociopolitical subject, a synthesis
between the meanings inherited by Modernity and new, contemporary meanings?
What is the role of museums and Museology, in such context?
1.
ON MOSAICS, MIRRORS AND KALEIDOSCOPES
The idea of heritage develops, today, in the interfaces between the senses of Modernity and
the approaches with sets of signs of diversified origin: signs belonging to the imaginary of traditional
societies, recovered by contemporary discourse (nature, identity); signs produced by the symbolic
2
constructor of Actuality (the intangible, the virtual) . This idea gives us a clear insight on the fact that
there is a social locus for all human groups – it is through the re-signification of the political role of
existent symbolic backgrounds that a new form of community will gain shape, by the association of
parts through multiplicity and difference.
The relationship between society and heritage may be perceived as a mosaic – an
assemblage formed by the harmonic disposition of an infinity of fragments, none of which represents
the whole: the image unveils exactly from the intentional arrangement of small singularities, each of
them appears, in the whole, with its proper form and sense. Thus observed, each assemblage will
form an articulated ‘map’ of small significations: we may identify, among the tesserae, those which
serve only as framework and background, and those which define the limits of the image; or
apprehend the presence of certain colors, certain textures, certain shines. It is just at the intersection
between the parts and the whole, between the entire scene and its details that the image truly
1
Among
them,
the
works
of
Marc
Augé,
Bauman,
Barbero,
Canclini,
Dreifuss,
Ianni,
Lyotard,
Hall,
Warnier.
2
See
SCHEINER,
Tereza.
Images
of
the
No‐place.
Communication
and
the
‘new
heritages’.
RJ,
Eco/UFRJ,
2004.
294
p.
Il.
97
develops and gains sense. A similar phenomenon occurs with pointillist paintings – where the image
unveils from the relations of proximity and distance of an immense group of points, which articulate
spaces, colors and textures to give meaning and form to the desired representation. Or with
kaleidoscopes, where the images are illusory, generated by the movement of small colored fragments;
and even if they cannot be seen in totality, we know they are all there, hiding and appearing by means
of delicate movements of the hand. What we see is partial: the totality can be only perceived by the
presence of a set of mirrors – where, reproduced in several directions, the fragmentary image creates
a recognizable ‘whole’, articulated from the junction of mirrored pieces that reflect the combinations
between the small colored fragments. And it is exactly in this subtle space of junctions that appears
what we recognize as an image.
The mosaic and the pointillist painting teach us to consider the articulations, the edges, in the
understanding of a given framework of reality; and remind us that it is the position of each element and
the fine sintony in combination that make possible the images to appear. As for the kaleidoscope, it
puts us in contact with the mechanisms of symbolic construction, the process that makes images
appear, in the intersections between arrangements and movements – a transitional process.
Let us remember that the representations of identity and heritage have an essentially
emotional character, impregnated by the symbolic traits of personal and collective memory, which
permanently interfere in our ways of seeing, selecting, retaining and interpreting facts. Treated as
signs, identities and heritage are the constant object of uncountable narratives, many of which
elaborated by museums.
… This is the role of museums in contemporary times: to help us understand the links
between society, identities and heritage, starting from the movements which redefine borders and
zones of proximity, and making possible the sharing of the most contradictory senses and the most
different meanings, in multiplicity and diversity.
3
In this process, we must identify what is real and what is discourse. If, as mentioned Lyotard ,
every discourse may be understood as a metamorphosis of feelings, what makes history is less the
set of occurrences in space and time than the new ‘realities’ instituted by those who narrate the facts.
In the constitution of narrative strategies, museums have the delicate ethical task of identifying and
preserving the real basis of discursive performance, always presenting their narratives in a plural and
inclusive manner; and trying to present a clear vision of what is reality and what is interpretation –
even if certain narrative forms are intentionally developed to provoke emotional effects in the
audience, through sensorial and emotional movements so well studied by Gestalt.
Let us remember that museums communicate with society not only through exhibitions: their own
existence, their physical form (absolute revelation of the conceptual model of each museum), the
spatial relations they develop, the types of collections they receive, the activities and programs they
realize, all is part of a complex and constant interpretive/narrative movement, based on heritage and
identities. We must also remember that the contemporary ‘ethos’ overlays the tangible heritage
references with new, emergent symbolic objects: the natural heritage; the total heritage; the intangible
heritage. In such context, the traditional symbols of heritage – the artifact, the monument – are being
substituted by the new iconic configurations, over which new discourses are organized.
We know that the narrative mechanism operates between the singularity of desire and its occurrence
in time and space, ‘between tensorial pellicle and the articulated social body, between the intensity of
4
facts and their unitary regulation’ . It is fundamental, though, to analyze the constitutive elements of
such narratives, trying to identify how the different social segments perceive museums and the
realities they present.
2.
VISITORS AND SYMBOLIC EXCHANGE:
MUSEUMS AS DIALOGUE SPACES
Even if there is a certain consensus about the existence of an active dialogue between
museums and society, there is no doubt that, in this relationship, museums remain as the privileged
enunciators of the cultural discourse. As such, they are responsible for the elaboration of very specific
5
‘acts of speech’ , that try to reflect the ways and forms by which the different social groups relate to
Apud SCHEINER, Tereza. Museology, Identities, Sustainable Development: discursive strategies. In: Heritage,
Community and Sustainable Development / Museology and Sustainable Development. II International Meeting on
Ecomuseums/IX ICOFOM LAM. RJ, Tacnet Cultural Ltd. 2001. p: 46-56
4
LYOTARD, Jean-François. Petite économie libidinale d’un dispositif narratif: le Régie Rénault raconte le meurte
de Pierre Overney. In: Des dispositifs Pulsionnels. Paris: Christian Bourgois Éditeur, 1973: p.182
5
See Maingueneau’s comments about the social ritual of language. In: MAINGUENEAU, Dominique. New
Tendencies in the Analysis of Discourse. SP: Pontes: State University of Campinas, 3rd. Ed., 1997. p. 20.
3
98
culture, identities and heritage. The relationship will always be a speculative relation – and in each
case, the behavior of actors at each side of the mirror must be defined.
The study of the interactive relations between museums and their audiences is an essential
concern for the field of Museology – and must be based in the specific concepts and practices of the
field. This is the true focal point of the question. Ironically, Museology is not the strategic focus of the
majority of the studies existent on this matter – which specially address the pedagogic background of
the relationship between museums and society, with an emphasis on the analysis of behavior of
young visitors in the exhibitions of traditional museums, either orthodox or exploratory. Few analyses
have been made about the ways and movements by which the different social groups recognize
museums as agents of the intercultural discourse. And fewer works have studied the dialogic relations
between communities and external visitors, in ecomuseums and other musealized sites.
The necessity of structuring and defining analytical approaches having museum theory as a
starting point is thus identified. This is the role of ICOFOM, and the movement that will truly contribute
for the enrichment of Museology as a disciplinary field.
6
In an article published in 1991 , we had already approached the specular relation between
museums and visitors, reminding that the degrees of immersion in the experience and the forms of
7
relationship differ essentially, according to the conceptual model of each museum . As it is known,
they also differ according to the specific characteristics of the components of each segment
recognized, by museums, as their ‘public’: real and potential, occasional and constant visitors;
integrated and marginalized visitors; students, tourists, immigrants; elders. Psychology and Sociology
also remind us the influence, in such relationships, of individual and group perceptions.
But, which aspects of the relationship between museums and visitors are more relevant to
Museology?
2.1
The individual experience
The first point of evidence is that, undoubtedly, the dialogue between museum and visitor is a
thoroughly individual experience: it doesn’t matter the type of museum and which forms of discourse
are established; if it receives a daily public of thousands of persons or if it has a scarce visitation; the
dialogue will always be the result of handicraft work. Recognizing the importance of individual
experience means that each museum has to assume some ethic commitments, such as: preventing
the development of narratives which favor the hegemonic values, discourses and points of view of
certain categories and/or cultural groups; adopting a multicultural, multilinguistic, historic and socially
open approach, that enables each visitor to identify with what is being addressed – either by
similitude, or by difference.
…What may we learn from the visitors about individual experience? Well, we may learn that
each individual, even the more simple and less trained one, is able to perceive (and positively receive)
cultural narratives designed with respect. In 1978, at the Museum of Anthropology, in Mexico city, we
grasped a conversation between two children: - Esta es la [vidriera] que más me gusta, pues tiene
8
uma casita igualita a la de mi abuela . In 1989, visitors cried in an exhibition in La Défense, Paris,
about countryless immigrants – a photographic exhibition with no texts, where the incisive images said
it all. These are examples which make us understand that, more than logic learning, the relationship
with museums deflagrates a process of self-apprehension and of apprehension of the different levels
of reality, which may be a powerful help in the recognition of heritages and the affirmation of identities.
And this is a visceral process, based in emotions.
2.2
The emotional and subtle dimension of the experience
We must understand that the symbolic exchange between museum and visitor may be direct and
logic, but it functions especially well when realized in a subtle way, kindly making use of memory and
of emotional intelligence. In this sense, there is a lot to apprehend (and to learn) with the visitors.
Widely known (and well studied) are the movements of visitor arrival in museums; the timing of
6
SCHEINER, Tereza. Museums and Exhibitions. Appointments for a theory of feelings. In: ICOFOM STUDY
SERIES – ISS Nbr. 19. The Language of the Exhibition. Proceedings of the XIX Annual Conference of the
International Committee on Museology – ICOFOM. Edited by Martin Schaerer. Vevey, Switzerland, Oct. 1991. p.
109-113.
7
Traditional Museum – orthodox, exploratory, with live collections; Site Museum – musealized historic and/or
natural site, city/village monument, open air museum, Ecomuseum, community museum; Virtual Museum.
8
This is [the glass case] I like most, because there is a small house just like my grandma’s house.
99
visitation; the interest demonstrated by this or that detail, by activities and services offered. But it is
the less explicit aspects that we are talking about: a sudden shine in the eyes; small movements
around a glass case; the more or less attentive reading of a secondary text; the surprise, marveling or
fear with a demonstration or experiment. To look with wide open eyes, is all that we need.
…In 2004, in the new and spectacular Museum of the American Indian, in Washington, D.C.,
we were delighted to find the photograph of the Director of the museum – not in a privileged place,
among the authorities; but discreetly inserted in a small panel, among the members of his tribe.
Physically ‘white’, he has a third part of native blood – and the picture in the panel affirms and dignifies
his multicultural identity. The presence of the photograph (defining the place of the specialist, in the
interface of two different cultural groups; but also dignifying the hybrid nature of the individual) makes
us confident that this museum is, after all, in good hands.
This is the primary function of the interface between museums and visitors: the elaboration of
the subtle space of connections that will enable each individual to apprehend, at each moment, what
will be perceived as an image of reality. In such process, the museum operates as a kaleidoscope,
providing the colored fragments that will give shape to the images; but it is up to each visitor to move
the parts of the mirror, making the images appear one after the other, thus unveiling their very
particular sense. More than learning, the visitor apprehends reality, not only as a framework or
scenery, but perceiving the relations between the points, the tesserae, the folds, the filigrees – the
small elements which, articulated, give shape and meaning to the whole.
The relationship between museum and visitor may thus be considered as an impressionist
experience, where the relationship of apprehension occurs in the very moment of the relation, through
movement, permeated by the changing subtleties of light, color and sound which impregnate space
and form, with incessantly different and new meanings.
We would thus like to see Museology concerned not with what the visitor learns (priorizing the
cognitive domain), but with what the visitor feels (priorizing the emotional domain), in his/her direct
experience with each museum.
2.3
Apprehension of the Other as heritage
It is necessary that Museology gives a closer and more careful look to the relationships between
community museums and their external visitors. Created and developed for themselves, community
museums have a clear inwards balance, and in general develop a somewhat uncomfortable and
ceremonious relationship with outsiders. They are not interested, a priori, in unveiling to strange eyes
the particularities of their everyday life, thus transforming the normal activities of their people into a
glass case.
