There is, at least in my mind, a huge distinction between museums and galleries. What separates the two institutions primarily is their responsibility to education. The display of history and the display of visual art are simply not the same, where errors made in the former have much graver consequences. Offending an artist by improperly installing his or her show is one thing; inaccurately representing a culture is quite another.

I was interested in the article Nina Simon wrote at Museum 2.0, wherein she proposes a new voice for museums to adopt in order to break down the institutional authority that exists within museums. In her article she refers to Radiolab, an educational radio show (available via podcast) that makes learning accessible through the hosts’ use of conversation. Simon asks the following:

I wondered: what if museums dropped the authoritative voice, the cultural voice, the friendly teacher voice, and adopted a novice voice? What would it feel like to read labels that challenge the information provided or acknowledge the questions in everyone’s head: How did they get this giant sculpture in here? Why does anyone care about this dead stuff? Why is there lots of snow if global warming is happening?

I had never heard an episode of Radiolab’s show, so I decided to give it a listen. What I found was a dynamic conversation occurring between two hosts and a guest. The two hosts asked each other questions, like Did you know… and offer each other points of information that are then expanded on by the guest expert and in some cases, corrected or challenged. Simon is right: it’s an extremely engaging format.

Museums have a terribly imposing and overwhelming responsibility to not only display histories, but also to impart on its visitors some sort of educational value. Within the industry, it’s well-known that museums have an authoritative voice that visitors interpret as an objective and truthful one. The only reason this is still a problem is that museums haven’t done anything to change this. I’ve considered this theoretically in more depth in my article about redefining the museum as a site of collective memory, which you can read here.

On a more pragmatic/application-focused level, there are a few things that museums could do to break down the barriers between institution-viewer and information-learning.

The most successful aspect of Radiolab’s show is not in their questions, but in their conversations. Wouldn’t it be great for museums to host lecture series that are actually a dialogue between a professional and a novice? These same conversations can happen live; visitors can witness and engage in real-time education. While the novice at the front of the room learns from the professional, we learn too. The novice can ask all of the stupid questions that institutions never encourage us to address.

I’m quite strong in my feelings about content and context and how this information is presented to the public. Any information in any museum should be able to be read and understood by a visitor who has no prior knowledge of the subject they are about to view. I’m also quite strong in my feeling that doing this isn’t enough. If education is truly a primary goal of museums, their exhibits and written materials should be able to offer something new to visitors on every rung of the education ladder. Information should be provided for the beginner, the amateur, and the expert. The great thing about this strategy is that a visitor may walk in as a beginner, but in their curiosity they can become an expert by gradually building their knowledge.

A huge challenge for museums is that their demographic is not so specific. Or specific at all, actually. While other companies with marketing programs can zero in on 18-24 year-old men who watch hockey on Monday nights, museums can’t take advantage of such a luxury. Their audiences can’t be tidily packaged according to age, gender, education or economic group. So how do you appeal to all of these people at the same time?

You don’t.

But you also can’t exclude anyone who comes into your space expecting to learn something. It’s well known in marketing that there are three major levels of literacy: critical literacy, literacy, and functional illiteracy. So how do you make sure your information is understood by people in all three groups? Provide the exact same information in different ways — paragraphs, lists, images — so that no matter who reads your document, your message is crystal clear. Museums need to understand this when preparing their written materials.

Let me switch gears for a minute.

I think eliminating the authoritative voice of the museum is as simple as being upfront about it with visitors. Really. Has no one thought of this before? Every exhibit should have an introduction that reminds visitors that the objects they are about to see were researched and arranged by professionals who, while experts in their field, were not necessarily present in the time that the objects were created and/or used. Therefore, their contemporary bias causes the exhibition to be REPRESENTATIONAL of a history and is not history itself.

Perhaps the authoritative voice of the museum could also be broken down by highly visible labels that ask questions or identify issues that visitors can ponder while they look through the space. I think this would change the institutional quality of the museum into a space that enjoys being questioned and challenged. The questions could range from fact-based questions to theoretical ones. Planting these questions with visitors would also encourage them to engage in their own curiosity and ask their own questions. And now that I think about it, museums should stop purporting that they provide clear, indisputable answers and start admitting that what’s really important is to keep asking questions. History does have a distinct location in the past, and we may know a lot about it. But historicization processes can change how we understand the past to have occurred.

The theoretical discourse surrounding museums contains ideas that can be communicated in simple terms. The more museums address these issues with the visitors, the more the institutions can engage directly with their audience and encourage further learning.

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