The opening of a community museum to the external public will always imply in a certain
degree of ‘objectification’ of the members of such community, with results that may only be evaluated
as case studies. The problem becomes specially serious in the heritage sites of tourist interest, which
communities have opted for the experience of musealization - specially those inhabited by traditional
societies. In those areas, the interfaces may present all kinds and degrees of noises and
interferences; or take the form of movements of ‘reinvention’ of heritage, either by reiteration of local
and/or regional traditions or by the adoption of practices that have nothing to do with tradition - with
the mere aim of performing, for the tourists, whatever may be recognized as such.
The dialogue between community museums and external visitors may demonstrate two
different sides of the matter: on the one hand, it may become clear how certain discursive strategies
that make use of the narratives of tradition and of heritage have helped assuring the space of some
9
societies in the contemporary context ; on the other hand, the opposition between the extraordinary
diversity of the cultures linked to the territory and with local histories, and the globalizing tendencies of
the cultural industry in making use of the symbolic production of the so-called ‘traditional’ cultures, put
into risk the identitary (sometimes, almost sacred) character of the tangible and intangible production
of those groups.
The exponential growth of the tourist activity has been causing serious problems for the
musealized communities: to develop as a mercantile instance, tourism develops, based on local
iconography and costumes, a set of stereotypes, which help creating false identitary images of such
communities. The heritage and the identities are thus transformed into a scenery, a show or iconic
discourse – metaphor of their true realities. It is not uncommon that visitors find strange that the
9
The narrative repertory about each one of these groups may use the conceptual matrix which better adjust to
the aims of designing the images desired for each case: while historiography and political science address the
‘modern’ nations, ‘traditional’ (or ‘ethnic’) societies are addressed by the anthropologies. See SCHEINER, Tereza.
Images of the No-place. Op. Cit, p. 154.
100
communities visited are not as ‘interesting’ as in photographs of promotional folders, or that the
activities they see are not as organized, or available, as they expected. In this illusory context, it
doesn’t matter if what is presented does not correspond exactly to an ‘original’ or ‘true reality’ : what
really matters is the ‘effect of reality’ presented by each complex.
In community museums, it is of utmost importance that external visitors recognize and respect
the integrity of the significant complexes which are at the background of each experience: the
geographic space; the natural resources (renewable and non-renewable); the humane, with their
capacity of occupying the territory and generating wealth; the tangible and intangible objects
(processes, symbolic structures) which represent local identities. But, above all, it is important that the
specific moment of the interface (relation between the Different) be impregnated with total respect,
with total kindness of spirit.
To visit a musealized community is literally to enter in the sphere of the Other. More than a
museological experience, it is a movement of mutual recognition: it is the opening of a new gateway –
that which may lead us to perceive reality, in a total and thorough manner, without distortions, at the
other side of the mirror. And there, we may find a reality very similar to ours: not distorted – only
different.
References
AUGÉ, Marc. No-places. Introduction to an Anthropology of Super modernity. Campinas, SP:Papirus,
1994
BARBERO, Jesús Martin. From Media to Mediations. Communication, Culture, Hegemony. RJ:
Editorial UFRJ, 2003
BAUMAN, Zygmunt. Globalization: the human consequences. RJ, Zahar, 1999
_________. Modernity and Ambivalence. RJ, Zahar,1999
_________ . The Liquid Modernity. RJ: Zahar, 2001
BOSI, Ecléa. The Living Time of Memory. Essays on Social Psychology. SP: Atelier Editorial, 2003.
219 p. Il.
DREIFUSS, René Armand. The Era of Perplexities: mundialization, globalization, planetarization –
new challenges. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997
GARCÍA CANCLINI, Néstor. Consumers and citizens: multicultural conflicts of globalization. RJ: Ed.
UFRJ, 1995
__________. Hybrid Cultures: strategies to enter and leave Modernity. São Paulo: EDUSP, 1998
LYOTARD, Jean-François. Phenomenology. Basic Library of Philosophy. Lisbon: Edições 70, 1999.
117 p.
___________ . The Post-modern condition. 6th. Ed. Trad. Ricardo Corrêa Barbosa. Posface by
Silviano Santiago. RJ: José Olympio, 2000.
HALL, Stuart. Cultural Identities in Post Modern Times. RJ: DP&A, 1997
IANNI, Octavio. The Era of Globalization. RJ: Civilização Brasileira, 1996
MAINGUENEAU, Dominique. New Tendencies in Analysis of Discourse. Trad. Freda Indurski.
Campinas, SP: Pontes: State University of Campinas, 3rd. Ed., 1997. 198 p.
POULOT, Dominique. Patrimoine et Musées. L’institution de la Culture. Paris: Hachette, 2001. 223 p.
SCHEINER, Tereza. On Museum, Communities and the Relativity of it All, in: ICOFOM Study Series
no. 25, Symposium Museum and Community II. Stavanger, Norway, July 1995. p. 95-98
WARNIER, Jean Pierre. La Mondialisation de la Culture. Nouvelle Édition. Paris: La Découverte,
2003. 119p.
101
Museums and Audience
Anita Shah - India
_________________________________________________________________________________
Every museum has a unique setting, its own 'special' audience and its mission.
Every museum has a unique setting owing to its particular geographic location and collection. In order
to carry out its mission of communicating its message successfully it must know its audience so as
fulfill their needs, aspirations and desires. To know its audience, the museum must first carry out a
survey of the demographic variables of the people who visit the museum, and also how it can attract
the part of population that does not come to museums.
First, people who visit the museum: The museum must know what the visitors are looking for in
museum, and how best their visit can produce optimal satisfaction, so that they will want to repeat
experience.
Second, people who do not visit the museum: The museum professionals must know what part of
population does not visit the museum and why? An attempt must be made to attract them to visit
museum through exhibitions and mass media communication systems. It is imperative to involve
whole community in the museum programmers.
the
the
the
the
the
The museum is a social institution and shoulders the responsibility of 'social' education. A museum
that wants to play an important role in society has to accept its role of interpretation reality to its
audience, to penetrate its collective conscience to bring about better understanding and experience of
reality, to stimulate deep thought and intellectual sublimation. The museum is a specific phenomenon
of man's approach to reality. Museology fulfills its role as a specific science by evaluating what impact
the museum as a whole can have on the social consciousness of its audience, by creating an
environment for the mind to open up to various possibilities.
To achieve this end the museum has to play its role as an instrument of social enabler of social
education, bridging the gap between various cultures, promoting pluriculturism and instilling the values
of tolerance, subtlely changing attitudes, leading the audience towards the goal of accepting cultural
diversity as an integral part of the fundamental aspect of reality.
The most important role of the museum is its social responsibility. The museum presents an
opportunity for creating an informal 'class' for the social education of its audience. By 'social education'
I mean that the museum is a place where people can understand and appreciate other cultures.
People come to museums mentally prepared to be exposed to novel experiences and an encounter
with the 'unknown' to some extent. This unknown factor could be a ' meeting' with aspects and cultural
material of 'alien' cultures. How this encounter is presented depends upon how the museologists and
education staff and other professionals of the museum handle the cultural material to be displayed.
The value of the object is not intrinsic to it, but is highly dependent on the object-subject relation that is
brought out by the museologists. The presentation of objects has to be synchronized with the process
of musealization of objects. The creation of the museum medium must be based on the scientific
explanation of historical, cultural, religious, social and aesthetic values and the decoding of
symbolized philosophical concepts attributed by the given culture to the object. At this juncture the
museologists also should take into account the assimilation capacity of the average visitor. Success
lies in how creatively the museologists present the message to its varied audience, capturing their
attention, imagination and eventually piercing their understanding.
The success of the educational mission of the museum lies in how well the museum professionals
understand their audience. To communicate appropriately with the audience we must also take the
help of psychologists, to learn about the attitudes, prevailing prejudices, and stereotypes prevalent in
the society the museum caters to predominantly. Social education also encompasses the reality of
prejudices, stereotyping which usually arise because of misconceptions. It is the museum environment
that can help people to understand each others' cultures better, paving the way to creating an
atmosphere of mutual tolerance and acceptance.
102
Involving interdisciplinary methods, using established psychological principles of learning, organizing
exhibition spaces in accordance with the span of attention of the general public and Gestalt Theory of
Perception can greatly help in making the overall exhibitions, both permanent and temporary
exhibitions, more fruitful.
The museum in its role as a ‘social educator’ has the power to bring about attitude change, as the arts
and crafts of a culture take us into an increasingly vast and secret realm, a realm where we can sense
the dreams and fears, the romanticism and privacy, as well as the angst in the depths of the soul of a
people. The museum is a place, which offers us a clue to the specific confrontation between the
people of a culture and ‘their’ reality. Art of a culture highlights the special spiritual relationship
between the people of a culture and ‘their’ world. Success lies in how creatively the museum
professionals present this insight to its audience so as to capture their attention, imagination and
eventually pierce their understanding.
I had the opportunity to study a highly varied sample of visitors to the Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad
and other small museums in South India. I have observed that people from all walks of life visit
museums in India. The uneducated rural, the sophisticated urban elite, students, all go to museums,
though not regularly. For all visitors museum presents an opportunity to learn about other cultures,
societies and also about history. I have observed that art appreciation is an intrinsic part of the human
psyche and art has the ability to move people emotionally and psychologically.
103
A Bridging the gap between museums and their audience
Lina Tahan – Lebanon
Introducing the difference between museum professionals and audience
In the twenty-first century, the function, role and purpose of museums have evolved and have
provided us with a very rich history. From the private cabinets of curiosities that were created in
Renaissance Europe to the establishment of the modern national museums that are found in every
capital city, we witness a major shift in this evolution, that of a collection first restricted to a certain elite
and then open to all sorts of public in order to fulfil national ambitions and show a civic duty. One must
note, however, that what has remained constant throughout this museum evolution is that museums
are places aimed for the public and that the latter have different ideas about what constitutes a
museum.
Nowadays, as museums become more dependent upon public funding, attitudes shifted from
acceptance of the former elitism, both socially and academically, toward an expectation that the public
institutions ought to provide public service (Edson and Dean, 1994: 145). Consequently, the evolution
st
of museums in the 21 century is characterised by an increasing demand for museums to be
accountable, both to the general public and to their funding bodies. Museum operation in this new
millennium is also distinguished by its gradual professionalism. Professional associations such as the
Museums Association in Britain, The American Association of Museums in the USA, and the
International Council of Museums (ICOM) have established guidelines and codes of ethics for their
members to follow in their respective institutions. These guidelines tend to emphasise the service
which museum professions should provide for the public, hence the ICOM Code of Ethics’ 2004
defines a museum as follows:
“A museum is a non-profit making permanent institution in the service of society and of its
development, open to the public, which acquires, researches, communicates and exhibits, for the
purpose of study, education and enjoyment, the tangible and intangible evidence of people and their
n” (as quoted in http://icom.museum/ethics.html).
The changing definitions of museums over time represent the changing values of contemporary
societies. Museums need to become more accessible and relevant to their audiences. Hence, there is
a need on behalf of museu professionals to cater to the needs of their visitors.
The following paper wishes to explore why museology needs to relate to its public and not exclude
them. My aim is to focus the discussion on the binary definition of “we” This definition includes
numerous professionals – museologists, curators, anthropologists, archaeologists, technicians,
conservators, administrators – who are aware of the theoretical and technical debates within the field
of museology, but also members of the ‘general public’ who visit museums with their family and friends
for entertainment and education.
Throughout the paper, it is argued that museum professionals cannot be members of the general
museum-visiting public, because their museological knowledge will always influence their visiting
experience and the way they perceive museums as cultural institutions. Indeed, one must bear in mind
that there is no one public, but several ones depending upon political orientations, socio-economic
status, ethnic background, etc. For the purpose of this paper, it is crucial to recognise that the ways in
which museum professionals and audiences conceptualise ‘the museum’ are quite different. Only a
discussion that considers both perspectives will render accurate museology as a field of knowledge in
this new millennium!
Museum structures and their influence on public perceptions
104
The term ‘New Museology” emerged out of a series of ICOM General Conferences, round tables and
discussions of the International Committee of ICOM. The International Committee for Museology
(ICOFOM) beginning in the late 1970s (Kreps, 2003:9). The New Museology ahs been introduced to
differentiate the object-oriented approach which is considered traditional from the so-called
community-oriented approach. This is expressed clearly in the “Declaration of Québec” of October 13,
1984: “While preserving the material achievements of past civilisations and protecting the
achievements characteristic of the aspiration and technology of today, the new museology is primarily
concerned with community development and social progress” (as quoted in Mayrand, 1985: 201). As a
result the community-oriented approach is to be considered ‘mission-oriented’ and the ‘new’ museum
of the ’New Museology’ movement becomes an institution in the service of social development (Kreps,
2003: 9). Hence, museums remain one of the few places where an encounter between people and
material culture takes place and where museologists should take and included the voices of ‘others’.
Many museums around the world display their collections such a manner that focuses the visitor’s
attention on the artefact, rather than on the meanings and narratives that are generated by the
exhibits. For instance, a museum such as the Louvre in Paris presents its material culture in neatly
arranged showcases and provides little information beyond an object’s type, material, date,
location/site of origin and sometimes the collector’s name. Displaying a collection in such a way may
offer a ‘limited’ visiting experience to the public of a museum and can push visitors to think that a
museum’s primary duty is the collection and display of artefacts. Depending upon the nature of the
collection, a visitor may think that the act of collecting might be either associated with academic
endeavour or research or considered as a pastime of the elite. Moreover, visitors may implicitly
interpret the purpose of displaying these artefacts in the museum’s attempt to educate the public.
For museum professionals collecting, preserving, displaying, researching and educating from behind
the glass case have different meanings from those of the public. For example, collecting is not a
procedure of gathering and accepting any or all possible types of material remains. In contrast to the
haphazard collecting for the cabinets of curiosity, museum collecting in the early twenty-first century is
a highly organized practice. Pearce (1990:67) considers collections management to be at the heart of
the museum operation, because without collections there would be no broader issues of content and
interpretation. At this point, it is the interpretation that should require our attention as museologists
because audiences construct meanings within a museum space and those meanings affect the
visitor’s perceptions of such a space.
In creating an exhibition, a museologist is primarily concerned with interpreting a group of related
artefacts and narrating a story to the public. An accurate interpretation will give voice to all the groups
who are related to the exhibition’s theme, while at the same time acknowledging the role of the
museologist (Alexander, 1979: 196). The designer of an exhibition should also take into account the
composition of the likely visiting audience, understanding its ethnic diversity, political orientation,
socio-economic status, and level of education, so that the interpretation of the artefacts is relevant and
accessible to the group. If a museologist considers the above objectives as crucial in any display, then
he/she can educate the public by creating a discourse on a specific theme, rather than didactically
displaying objects and labels for passive consumption. Therefore, the public impression of the
practices that constitute a museum is based on the information visitors derive from what they see on
display.
In contrast, visitors may also be affected by the material structure of a museum or its actual physical
construction. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have witnessed the explosion of neo-classical
buildings with Ionic columns and intricately carved friezes. This is true for th British Museum in London
that was established in 1753 and the recently completed Museum of Edinburgh in Scotland,. Of
course, there are several other examples around the world of such museum construction. In his 1989
survey of the British public’s attitude towards the past and museums, Merriman (1001: 62) found that
traditional and ‘official’ museum presentations were more easily comparable in mausolea rather than
anything else. Both associations are quite common especially when one sees that museums become
like fortresses, bastions or temples of ‘high’ culture. Such architectural constructions may put of
visitors from entering the museum space as they can indicate that museums are meant to protect
precious artefacts from harm. There is a danger, however, that continuing to use the construction of
neo-classical or post-modern architecture can widen the chasm between the museums and their
audiences, hence it might reduce the idea of the museum as fortresses that make them less
accessible to the public.
105
While many members of the public are simply concerned with the façade of museums, they can also
be betrayed by the very name of a museum. For example, the Victoria and Albert Museum is
obviously an institution that was founded and supported through the royal patronage of Queen
Victoria and Prince Albert. Hence, visitors may assume that at he objects put on display in this
museum have something to do with royalty, which of course is not the case. Moreover, similar
assumptions may be drawn from other museums whose names suggest a specific institutional history
to either indicate a strong academic authority or to suggest the influence of a particular donor or
patron. Although many visitors may not think of such interpretations, most would categorise the u as a
‘cultural institution’ with all the trappings of organizational hierarchy and tradition that such a label
entails.
Ways of bridging the gap between the museums and their audiences
The ‘new’ museum should be fundamentally concerned with the democratisation of museum practices
and participatory approaches. According to the ‘New ‘Museology’ movement, it is a democratic,
educational institution in the service of social development and change (Kreps, 2003: 9-10). The policy
of a museum should make it clear that community or public participation in the museum is important,
not only as visitors, but also as participants in all aspects of museum work, indeed, the idea of
museum democratisation is to suggest that the knowledge, skills and experiences of the people for
whom museums exist hold as much value as those of museum curators and professionals.
Many of the practical aspects of them museum function will continue to be inherent to the definition of
a museum into the twenty-first century. The fundamental practices of collections management an
display should not remain the only concerns of a museum curator, because communicating messages
to the visitors is also crucial if museums are to survive as cultural institutions. /we museologists need
to reconsider the relationship between the museum and its visiting public. Moreover, we must strive to
alter the perception that such institution s are not meant to be austere temples and must promote the
museum as a part of the local community’s resources that can be accessed and engaged in by
community members. Ideally, a museum should reflect the values of contemporary society in which it
exists, in other words, its practices and institution structures should represent the society’s various
publics and their interests (Edson an Dean, 1994: 10).
Several museum professionals and researchers have suggested ways to bridge the gap between the
museum and the public. Merriman (1991” 122) has several innovative ideas which challenge the
traditional conceptions of museum practices and institutional structures. He urges professionals to
disassociate a museum with a main building that is a repository of ‘truth; validated by the interests of
its staff, who look mainly to their peers for approval (ibid). He suggests several ways in order to
achieve this. First, museums can use photography and video to expand the definition of material
culture and include intangible cultural heritage representations such as food, music, an dance (ibid:
136). Second, museums should make the reserve collections known and available to the public.
Finally, if museums want to show the broad composition of their communities, then they should recruit
people of different backgrounds. Thus, the curatorial, educational and warding staff should include
ethnic minorities, the disable and people of various religious faiths (ibid: 134).
Another approach is that of San Roman (1992; 25), the General Director of the National Museum of
Costa Rica, who argues that museums must play a role in the polemics of a country and its socioeconomic development. Her efforts were to make museums more relevant and assessable to the
Costa Rican public in order to place the museum at the service of the nation, its people., its
democratic traditions, and its Constitution of 1948 (Bpylan, 1992: 9). However, the attitude that San
Roman adopts for the Costa Rican publics conflicts with the British museums movement of retaining a
strictly non-political and non-controversial ‘balance’. As Boylan (1992: 9) further explains this ‘balance’
can show a massive bias in favour of the political middle-class social values.
On the other hand, Clifford uses Pratt’s notion of ‘contact zones’ and argues that when museums are
seen as ‘contact zones’ “their organising structure as a ‘collection’ becomes an ongoing historical,
political and moral ‘relationship’ – a power-charged set of exchanges of push and pull’ (Clifford, 1997:
192). Clifford extends Pratt’s notion of the ‘conflict zone’ to include cultural relations within the same
state, region or city (ibid: 204). Museums become the places in which separate communities, present
in the same area, interact, to the extent that museums are understood to be interacting with these
communities “rather than simply educating or edifying a public, they begin to operate – consciously
106
and at times self-critically – in contact histories” (ibid). Thus, Clifford argues a museum should show
the different publics that comprise a community to interact with each other while they are engaged with
the museum’s collections and its resources. He urges museologists to move beyond mere
consultation with concerned groups about an exhibition after the curatorial vision is firmly in place. He
warns that unless this effort is made, and until museums draw a wider range of historical experiences
and political agendas into the designing of the actual exhibitions and the collections that are held in
trust “they will be perceived as merely paternalistic by the people whose contact history with museums
has been one of exclusion and condescension” (Ibid: 207-208).
We have tried to suggest some practical ways to bridge the gap between museums and their
audiences by taking into account Nick Merriman’s suggestions that are quite practical in comparison
1
with the overtly political ideas of Lorean San Roman and James Clifford . The three authors share a
common denominator, that of challenging the traditional conceptions of a museum. Museums do not
have to be temples of material culture, where precious artefacts are put on display for consumption by
passive visitors. They have the potential to be tools for social, economic and political change, either on
a national level or among different communities in the same regions. This is a rather idealistic role for
museums, but it is needed in this new millennium. Unfortunately, this paper must end by questioning
whether curators are genuinely interest in engaging the public with museum activities or their recent
efforts to make their institutions more accessible and relevant have been motivated by a basic desire
for self-preservation. In this regard, museums must work to promote respect and understanding for
cultural diversity in all spheres of their activities and should reflect the multiculturalism of their
respective communities.
Conclusion: the need to cater for the needs of museum audiences
The museum as an institution represents concepts, ideas, theories and audiences, through material
culture. In this the artefacts come to ‘symbolise’ what is to be represented. Material culture in the
museum space is also made to ‘stand in’ in the sense that it is ‘representative of’, a sample, as type
specimens or a particular group of people (Tahan, 2004: 209). When people enter the museum, they
are not meant to leave their cultures or their identities in the cloakroom, nor are they expected to
respond passively to the exhibits; indeed they should interpret museum exhibitions through their prior
experiences and the culturally learned beliefs, values and perceptual skills that they bring with them
(Karp, 1992: 3). Considering that the museums are spaces in which alternative meaning(s) reside,
visitors can actively engage in creating their own understanding and interpretation of exhibits.
Adknowledgements
I would like to thank the editors of ICFOM Study Series for giving me the opportunity to discuss the
topic ‘Museology and Audience’. In particular, I am grateful to Dr. Hildegard K. Vieregg and Dr. Ann
Davis.
This paper is dedicated to two of my closes friends: Ammara Durrani for her moral support and
comradeship and Alexander Keese for his constant care and encouragement.
Bibliography
Alexander, E. P. 1979. Museums in Motion: An introduction to the History and Functions of Museums.
Nashville: American Association for State and Local History.
Boylan, P. (ed). 1992. Museums 2000: Politics, people, professionals and profit. London: Routledge /
Museums Association.
1
It is not possible for us to review all the work of academics and museologists who have discussed extensively
museums andtheir visitors. We have selected just a few to give a glimpse of ways of bridging such a gap.
107
Boylan, P. 1992. “Museums 2000 and the future of museums”, in Boylan, P. (ed). 1992. Museums
2000: Politics, people, professionals and profit. London: Routledge / Museums Association.
Clifford, J. 1997. Routes, Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Cnetury. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University.
Edson, G. and Dean, D. 1994. The Handbook for Museums. London: Routledge.
ICOM, 2004. ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums http://icom.museum/ethics.html
Karp, I., Kreamer, C.M. and Lavine,S.D. (eds.) 1992. Museums and Communities. The politics of
Public Culture. Washington D.C. and London: Smithsoian Institution Press.
Karp, I. 1992. “Introduction: Museums and Communities: the politics of public culture”. In Karp, I.,
Kreamer, C.M. and Lavine,S.D. (eds.) 1992. Museums and Communities. The politics of
Public Culture. Washington D.C. and London: Smithsoian Institution Press.
Kreps, C. 2003. Liberating Culture: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Museums, Curation, and Heritage
Preservation. London: Routledge.
Mayrand, P. 1985. “The new museology proclaimed” Museum 37 (148): 200-201.
Merriman, N. 1992. Beyond the Glass Case: the past, the heritage and the public. London: Leicester
University Press.
Pearce, S.M. 1990. Archaeological Curatorship. London, Leicester University Press.
San Roman, L. “Politics, and the role of Museums in the Rescue of Identity”, in Boylan, P. (ed). 1992.
Museums 2000: Politics, people, professionals and profit. London: Routledge / Museums
Association.
Tahan, L.G. 2004. Archaeological Museums in Lebanon> A State for Colonial and Post-Colonial
Allegories. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. Department of Archaeology: University of Cambridge.
108
The Status of the Audience
Between Museology and Science
Hildegard K. Vieregg – Germany
_________________________________________________________
Introduction
Cultural assets and a cultural environment are accompanying circumstances on the daily life.
Therefore the slogan ”Education may be considered the foremost purpose of the museum” –
embedded in Encyclopaedia Britannica – may be understood in regard to the Museum: The Museum
is able to give various inputs to life-long learning, to arouse attention and reflection about those
cultural assets and in regard to the mediation of cultural heritage.
Life-long learning is not only a matter on the Audience but rather more a topic which as a
consequence of globalization is discussed since years on the occasion of scientific symposia by the
Committees of International Council of Museums.
Therefore in this context the main focus and a particular accent is directed to the status of
Museology/the Museum in the process of education – in regard to the Audience.
This article is dealing with
1. Historic interrelationship between Museum, Museology and Audience
2. The relationship between Museum and Audience at present time
3. The Museum and the quality of education
4. Mission – Vision - Values
1. Historic interrelationship between Museum, Museology and Audience
The Museum is often signified as “institution of a collective and social memory” (Fliedl). Therefore it is
an institution of specific qualities as well as a place of learning.
th
Already in the 19 century was a tendency to take the educated classes - teenagers as well as adults
- to the Museums. This results from many scientific sources. The Prussian state chancellor von
Hardenberg focussed already on the occasion of the Legislative Assembly of the “Museum
Vaterländischer Altertümer” (1820), a forerunner of “Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn” on the
necessity to stimulate the senses concerning the “vaterländischer Boden” and the history of former
1
times in order to serve not only the education of the youth but also the historic and museological
sciences and the preservation of excellent monuments. (At present important functions of the
Museum)
In a similar way the Bavarian King Maximilian II. expressed his particular matter of concern regarding
to tasks on the education and promotion of artists, craftsmen and particularly the young people.
th
By the end of 19 century several art historians and historians gained in importance on the one hand
because of the variety of their ideas in regard to the Museum, and on the other hand to possible target
groups of Audience and the quality of Museum visits.
Alfred Lichtwark, an excellent representative in the co-operation between Art-Museums and schools
2
developed brilliant ideas in regard to “exercises on closer examination of works of art” . One of his
most important aims was to develop a stimulating atmosphere for the Audience in Museums of
different type – particularly the Art Museum. He expounded the ideas on the occasion of “12.
Konferenz für Arbeiter-Wohlfahrtseinrichtungen Berlin” in Mannheim (1903) to an interested Audience.
On of the most essential ideas of Alfred Lichtwark in order to prepare the Museums for Audience was
1
Vieregg,
Hildegard: Landes-, Regional- und Heimatmuseen in ihrer Beziehung zur Schule. In: MuseumsPädagogisches Zentrum (Ed.): Museumspädagogik für die Schule. München 1998. S. 51-70.
2
Lichtwark, Alfred: Übungen im Betrachten von Kunstwerken. Nach Versuchen mit einer Schulklasse
15-18
herausgegeben von der Lehrervereinigung zur Pflege künstlerischer Bildung. Berlin
1922.
109
to involve the figures of Reform Pedagogy. Those thoughts are explained in different programmatic
3
essays. Although these started from the interrelationship between Museum, schools and the public –
thea were often declared as the causes for the Movement of Art - they inspired in a high degree the
nature and development of Museum and Museology as a whole. The deliberations of Alfred Lichtwark
aimed particularly to the development of the capability as to a closer examination of works of art –
instead of a subject only explained by a teacher. His intention included much more: the idea to grasp a
work of art, to express the expectations, the “reading” of questions, discovering significant points, and
4
besides, the finding out of points specifically by the senses and feelings. His aim was to attain an
integral approach on aesthetic-cultural education.
Another expectation of Lichtwark was a manifold outcome in regard to different groups in society.
Philipp Hofmann, a High-school-teacher, developed in an excellent way the co-operation between
Museums of Cultural History, schools and other educational institutions. He elaborated a kind of
synopsis between the exhibits and the curriculum for different types of museum: Archaeological
Museums, Museums of Antique History, Art Museums. In his publication “Systematic notices for
Museums in Munich” he inspired teachers and Museum staff in regard to the enlargement of cultural
heritage to a broader Audience in interrelationship with schools. This pioneer publication is an
example for other educational institutions which deal with potential Audience in Museums, too:
5
seniors, migrants, families ….
Georg Kerschensteiner, an excellent promoter of the world-wide known “Deutsches Museum” in
Munich, dealt particularly with the History of Natural Science and Techniques as museological
education. He also created the “Arbeitsschule” – a kind of practical approach to the Museum. In this
concern he intended to co-ordinate the intellectual interests of the Audience with practical skills and
experimentation – as e.g. in “Deutsches Museum”.
These different examples – in regard to an Art Museum (Lichtwark), Museums of Cultural History
(Hofmann) and a Museum on the History of Techniques (Kerschensteiner) - make clear how policy in
the Reform of Education endeavoured to improve the quality of education by museum visits. In this
concern different target groups of the Audience as well as Museums of different typology were
involved.
Starting from both this knowledge and the necessity to involve all types of Museum related to the
Audience, it seems to be a basis-intention to associate the codes of quality related to the contents of
Museums with educational efficiency, to work with the Audience in an innovative, co-operative and
creative way and to promote also aesthetic education.
2. The relationship between Museum and Audience at the present time
Museology provides the scientific background for the Museum also at the present. Museums are
scientific and educational institutions at the same time. Exhibits challenge on the one hand
presentation, presentation on the other hand the Audience. In this way is intended to put certain
contents by exhibits, an adequate context and by adequate media to the visitors. Not to forget: The
Museum is also a place of event. (Except: exclusively “entertainment”, “Disneylandisation” and
“Guggenheimisation”). Rather a Museum should become to a place of experience by the originals, the
authentic era, creative impulses, the inclusion of the visitors, a visitor-friendly presentation and
personal dialogue. A possible Audience should invited for visits to a museum according to the
individual interest and curiosity – and on the basis of habit. This may be the case e.g. in regard to a
Museum of Ethnology or a Museum of World Cultures and concerning the individual knowledge or
interest in foreign countries and cultures. Besides the visitor should be guided to new facts, e.g. by
support of digital media that enable individual and inter-active experiences additionally to the objects..
Museums are responsible to serve and educate the Audience. Regarded to the typological variety and
3
2
Lichtwark, Alfred: Drei Programme. Berlin 1902.
Lichtwark, Alfred: Übungen im betrachten von Kunstwerken. p. 21
5
Hofmann, Philipp: Pädagogisch-systematischer Wegweiser durch die Münchener Museen, für Schule,
Elternhaus und Schüler. Mit einer pädagogischen Einleitung. München 1912./ Vieregg, Hildegard: Kooperation
von Schulen und Museen in Bayern – historischer Rückblick. Modell auch für Sachsen ? In: Sächsischer
Museumsbund e.V.: Informationen des Sächsischen Museumsbundes, Nr. 19. Dresden/ Weißbach 1999. S. 94106.
4
110
the dissemination they are even one of the most important educational institutions which enable life6
long learning – also for an un-experienced Audience.
Besides they are institutions responsible to all groups of society. Therefore it is not sufficient to
prepare only scientific information. Rather much more Museums should prepare and present topics
and exhibits which can help to gain competence, to promote an ethic way of life, to shape the
character and to reflect opinions.
While in a contribution related to education by Museums (1999) one could read that Museumeducation created particularly the interrelationship between the “Museum and the Real World”, at
present times also “the virtual world” has to be included. In so far also the “virtual world” and the
“virtual environment” gained importance concerning educational and didactic measures in the
Museum.
3. The Museum and the quality of education
What makes the quality of education in the Museum?
Since several years different scientific reports dealt with the quality of education and learning in
Museums. A particular report was dedicated to the so-called key-workers who promoted the quality
and particularly guaranteed the contact to the Audience.
7
This was a project financed by EU (European Union) – budget. It was dedicated to 1650 museums in
six different countries of the Republic of Ireland, Luxemburg, Austria, Portugal, Sweden and the United
Kingdom. One of the aims of the research was to exaymine in which way European Museums would
realize the role of “keyworkers” in regard to the communication with the public. Another aim was to find
out how Museums in Europe are acting additionally to their traditional role in the following face:
- concerning the involvement of specific educational institutions and particular target groups
- judging the quality of offers in the Museum
- educating “keyworkers” in regard to specific tasks in the educational sphere.
Keyworkers are meant as professional or free-lanced mediators who are acting as contact between
the institution Museum and different groups of adults and youth. “keyworkers” are understood on the
one hand as individuals in adult education or social workers (in regard to youth, seniors, women,
migrants), and on the other hand as those who are dealing with the Museum in the frame of a
profession (“creative artists”) or those who use the Museum for informal processes of learning (e.g.
with friends or members of the own family).
Particularly, experts on a particular subject – as e.g. specialists, teachers, museum-educators – are
meant as “keyworkers”. Those “keyworkers are in a specific way the apparently most adequate
“mediators” related to an un-experienced Audience.
The quality problem
Already in the past an important didactic approach referred to the visit to a Museum not as a singular
event. Rather related to a place of life-long learning the Museum is an ideal scene where objects of
cultural, artistic, historic and ethnological importance meet as objective evidences of the past. The
Audience should become involved in this process of education. In this concern the closer examination
of exhibits should be connected with information, objective mediation and interpretation, the
recognition of contexts and multi-dimensional ways of experience. Emotional and cognitive recognition
and studying authentic objects usually enable a profound strengthened experience and encounter to
the object. That challenges on the one hand the quality of “input”, and on the other hand the quality of
“exposition”.
Finally, the realization is on the responsibility of museum-educators/keyworkers related to the
Audience at the same time. Initiated by various methods an individual examination should be reached.
In this concern dialogue and discussion as well as interactivity play an important role. Interactivity
means different aspects, as e.g. to use ”objects to touch”, to realize an archaeological experiment, to
6
Rump, Hans-Uwe: Museumspädagogik zum Nutzen von Schule und Museum. p. 19.
Büro für Kulturvermittlung (Hg.): Museen, „keyworker“ und lebensbegleitendes Lernen. Ergebnisse einer
Fragebogenerhebung vom Frühjahr 1999. Durchgeführt im Rahmen des gleichnamigen Projekts, gefördert aus
dem Socrates-Budget der EU. Übersetzung aus dem Englischen: Gabriele Stöger. Wien 1999.
7
111
try techniques, to respond to a work of art by music or dancing – or starting from a work of art to
create an individual creative transfer.
Interactivity may also be reached by virtual arrangements or methods. However, it is very important to
use a certain amount of scope and to shape processes of learning in such a way that available
knowledge becomes enriched. Therefore usual habits of learning and perception should be involved.
Although Museum educators/ keyworkers almost exclusively plead for personal mediation one should
think about a sensible involvement of media according to the aims of innovation and education. In this
concern the qualities of input, realization and results are unalienable.
The most simple arrangements seem to be information systems for the visitors – so called PDA
(Personal Digital Assistant) installations – that supply in the same way authentic documents, graphics,
8
videos and spoken information and above that enable various levels of information and abstraction.
Starting from this point various thematic and didactic modifications in regard to different target groups
are possible to become deduced – not only a “free-lanced” Museum-tour.
Deriving from this the quality of learning may be improved probably by a computer-supported
information system: This means a museum should enable various possibilities of experience –
according to the individual talent and interest of the Audience. In this concern both the “virtual
environment” and the interactive approach are a particular opportunity to promote the capability of the
educational motivation and finally to play an important role in regard to the increasing quality of
learning.
Particularly the orientation regarding quality is of great importance because of the esteem concerning
all social groups by the museum and the “society of knowledge”. The increasing of quality may
probably arouse from the attachment of suitable media that create an interactive and interdisciplinary
relationship to the former setting of authentic objects (“originals”).
Museums in this concern should be conscious that the evaluation of the increase in quality is not a
particular task rather more should be an aim intended continuously.
What is accordingly a feature of quality in regard to the Audience – between Science and Museum?
- It is an empirical science familiarized with the way of life of the Audience and specific experiences of
all target groups of the Museum.
- It means the knowledge about the interests of the Audience as well as the social background.
- It challenges up-to-date and visitor-oriented attractive kinds of “mediation” – as well in Museumpresentation as by professionals put in charge of the group.
- It faces to different individual expectations of the Audience as well as to stimulation and interactive
methods.
-It focuses on possibilities of theories of action and the capability of a certain Audience.
- It should provide fields of experimentation and examination for everybody who visits a Museum.
- It should also provide interrelationships between the museal, real and virtual world in view of the
circumstances of communication-technologies.
- It should come up to the expectations of a multi-cultural society and enable personality development
by the chances of Museums.
4. Mission – Vision – Values
Finally, it is focused on the terms of a marketing-strategy that could be modified regarding to the
quality of Museum communication: “Mission – Vision – Values”
Firstly: “Mission” in this concern is defining aims and target-groups of the Museum (e.g. the variety of
ethnic groups) and the final result to the social life.
8
Krüger, Antonio: Kleinstcomputer für ein ganz neues Erleben von Ausstellungen. In: Museum Aktuell (Museen
im Saarland). Nr. 84. Sept. 2002. p. 3553.
112
Secondly: ”Vision” is directed to guidelines, philosophy and strategy in the future.
9
Finally: ”Values” signifies the “Ethic catalogue” as a very important manifestation of Museum-Culture.
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The Subjects of the Museum
and the Public as a Subject
Marília X. Cury - Brazil
Introduction – The subjects of the museum
We can say that the museological communication is effective only when the discourse of the museum
is incorporated by the visitor and integrated to his quotidian in the form of a new discourse. The public
of museum appropriate of the museological discourse, (re) elaborate it, and then creates and diffuses
a new discourse, and the process begins again, happening that others will take possession of this new
discourse, and the whole history will be repeated. It is more than a process, it is a dynamic, and are
several the subjects participating of it. The public are some of the various subjects of the museum. In
the other end there is the creator of the object − that in the museum acquired a museological status at
the time of his insertion in a new symbolic universe − and his users. In the museum there are the
subjects, promoters of the musealization − the searcher, the documentalist, the conservator, the
museologist and the educator, among others composing the institution human resources. Are subjects
all those professionals of museum that actuate collecting, conserving, documenting, and
communicating, that participate actively in the construction of the multiples − and sometimes
fragmentary − senses being attributed consciously and successively during the object museological
trajectory. These actors participate also in the construction of the museological discourse that feeds
the discourses of communication.
The public, the author, and the user of the object, and the professional of museum are all subjects,
and many times these subjects are far from each other, geographic or culturally; they exist at present
or existed in the past and not always they get together, for not always they are physically present in
the museum, but all of them are subjects because they participate of the patrimonial object
(re)signification and of the circulation of signification (CURY, 2004b, [p. 4]).
To displace the attentions to the reception – that is, to the public − made equally displace our look to
all subjects of the process of communication. Though unveiling the public as a subject is of vital
importance to the museological communication contemporaneous understanding, I consider also vital
to attribute to the professional of museum the same consideration. I understand that the symmetry of
roles must be observed in order not to build an image to one in detriment of the other. The museum is
a space of numberless subjects, of the past and of the present, from here and from other places, of
different cultures, with the same point of view or with diverging and different positions. When admitting
that there is a subject, many others appear. A subject is made with his relation with the other, we
made subjects of ourselves through the interaction with another subject, this, because the
communication provokes the establishment of links and links are only possible with the communication
of senses. Better saying, we are not subjects by ourselves and not (re)signify by ourselves, we
(re)signify with others, it is a mutual actuation, shared between the public and the museum.
We − creator, producer, user, public, professionals − participate of the museological communication
process in different positions, and these positions define how we make ourselves subjects.
The public as a subject
To the public was reserved the role of writer because they participate as creators of the museological
discourse. To create and to write supplants the role for quite a long time attributed to the public of
readers-decoders, because by reading they interpret and by interpreting they recreate. With relation to
this, Cury (2003, p. 49-50) speaks about her experience as coordinator of expositions:
The exposition was meant to demand something from the public: the public should
be constantly challenged, invited to effectively participate of the exposition. We
have never caught a glimpse of an exposition in which the persons would receive
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passively the information or would be placed in front of an object without
understanding its importance within its cultural and social context. We were sure
about longing for an exposition in which the public could have, beyond an active
participation, a participative quality in a cognitive dimension.
The exposition and the expositive discourse seemed to be organized in such a way
as to make possible to the public the lecture of what was being exposed and that,
at the end of visitation, the public could have a set of articulated information
concerning the pre-colonial past.
Participative quality in a cognitive dimension means to have the public as readers,
and the exposition as a readable text, of which the public, during their visit, could
have the comprehension of the whole […].
It was also our desire that the public, after their participation as readers, could have
a creative participation, with the purpose of being able to take possession of the
Exposition and perceive the possible connections [premeditated in this manner].
The museological project pointed to the possibility of connections among all
modules [conceptual]. Starting from the lecture concerning what was being
exposed, the public would make the connections, recreating the expositive
discourse. With this creative participation, the visitor would no longer actuate as
reader and would begin to be author of the exposition and writer of the expositive
discourse.
Frayze-Pereira sets off that it is the lecture that makes concrete a work as such and approximates two
poles − the emitter and the receiver – and two distinct universes. "In this sense, it is important to know
the vision of the spectator with relation to a public exposition of 'art of mad men' [object of study of the
searcher], listen the speech of the silent about the silenced and wait for what may be thought about
starting from this point" (1987, p. 7). The author puts in evidence that in the act of lecture there is
recreation (idem, p. 12). Such being the case, we can say that there are three participations united
among them: the lecture, the interpretation, and the recreation. Are three distinct actions occurring
successively and they are indissociable: there is no lecture without interpretation (on the contrary,
there would be no lecture in fact) and there is no interpretation without lecture (that is what makes
possible the interpretation) and the interpretation in itself is recreation. We make here a play of ideas
among lecture, interpretation, and creation to reaffirm what was said by Ferrari: "To know how to read
today does not implies in decoding words. To know how to read today is to produce sense. This is a
process that one learns, but principally, that has to be exercised with critical spirit" (1999: Summary).
Ferrari amplifies the play of ideas: units to the lecture and to the interpretation, the (re)signification.
These actions are indissociable in the reception realized by individuals-subjects.
For Frayze-Pereira, the public-interpreters interrogate in such a manner as to obtain from a work a
more revealing answer for him, the public. He understands that a work has in itself the potentiality to
stir up new significations, instead of containing in itself multiple significations that need to be
deciphered and discovered by the spectator (1987, p. 209). For the author, "[...] the lecture of a work
is task and not deciphering, [...] is instauration of the sense and not mere revealing a signification
believed to be already deposed in itself in the work [...]" (idem, p. 213).
Hooper-Greenhill (2001b, [p.9]), celebrated searcher in museology, defends that "Within museums
that genuinely consider and plan for the experience of visitors, the concept of meaning-making has
rapidly become influential, and there is more of an understanding that meaning is not fixed or singular,
but fluid and plural.”
Valente gives emphasis to the figure of the visitor when "penetrating the relation visitor/museum,
starting from the significances and representations being processed in it [...]". In fact, relations of
production and change of significations are being processed dynamically among several subjects.
"The interpretative tendency is centered in the search of significations of social actions that are in the
woof of relations" (1995, p. 109). "The importance of the investigation [of reception], therefore, resides
in the captation of the several significations attributed to the exposition by visitors" (idem, p. 125).
Anthropology and sociology brought to museums the notion of visiting public as subject, when
professional of museum appealed to these areas to replace the behaviourist posture dominating in
educational, expositive, and, consequently, evaluative processes. For Hooper-Greenhill,
replacement would be inevitable because the behaviourism has its root in the observation of
the
the
the
the
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animal and things reactions while the anthropology and sociology have their roots in the observation of
men (1996, p. 81-82).
We know today that the public are subject of their knowledge construction – inclusive in museums −,
and, therefore, of their own apprenticeship inside and outside this institution. For that, educative
situations are turned to apprenticeship and this occurs with the public experience that, for their
qualities, it is an esthetic experience. According to Dewey, an experience of quality is complete and
conscious, integrated and delimitated, upright, in such a manner as to reach the consummation. "Such
an experience is a whole and brings in it its proper individualizing quality and its self-sufficiency"
(DEWEY, 1990, p. 247), and that attends the principles of continuity and interaction proposed by the
philosopher, that is, "every experience both takes up something from those which have gone before
and modifies in some way the quality of those which come after” connected to their [of the public]
1
previous experiences and that may influence positively their future experiences" (DEWEY apud
ANSBACHER, 1998, p. 44).
To treat the visit to museums as an experience opens many horizons and discoveries as to the role of
the public in the museum institution, in accordance with Eilean Hooper-Greenhill (2001b, p. 8):
Within museums, once the importance of the experience of the visitor is
acknowledged, questions begin to be asked about what they have learnt.
Frequently, the answers are surprising, and often they are very little to do with
learning information. Exhibitions are produced to communicate meaningful visual
and textual statements, but there is no guarantee that the intended meaning will be
achieved. Visitors to museum exhibitions respond in diverse ways. They may or
may not perceive the intended meaning, and perceiving them, they may or may not
agree with them, find them interesting, or pay attention to them.
"Visitors use their own strategies of interpretation in order to make sense of the displays they
encounter during their museums visits” (HOOPER-GREENHILL, 2001c, [p. 3]). These interpretative
strategies are mounted by the public starting from their own repertoire of knowledge, life and values.
In interaction with the exposition, the public mobilizes from their experience of life the aspects for their
interpretation. One of the ingredients for the interpretation is the public imagination that results of the
emotional involving of the visitor with the exposition, mediated by his biography. Following this
reasoning it is easy to understand that starting from their cognitive map the public action circulates
naturally between the acceptation and the rejection of a discourse. And we cannot deny that to reject
is action of a subject as much as to accept.
Nevertheless, the public as subject are plural and creative − because they are not tied to closed
interpretative aspects −, and creative − because, when in interaction with the museum, activate their
repertoire of life and creates, in Hooper−Greenhill’s conception:
Visitors` processes of interpretation are not singular, but multiple, and they proceed
from a range of starting points. According to the role being played by the visitor at
the time, (parent, scholar, tour-guide, artist, recluse) different aspects of potential
meaning will be mobilized from the materials provided by the museum. Meaning is
produced by museum visitors from their own point of view, using whatever skills
and knowledge they may have, according to the contingent demands of the
moment, and in response to the experience offered by the museum. (HOOPERGREENHILL, 2001c, [p. 3]).
In this line of thought, Silverstone believes that "the meaning of an object continues in the imaginative
work of the visitor who brings to it his or her own agenda, experiences and feelings” (1994, p. 164). In
the process of musealization the objects are removed from the commercial circuit and are inserted in a
new symbolic universe, suffering several actions of signification by many specialists of museum,
principally of the investigator, professional that studies the collections, and of the museologist and of
the educator, professionals that formulate the expositive or educative discourses or the
communicational discourse. Each one in his position aggregates significance to the musealized
cultural patrimony, and for this reason they are curators. This curatorial action proceeds in the process
of communication, because "[…] the meaning of an object or of an exhibition is significantly dependent
on the ´curatorial` work of the visitor in which objects are reinscribed into a personal culture of memory
1
DEWEY, John. Experience and education. Kappa Delta Pi: Currently available as a Simon & Schuster
Touchstone edition, New York, 1938. p. 35.
117
and experience” (SILVERSTONE, 1994, p. 165). In this manner, the public are curators too. We are all
curators in different positions: researcher, museologist, educator, and public. Our work, inclusive that
of the public, is to learn to be a curator, learn to construct significations starting from an inferential
logic.
Hooper-Greenhill (2001c, [p. 6]) also sees the public as curators in face of an experience offered to
her. She investigates about which would be the performance of the visitors in the museological
communication, and she herself gives the answer:
They are expected to enter fully into multiple learning processes that are designed
to enable preferred learning styles to be used, that encourage links to prior
knowledge, that encourage personalization of their visit and their response. They
are encouraged to act as co-curators of the learning process and often of the
display too.
Considering that the interpretation and the (re) signification of an exposition involves the use of the
space, Cristina Freire puts in evidence the spatial action of the public-subject in her research. "Such
analysis revealed that the reception of works leads to the relation perception/space and implies
affective answers that configurate a particular manner of looking" (1990, Summary). In succession the
researcher recognizes:
[...] the analysis, founded in the Phenomenology, cuts away in the speeches of the
interviewed subjects [the public] themes properly perceptual, connected to lookthe-works-in-the-exposition, always with a view to the apprehension of the sense of
this look and of the resulting singular visions. That is, it treats about an analysis
aiming at apprehending the general without desisting of the particular perspectives
[...] in the interior of the sensible experience (FREIRE, 1990, p. 38).
Cristina Freire, in the research of reception she developed, made use of the thematic analysis that
places the public as a subject of the research about the dynamic established among the work, the
observer, and the local where the work is exposed (FREIRE, 1990, p. 53) and concludes that "there is
a relation of co-existence between the space occupied by the work and the space of the spectator"
(idem, p. 61). This relation is provoked by the exposition, but defined by the public that perceives two
spaces, their space and that of the object, or a unique space, that of the object by which they feel
themselves surrounded.
For Veron and Levasseur (1991, p. 40), an exposition is the use of the space by objects and its
significations, space that the visitor will recognize by means of a proper walking for examination of
what is exposed in terms of objects and ideas organized in the space. The authors suggest: "Du point
de vue de la reconnaissance, le sujet visiteur procédera par dé-composition et re-composition de ce
réseau d`étalement: il va, pourrait-on dire, se frayer son chemin. Il nous fallaic donc observer les
comportements de visite”. I could complete saying that we should observe the public behaviour
through the optics of their subjectivity when appropriating themselves of the physic, conceptual, and
objectual space.
The spatial reference of Freire and that of Veron and Levasseur are alike, in a big measure, to the
convictions of García Blanco (1999, p. 62)
Quizás el aspecto más relevante y el más significativo de este tipo de exposición
[que tiene el visitante como referencia] es la ruptura entre el espacio expositivo y
el espacio del recorrido, creándose una nueva dimensión espacial, la del espacio
imaginario materializado y representado ficticiamente, dentro del cual el visitante
es el actor principal.
As for the public interaction and expositive space, Bagnall (2003, p. 88) studied the relation of the
public with a patrimonial site. The study was developed starting from the manners how the visitor
associated the walking in the patrimonial space to his biographies and knowledge about the site and
came to some reflections:
In particular, visitors required that the sites generate emotionally authentic
responses. They required a factual certitude that could be employed as a resource,
as a form of cultural capital. However, it was a cultural capital that was more fluid,
118
and more related to the everyday lives and life histories of the visitors than
2
Bourdieu (1984) would allow.
Bagnall plays with the idea of authenticity. He uses it when making reference to the authenticity of the
patrimonial good and to the authenticity of the act of interpreting the patrimony. The authentic
interpretative act is legitimated by the public, being respected the individual and social biographies. It
is an authentic (re)signification.
The physic capacity of an exposition is appropriated by the public and makes possible that the public
interpret in a complex and different manner in relation to other visitors. Furthermore, “[…] that the
relationship between visitors and the sites is based as much on emotion and imagination as it is on
cognition." (BAGNALL, 2003, p. 87)
To walk through the exposition is to appropriate the space and time. When appropriating the space the
public create a proper trajectory (circuit), and the appropriation of the time is expressed in the rhythm
of visitation. The forms of appropriation of these two elements are of free-mind of the public. These
two elements are constitutive of the exposition and of the interpretation and are essentials for the
discursive-expositive narrative presented to the public for discussion. By appropriating the space and
time, the public appropriate the expositive narrative and re-elaborates it:
After a visit to a museum, visitors reconstruct the experience narratively. This
phenomenon is inevitable, because museum visitors always arrive with specific
expectations and have specific experiences (whether museum-related or not).
Visitors show specific reactions to the title of the exhibition, to the physical site, to
the entrance and to the architecture of the museum building. They decide how to
conduct the visit (alone or with others, making stops in order to look at specific
objects) and use or ignore the parallel elements offered (guided visits, audio-visual
projections). Finally, there comes a time when visitors reconstruct for themselves
the museum experience. (ZAVALA, 1998, p. 83)
Following Zavala’s reasoning the visitor expectations, experiences, and reactions are constitutive of
the exposition. “Este ideal responde a una configuración del visitante como sujeto activo, parte
integrante de la exposición misma, sin el cual no habría exposición y que, en su ínter-actuación con la
misma, le da su forma y contenido definitivo.” (GARCÍA BLANCO, 1999, p. 7).
The receptor is subject when making his lecture interpretative, action of the reception. The publicsubject’s lecture is made starting from their context of life, of their quotidian. In this manner, the public
lecture reveals micro-histories or subtexts and consists in one more version of a partial truth. The
museological and expositive discourse is contextualized by itself – the public −, which searches for an
inferential reason starting from what is presented, and makes re-lectures of traditions activating their
contemporaneous look. The visitor interprets contextually and his interpretation is a reflection, he
represents evaluating or he represents critically. He uses the language to think. Creates and/or feeds
polemics when diverging and negotiating, is agent of his apprenticeship, acts subjectively and intersubjectively, dialogically and politically because he socializes the sense, changes the differences
(Zavala, [2003], p. 28-31). This is the subject we generically denominate of public.
The public that does not frequent museums, the not-visitor, is also subject, this because he “uses the
museum”. The use occurs by the participation in the social construction of whatever is a museum, a
construction occurring in the imaginary of this subject, but this imaginary surely gives a social form to
this institution. The not-visitor has this participation and as it occurs must be investigated. The form
given to the institution by this not-visitor making part of a museum audience could also be
investigated. The action of the not-visitor of museums is already gaining space in the researches of
audience of museums as in that by Nick Merriman (1997, p. 149-171) and in that by Brian Longhurst,
Gaynor Bagnall and Mike Savage (2004, p. 104-124). For these last "the study of museum audiences
can therefore indicate more that the processes of visiting per se. In taking this topic seriously, we have
perhaps show how museums figure in the popular consciousness of everyday audience activity”
(2004, p. 122).
By audience Bagnall (2003, p. 96-97) understands the regular public of museums, more the potential
public, conglobating the visitor and the not-visitor. Bagnall explains that the term audience was
incorporated by the museological field to follow the present researches of reception in several
2
BOURDIEU, P. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984.
119
contexts, such as theatre and movie. Then, the visitor and the not-visitor make part of the audience
and deserve to be considered in studies of reception, although in different manners.
In consequence, to visit or not visit a museum is a choice. Excluding some possible impediments
(distance, financial resources), it is a choice made by the subject. And why did he make this choice?
This is a fundamental question for the professionals of museums. To answer it is easy, but the doubt
must be in the memorandum of our professional preoccupations. Eilean Hooper-Greenhill (2001a, [p.
5]) ponders about some of the motives of this visitors’ choice:
However, it [the subjectivities of the public] is the meaning constructed from an
experience, or the anticipation of such meaning, that informs the decision to visit a
museum or to stay away. For many that have not been successful learners, the
overt educational remit of museums is not attractive, and for those who do not feel
comfortable with formal social structures, the authoritative style of museum
buildings and spaces do not offer the comfortable leisure pastime they seek. And
for those whose histories are told from a perspective they find alien, the museum
represents a space to avoid or to challenge.
The not-visitor subject knows, even if intuitively, that the museum is also his space and that its format
must be reviewed. He is subject because he is constantly informing us about this and we have to be
opened to his anxieties of citizen.
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NACIONAL ICOM/CECA MÉXICO. La educación dentro del museo, nuestra propia
educación, 2., 2001, Zacatecas. Memoria. [Zacateca]: ICOM México, CECA, [2003]. p. 19-31.
______. Towards a theory of museum reception. In: BICKNELL, Sandra; FARMELO, Graham (Eds.).
Museum visitor studies in the 90s. Londres: Science Museum, 1998. p. 82-85.
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II Appendix
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ICOFOM Annual Meeting, Oct. 2004
Museology and Intangible Heritage – Analyzing
Summary
Anita Shah, India
_________________________________________________________________________________
Human beings are compelled by an innate desire to know and understand the world they live in, and
come to terms with the environment, both natural and cultural, that surround them. At the same time
reconcile with the unknown fears that threaten their reality. It is this fear of the unknown ‘future’ (that
includes the after death phenomena) that propels the human psyche to cast a web of abstractions that
will help him ‘slide’ smoothly into the ‘future’.
Tangible and intangible heritage is the expression of hopes, aspirations, and emotions and in short all
that man experiences. This knowledge gives shape to the collective memory of society and ensures
that the future generation has a better chance of survival. It is this collective memory of the society
that finds expression in its rituals, traditions, customs, etc and becomes the core philosophy of life that
gives meaning to all the actions and behaviors of the people of that society. This is the intangible
heritage that we inherit from our ancestors and in our own way interact with it, adding and deleting
various aspects and in turn pass it on to the next generation. Thus transmission of heritage, tangible
and intangible is a dynamic and continuous process. Reality is always changing in the flow of time.
Intangible heritage is that part of reality that is transmitted orally from one generation to the next in the
form of values, abstractions, stories, oral traditions, philosophy, meanings expressed through material
objects etc. However, there is a very fine line of distinction between tangible and intangible heritage.
Globalization and related urban socio-cultural phenomena of melting pot of cultures and the rapid
changes overtaking the socio-cultural scenario of various societies many cultures are being
threatened with extinction. Furthermore, with people migrating from one place to another at a more
rapid pace, social issues of cultural and identity crisis are taking centre stage. Many customs,
traditions which survived over the centuries suddenly are facing annihilation. This could lead to ethnic
strife and in extreme cases to responses of religious fundamentalism as certain over zealous
members of the society rebel against the changes flooding the society. This cultural turmoil can be
seen in the present form of ‘Jihad’ that has become a major issue of contention in the world today.
Identity crisis interrupts the continuum of smooth passage of heritage from one generation to the next.
To preserve for posterity and well being of societies we as museologists have to guard against the
obliteration of cultures, both tangible and intangible. It is important to conserve the intangible heritage
as it is the basis on which the tangible rests and gives meaning to most our practices and behaviors.
To deliberate 0n these issues--------th
I present to you my analyzing summary of papers at the 20 General Conference of ICOM at Seoul,
South Korea, Oct. 2004. Starting, with the definition of intangible heritage we move along to the
different perspectives presented by the museologists from the different parts of the world.
Andre Devalles (museologists and museum terminologist, France) has defined the term intangible
heritage as it refers in semiotics in English and trying best to find a synonym in French.
He says “From a museological point of view, intangible (in English and immaterial in French) is only an
emanation of matter it cannot exist and be exhibited without tangible evidence (artifacts or natural
specimens). The present campaign for intangible heritage derives from the scorn of non-western
cultures by policy makers-and a lot of museum people too, who neglected, in particular, the fields of
religion and the sacred in favor of great art.”
“Scientists know that some element has always existed, which they cannot perceive until somebody
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explains it. Art historians know that the essential element in creation is intangible. And, above all, it’s
not the first time that anthropologists record expressions of different cultures, in which we find
festivities, ceremonies, dances, manufacturing process, or simply slices of life. I would add that it is
not a new concern for museum people who have stated for many years that an object does not have
meaning by itself.
Andre Devalles goes on to elaborate that “to separate the material from the immaterial assumes that
we dismiss the fact that artifacts have an immaterial part to them.”
Drawing from UNESCO and papers by members of ICOM which appeared in ICOM News, Vol. 56,
2003 Nos. 4 and Vol. 57, 2004 Nos.1------‘We should first note that scientists, even in France, reject the term ‘immateriel’ in favor of ‘intangible’
in so far as the object of scientific experiments can only be done with what has material substance,
even if this matter is difficult for human senses to perceive.’
‘In contrast to museums, UNESCO’s definition is not interested in natural heritage.’ Andre quotes
French physicist Louis de Broglie and uses the term transcendence to qualify everything that escapes
tangibility. ‘Life appears to us in opposing ways: sometimes it seems to be reduced to a cluster of
physical- chemical processes, and sometimes to assert itself in a way characterized as an evolving
dynamism which transcends physics and chemistry.’
‘Thus we could explain that regarding the form that intangible heritage takes, the UNESCO definition
includes both elements that can be attributed to transcendence
(Practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills) and the material supports that
generated them (instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces that are associated with them).
There is nothing new in mentioning that museums are full of objects (material heritage) which are the
support of the intangible heritage. First of all, in these physical works of art the most original element is
exactly what escapes material evaluation. But just as much, and also by their very essence, in all
human works whose meaning is not obvious in the first degree, understanding is generated by the
context in which they are found in life, or when they are displayed.’
Andre Devalles quotes Giovanni Pinna
1. ‘Expressions, embodied in physical form of the culture or traditional ways of life of a certain
community, for example, their religious rites, traditional economies, ways of life, folklore for
example, Kungu Opera in China.’
2. ‘Individual or collective expressions which do not have a physical form: language, memory,
oral traditions, songs and non written traditional music-for example the oral heritage of the
Zapara people in Ecuador or Peru.’
3. ‘----symbolic and metaphysical meanings of the objects which constitute the tangible heritage.
Every object has two dimensions; its physical aspect- for example its shape and size-and its
meaning, which derives from its history from the interpretation it receives from others, from its
capacity to link the past to the present, and so forth.
According to Andre, Giovanni differentiates in museological order, between the first two categories
and the third one. In the first case, he considers that intangible heritage may be transcribed or
registered and then transformed into material\tangible heritage - but these ‘living cultural expressions,’
through their manifestations, and then fossilized, both in space and time, and are no longer heritage.
In the second, museums should select, within their historical and scientific context, those objects with
symbolic signification and return them to the broad public.
Andre Devalles concludes ‘speaking museologically the intangible can only exist as an emanation of
the material and its restitution can only be an evocation through material evidence…..It is certain that
whole fields of cultures have been neglected, of which the most important are those touching the
sacred, and thus intangible.’ He further states that ‘museum objects do not have any meaning by
themselves. Interpreting the object is subject to the context of their display and to the subjective view
of each visitor.’
Andre Devalles has presented a very important concept when he particularly says ‘that objects do not
have meaning by themselves.’ In my paper ‘The Different Planes of Reality’ I have also referred that
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‘objects per-se have no meaning by themselves. ‘It is the people who inject the object with meanings
derived from the collective memory of its culture. This ‘investment’ of social milieu in the object
transforms it into a social tool of transmission of thoughts, ideas, concepts, experiences etc vital for
the society. It is this intangible heritage stored hidden in the object that we as museologists want to
study and understand in order to preserve for posterity.
In China at the ICOFOM meeting in Beijing 1995 museologists discussing the meaning of objects had
deliberated that objects derive meaning from the culture they have been produced. This meaning
‘symbolization’ in the object is the intangible heritage which we as museum experts seek to study,
understand preserve and pass on. This symbolization in objects takes a deeper meaning in religious
and sacred objects and also historical objects associated with important events in human history. The
peoples of the world have strived to protect, preserve these objects because of their religious, social
and cultural connotations throughout human history.
In short, we can say that intangible heritage is the soul and the tangible heritage its physical body. It is
this merging of the soul and the body that gives meaning to life and existence.
Moving further this discussion Ales Gacnik, Slovenia states that it is first necessary to introduce three
basic definitions of Museology, ethnology and ethnologic Museology. According to Ales Gacnik
‘Ethnological museology is not a science about ethnological museum objects, collections and
museums, but about relations between people and objects and their relationships to heritage, their
preservation, research, communication and development.’
Ales further states that the horizon of museology should be broadened so as to include ‘the transition
from traditional museological direction towards material culture to the one from the field of social and
spiritual culture. If a museum artifact is the essence of traditional museums and museology, then not
only objects form the contents of ethnological museology, but also people, customs and traditions,
place and time. The duties of ethnological museology are not oriented just in preservation of material
testimonies, but also in protecting people, knowledge (traditional) time and place connected with the
biology of customs and traditions.’
According to Dr. Martin Scharer, Switzerland, intangible heritage in museological terms is ‘Ideas are
abstract, intangible, immaterial phenomena that take place inside a person, are of indeterminate
duration and lack materiality.’ In contrast ‘Things are concrete, physical, material phenomena of
indeterminate duration, existing outside the person which are either found by people in nature or which
are made by them and which, together, make up our material heritage.’ Connecting these two aspects
of reality at the different planes he says that ‘In order to be communicated, ideas need materiality in
the form of things or processes.’
Martin elaborates his point of view connecting intangible heritage explicitly with its expression and
manifestation. He says ‘first, let us consider the museologically central dichotomy of things: they have
a structural aspect, residing in their materiality, and also a cultural aspect which describes their
context. Accepting that the object is mute and therefore requires an explanation, it can be said thatpurely on the basis of its materiality - it furnishes no information about its cultural background. Who
made it and why? Who used it and in what context? And so on. The answers to such questions lie, not
in information and knowledge deriving from the object’s materiality, but, precisely, in its “intangible
heritage”. And cultural information is even necessary in order to interpret material aspects of the object
such as material, color, signs of wear, etc. Or, to put it another way, an object without information is
worthless and, in the final analysis, useless in the context of a museum.’
Martin points to the importance of values associated with objects and the central role they play in
interpretation. He says ‘Secondly, it should be pointed out that everything has a utility function
(………...intangible elements) as well as associated, or attributed, values, both of which may,
however, tend towards zero……….For the man-thing relationship, this duality is constitutive: things
are credited with aesthetic or symbolic, recall or informative values which, not being an intrinsic part of
the object, are therefore subjective and hence, again, an immaterial aspect of the object.’
‘Third, and finally, this man-thing relationship takes place on three different levels: real, everyday
surroundings, the fictitious, arranged museum world, and the world of personal reality which is rich in
object - induced connotations and “takes place” everywhere.’
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In view of such complexity in the man-thing relationship, it is clear that it is the immaterial dimension,
not the material one that is the key- indeed; the latter cannot exist without the former. Gold is only
valuable because society has placed value upon it. A national flag is only important because a nation
ascribes significance to it. A travel souvenir is only important because the recall value attached to it
extends a holiday experience………The material and immaterial dimensions of an object together
constitute its museality.’
Andre Gob, Belgium, feels that ‘immaterial heritage in itself cannot be conserved. One can only try to
keep some trace of it, material or materialized, this may take many diverse forms: witness accounts,
recordings (written, audio, video, digital) objects or places.’
Tereza Scheiner, Brazil brings to focus the symbolic long poles erected at the entrance of villages in
South Korea topped by beautiful sculptures of birds. She writes ‘the birds are an unquestionably
strong representation of the intangible, and the Sotdae birds, an elegant metaphor of the deepest wish
of all human beings: the guarantee of a prosperous and pacific life.’ Tereza raises important issues by
speaking that " special emphasis to the intangible, as a strategy for the reassignment of cultural
difference-- under the belief that understanding diversity will certainly contribute to the advent of an
era of peace and social development. Such effort in reconciling differences reveals a universalistic
tendency in trying to find solutions for social crises, building global society that is harmonic and pacific-thus realizing the belief in a world of goodness and justice, where community life is thoroughly
possible."
This importance of heritage lies: in its quality of symbolic complex founded on the continuity of cultural
manifestations, built over values that are essential to the existence of societies. This also is the
essence of ethics, “the community effort on the continuity of life and of the human group on the terms
of the desire of their founding principles---" a movement that implies the existence of common values,
whose defense reassures the continuity of different cultures.'
Tereza further points out that culture is always evolving and so “we can thus accept cultural change as
a part of reality- no more as a menace, but as a constitutive element of cultural fluxes." She also
cautions about the overexposure and overglamourization by the media of rituals and its dangerous
implications. She concludes by saying that "It is in the domain of the imaginary, of creation and of
affection that heritage gains meaning. This is its true essence --- the creative potency which identifies
the existence of the humane. Heritage is, though, as a bird: it only exists in liberty and spontaneity."
Lynn Maranda, Canada, raises the point that the paradox of preserving something that was once alive
and fluid, is that by encapsulating it, its viability is ultimately terminated." This is most evident when
addressing the issue of oral traditions. The cultural value of this tradition is that it is 'oral'. How can an
oral tradition be written down and not be changed in so doing? If, however, oral traditions were alive
and strong, there would be no need and thus no compulsion to record them. The fact that there is a
move to record oral traditions would indicate that they are already either fast disappearing or entirely
dead. In any case, the act of recording oral traditions spells its death knell. Under such circumstances,
it is no longer an oral tradition and this essential aspect of indigenous cultures is destroyed."
According to Lynn Maranda "these are important ethical issues.' She also points to the fact ' how far it
is acceptable for the museum, a creation of 'our' society, to constantly want the products of another?'
She cautions that the modern museums have ' been a party to the removal and housing of other
peoples' patrimony, justify this new imposition into indigenous cultural spheres? Is this really realm of
preservation or more closely aligned to interference or appropriation? While many cultures may well
approve museum initiatives to preserve their intangible heritage there are those which would be
vehemently opposed to such an intrusion.'
She further points out that by recording intangible heritage it would be interfering with its original
quality and freezing it through media would change it permanently into a tangible product.
Hildegard Vieregg, Germany, reflects that in what extent intangible\ immaterial heritage is closely
connected to tangible heritage, as well as traditions of communities (festivals) economic traditions
(traditional crafts and skills) national customs -- as example in correlation with objects, artifacts,
instruments, performances, cultural spaces. In this context ethnological museums and Museums of
World Cultures play a particularly important role because they are to be seen in the context of
international evaluation. Hildegard points out that “A study of definition and description of intangible
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heritage leads to the result that the cultural importance is usually considered with reference to a
positive development of culture and civilization. In most cases museums present objects in this
positive way - even exhibits in several War Memorials or Memorial Museums are presented in an
artificial and aesthetic way. Therefore, it seems necessary to focus on examples that elucidate the
'positive' and 'negative' approach to intangible heritage."
Above all, the 'Transition Project,' one of the main projects of ICOFOM stands for dealing with
'negative' intangible heritage the conservation and preservation of former Gulag Camps and the
remembrance to totalitarian states as intangible and immaterial heritage. But not only the Gulag
Camps are affected by this unhappy memory rather former and present totalitarian states all over the
world --- even countries where genocide is carried out like in Rwanda. Therefore, the programme
'From Oppression to Democracy' is the basis for the framework of the mission and action of the
International Movement -- finally established on the occasion of ICOFOM Annual Meeting 2000 in
Brno, Czech Republic. Vinos Sofka, former president and Honorary President of ICOFOM and
Permanent Advisor of the ICOFOM Committee drew attention to the people responsible for heritage
care to realize the fact that former totalitarian regimes are now history. This also transmits important
intangible messages by the kind of memorial sites, written and visual documents etc."
Hildegard concludes by saying that 'the role of museums include also responsibility for records and
transcriptions of immaterial and intangible heritage which by this way will be both 'materialized' and
recorded as immaterial heritage, and musealized independently from space and time."
According to Maridia Xavier Cury, Brazil, 'the intangible character is intrinsic to the material heritage
preservation, because no object, inside or outside the museum exists by itself, that is to say, without a
collection of values and significations to qualify them and qualifying the relations among persons -and cultures mediated by material culture.' She further states that in her experience - 'it is almost
impossible not to mediate about the intangibility, because we are not confronted with it every moment
of the curatorial process; acquisition, search, conservation, documentation and communication
(exposition and education) of artifacts.'
According to the Korean point of view Susie Chang Yun Shun, USA, in her presentation examines the
relation between intangible folk heritage and measures the Republic of Korea is taking to preserve
protect and perpetuate intangible heritage. The Republic of Korea has initiated and established the
Korean Folk Village, which has played an important role in giving public exposure to the 'technical
holders' and their works. According to Hyun Mee Yang, Korea, the museums house objects in which
'traditional skills are hidden.' ‘In order to preserve the traditional craft skills, museum has to transfer
the tacit knowledge that masters have obtained through the long experiences into the explicit
knowledge.' Further in order to preserve intangible heritage, museum has to change its core activity
from collecting to organizing knowledge through converting the tacit knowledge into the explicit
knowledge. Thus museums can make a living history live in our everyday life rather than in our
memory.
According to the Indian perspective, presented by Anita Shah ‘India with its kaleidoscopic diversity
cannot be fully understood without seeking to understand the intangible heritage that gives meaning to
all the various cultures it has given birth to. Symbolization is intricately woven in to the fabric of Indian
art, ritual, religion, festivals and in short, all the multi dimensional aspects of life. For example, the
sculpture ‘Nataraja’ or the great figurines of Amravati cannot be fully enjoyed without knowing the
significance of the postures and the symbols imbedded in them. The great dancing God ‘Nataraja’ can
have tremendous aesthetic appeal in the museum but it is essential to know and understand the Vedic
philosophy of Cosmo genesis imbibed into it. Nataraja implies that change is life’s only eternal
philosophy; to create one has to destroy and from destruction emerge the seeds of creation. One hand
in the abhaya posture of benediction portrays Shiva at the vortex of salvation. His other hand
intriguingly points to His left foot which is raised, the big toe pointing towards the sky, to mukti or
salvation, the ultimate objective of human existence. His other foot suppresses a dwarf demon
representing the ego which must be suppressed for deeper realization. Shiva’s matted hair reflects the
complexities of existence, washed by the purest source of sustenance, the sacred waters of the
Ganges. Purity of intent and morality in existence washes away the most cursed of troubles. Every
part of the sculpture is highly symbolic and needs interpretation to grasp its meaning and enjoy in its
totality. This intangible heritage is the essence of the Divine Cosmic Dancer – Nataraja.”
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Furthermore, “it is the Sankhya philosophy of Kapil Rishi which was propagated by Gautama Buddha
that spread its tentacles into South East Asia. The great Chinese Travelers Huan Te Sang and Fa
st
Hein who visited India in the 1 centaury BC did not carry much material heritage into China, but the
intangible heritage of knowledge, philosophy and the treasure of their rich experiences which had the
power to influence and shape future generations in all aspects of life and which in turn formed the
basis of the creation of culture that was distinct and unique. Thus it is the intangible heritage that has
the power and strength to move and influence the peoples and also in their interaction with each other
and in the process creating new material culture. Thus the wheel of progress moves in space and time
leaving imprints in the form of tangible and intangible heritage for future generations to read,
understand, interpret and take it on further. In short intangible heritage is the soul and material culture
the body. Both need each other for their existence and continuation in space and time.”
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The Paradigm of Cosmogenesis and Eschatology in
the Mytho-poetical Heritage
of the Siberian Peoples
Olga Truevtseva - Siberia/ Russian Federation
________________________________________________________________________
The swift and accelerating development of the planet civilization leaves no opportunity for the
functioning of the ethnic cultural traditions in those nooks of the planet, where the people have been
reproducing the stereotypes of their mode of life and entity, developed before civilized period, for
centuries.
The historians of culture, ethnographists, archaeologists, museologists realize the threat of loss of
the smallest minorities’ spiritual values, tracing to the global cultures and having archaic character.
The reconstruction of the extinct cultures’ fragments, especially their outlook integrity, is the problem
for the ethnographist, archaeologist as well as for the specialist in folklore. There is an obvious
necessity of the specific museum preservation not only of the material objects, but also of the spiritual
culture, if they have the status of sacred values.
The museum folklore keeping means the written fixation of the most fundamental epic codes,
mythological texts, magic verbal formulae, versions of apocryphal mythic creation and etc.
The subjects about the birth and fall of the world are of great importance among these questions.
Their significance is obvious because of some causes: the comparative analysis of the similar texts
allows to determine for the earthy men the general idea on the life’s beginning, to understand the
connections between the global and naïve cultures and etc.
The idea of recurrence of the universe development, represented in the myth poetical tradition of
the Turkic Siberian peoples, in the capacity of the general sign, supposes the situation of temporary
stopping of the habitual man’s existence. The coincidence of Universe cycles is analogous to the
biological recurrence of the man’s life and other natural objects. But this analogy is not the only reason
for the appearance of cosmogonical and eschatological myths and their folklore versions. The
historical memory of ethnos designs in the artistically – figurative version the most dramatic moments
of its existence, where the moments of world’s birth and fall are the most important “ points of tension”.
The inspiration of origin as well as the tragedy of end is perceived as one episode in the infinite
whole, where the death is an inevitable stage to the new existence, and birth is the first step to death.
Moreover, the Altai and Yakut heroic epos contains the signs of archaic beliefs, which are being read
through the layers of the latest stratifications. If you try to turn the plot back, the sequence of
eschatology elements will reproduce the picture of the world’s birth: the living water is thickening, all
the indispensable components of existence are polarizing, the oppositional pairs are uniting,
concentrating around the sacred center. The endless great number of derivatives is being generated;
the new world began his movement in the striving for the triumph of the new life. The eschatological
version presents the disappearance of the land under the water, annulling plurality at the expense of
the united one. The fire is an analogue to the water in the plots, describing the world’s death.
The archaic philosophical and mythological systems unite the elements of water and fire. So
“Rigveda” calls Agni (God of Fire) as “ born in the water”. The tradition of amalgamation of these
elements is characteristic not only of the myth, but also of the folklore, i.e. the water and fire are
considered to be the different sides of one substance. The mythological logic united not united, from
the logical point of view, phenomena, explaining the endless chain of the earthy and cosmic
transformations this way: the death of one thing leads to the birth of the other one, which is opposed in
the shape and characteristics. In the Altai and Yakut folklore the border between he peoples’ world
and monsters’ world is the fiery sea, where the horse-hair serves as a bridge. The worlds are
separated and united simultaneously, and this border is very relative. Its relative character assumes
the possibility of the penetration of destructive elements into the middle world, built according to the
divine direction and intended for the man.
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The presence of the border between the worlds in three – layered Universe is taken into account
by the shaman mysteries, showing ritual shaman’s visit of the underworld, overcoming of all the
dangers and reaching the North Star, where the intermediary between the supreme deity and man
lives. Such scheme of journey embodies a number of complicated ideas: firstly, the idea of
ephemerality between the worlds; secondly, the idea of the victory over the doubtful temptations of the
lower world (which is formal in the myth and literal in epos); thirdly, the idea of principle not destruction
of the life in its basic forms (death is fraught with a birth, birth leads to death). The third idea, in my
opinion, means the principle correlation of the concepts and phenomena “upper part” and “bottom”,
their polysemy.
The category of the opposition « existence – non-existence» is presented in mythical poetics of
these peoples as the category of “shown existence” and “non- existence”. The similar situation is
evident in the mythological Egyptian plots (the myth about Osiris and the corresponding mystery
present both a calendar cycle and finding the dead Pharaoh in Osiris’s status in the way of semantic
plan). As for the mythological Greek tradition, the plots about Demetra and Persephone, Aphrodite
and Adonis, Ishtar and Areshkigal, Ishtar and Dumuzi, going back to Shumero – Babylonian
oppositions, illustrate the polysemy of the categories “ life”, “ death” as “ existence” and “ nonexistence”.
The Altai and Yakut epos shows the plot frame of this myths’ category, preserving all the
necessary peculiarities of the mythological plots. So, “Maadai Kara” epos includes not only the story
about Kogyudei Mergen, descending to Erlik’s world, but the associative information about such
chance. The hero’s name speaks for itself: Kogyudei means “good shot”, Mergen is “ a grey (blue)
dog”. The second name concerns she-wolf, the Ashin’s original mother, whose underground nature
allows the descendant to accustom to the lower world’s mysteries. The first name clears from the epic
context, “a living red arrow” (a repeating epithet) is undoubtedly not only the peculiarity of the epic
poetics, but it is also the semantic sign of the heroic attribution. The hero of the Yakut epos Yuryunh
Uolan with his attribute “a living arrow” is depicted in the similar way. Yuryung Uolan as Kogyudei
Mergen can overcome the borders between the worlds, confirming the ides of interpenetration of the
constructive and destructive, for the earthy existence, elements, which are interpreted in the divine
context as the neutral elements. In the archaic mythologies, cosmogenesis is considered the point of
the world’s recreation in the circle of eternal existence after the death of the former world. The moment
of the circle’s completion is the moment of the new turn; it stimulates the birth of the new God’s
generation (such theogonic generations are characteristic not only of Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia,
but also of the Slav world, of the Siberian peoples, speaking the Mongolian language). The affirmation
of the new one is the sequence of the victory over the former one, that is the concept “ chaos” for the
myth and “ the world of the dead people” for epos, includes not only the amorphous feature, but also
an underground monster. Taking into account these views of cosmogenesis and eschatology on the
whole, it is recognized that some “ primary substance” existed in not existed world. The world was
being undergone a modification, and Gods gave those shapes to the substance, which were
intelligible to the new generations.
The presented paradigm of cosmogenesis and eschatology in the mythical poetics of the Turkic
peoples of Siberia is the variant of reconstruction so far as sacred archaic information has been
already stated in written form. There is still some doubt; it is our point of view on birth and death of the
world, presented by shamans, wise men, and narrators. Collecting out of folklore, preservation of the
texts, as museum exhibits become gradually a conscious documentation of the past, a basis for
scientific research and for pleasure.
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III List of Authors
Dr. Chung, Yun Shun Susie (USA)
Assistant Professor - Heritage Management
Museum of Texas Tech University/ Lubbock
E-mail: yun‐[email protected]
Dr. Davis, Ann (Canada)
Director The Nickle Arts Museum/University of Calgary
Vice-President of ICOFOM
E-mail: [email protected]
Prof. Decarolis, Nelly (Argentina)
Vice-President of ICOFOM
President of ICOFOM LAM (Latin America)
E-mail: [email protected]
Prof. Desvallées, André (France)
Honorary President of ICOFOM
Chair of the Project: Museum Thesaurus
E-mail: adesval@club‐internet.fr
Dr. Devine, Heather (Canada)
Curator of Indigenous Heritage/Nickle Arts Museum/ Calgary
E-mail: [email protected]
Gorgas, Mónica – de la Cerda, Jeannette (Argentina)
Director de Museo de la Estancia de Alta Gracia/ Córdoba
E-mail: [email protected]
Dr. Harris, Jennifer (Australia)
Museum Curator/
Member of ICOFOM Board
E-mail: [email protected]
Mairesse, François (Belgium)
Director, Musée royal de Mariemont
Member of ICOFOM Board
Project : Museum Thesaurus
E-mail: françois.mairesse@musee‐mariemont.be
Le Marec, Joëlle (France)
Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines/ Lyon
[email protected]/ - http//c2o.ens-lsh.fr.
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Maranda, Lynn (Canada)
Curator Vancouver Museum/ Vancouver
Member of ICOFOM Board
E-mail: [email protected]
Dr. Schärer, Martin R. (Switzerland)
Director Alimentarium Vevey/ vevey
Vice – President of ICOM
E-mail: [email protected]
Prof. Dr. Scheiner, Tereza C. (Brazil)
UniRio/ Rio de Janeiro
Member of ICOM Executive Council
Member of Ethics Committee of ICOM
E-mail: [email protected]
Dr. Shah, Anita B. (India)
Science and Research on Museology/ Hyderabad
E-mail: [email protected]
Dr. Tahan, Lina Gebrail (Lebanon)
University of Cambridge/ Department of Archaeology/ Cambridge (UK)
E-mail: [email protected]
Prof. Dr. Truevtseva, Olga (Russian Federation)
Altai State Academy for Culture and Art/ Barnaul
Secretary of ICOFOM
E-mail: [email protected]
Dr. Vieregg, Hildegard K. (Germany)
University for Philosophy/ Munich
Director of Institute for Museum Sciences and Studies
President of ICOFOM
E-mail: vieregg.hildegard@pc‐future.de
Prof. Xavier Cury, Marília (Brazil)
University of São Paolo/ São Paolo
E-mail: [email protected]
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