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Heritage Speaks: Language and Accessibility in Swedish Museums
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Olga Zabalueva
Language is one of the key means for museum communication. It can help to narrate and contextualise tangible heritage as well as raise accessibility and inclusion. However, it is also a part of power relations both within museums and between museums and visitors. In Sweden, the museum sector has developed a scope of approaches in representing migration and minorities. However, the issue of language is often overlooked. Not many of the exhibitions that display cultural diversity provide texts or guided tours in the language of the ethnic groups they are representing. During 2016-2017, a pilot study for the new democracy and migration museum in Southern Sweden was run by the municipality of Malmö, the city where people of 179 nationalities live. The study resulted in the Museum of Movements project which is supposed to address the integration issues as well as contribute to different forms of public engagement. In 2018, a "trial museum" is planned to be established that aims to become a substantial institution in 2019. The paper analyses current practices of using multilingual environments in Swedish museums and internationally and focuses on developing the language strategy for the future museum to avoid exclusion in the museum space.
Exhibiting Jerusalem: Heritage Perspectives
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Katharina Galor, Sa'ed Atshan
The Tower of David, Jerusalem’s current history museum, is located in the disputed sector of occupied East Jerusalem, a reminder of the city’s recent geopolitical conflict and its implication for its contested religious and cultural heritage. This paper examines the curatorial choices, and how these are deployed to foster a narrative that communicates with the largely Israeli and Jewish visitors. Moreover, it compares this “permanent exhibit” to recent temporary shows: Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art between September 26, 2016 and January 8, 2017; Jerusalem Lives, the inaugural exhibition at the new Palestinian Museum in the West Bank which opened on August 27, 2017; and Welcome to Jerusalem, a two-year show to open on December 10, 2017 at the Jüdische Museum Berlin. At the focus of our paper are the different chronological, thematic, and other curatorial choices and how these address explicitly or implicitly the intricate layers of heritage politics in consideration of the anticipated and targeted visitor communities.
Motives for Visiting Cultural Institutions: A Pilot Study Conducted in Cultural Institutions in Warsaw
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Artur Kalinowski
Identifying the motivation of visitors in museums allows to separate groups with different needs. Thanks to this, it is possible to meet these needs more accurately what could broaden the audience. What is important is to look at the motivation of the audience from the angle of various possibilities, e.g. choosing other cultural institutions because museum doesn’t operate in a vacuum but on a specific market of services. Assuming this point of view, as a Copernicus Science Center, we piloted a study on the motivation of the visitors in Warsaw's cultural institutions. The largest museums in Warsaw such as the National Museum, the Zachęta gallery and the Museum of the History of Polish Jews took part in the pilot. Our aim was to grasp the universal structure of deeper psychological motivations to visit institutions of different profiles by a shared audience. The study was inspired by works on motivation of visitors conducted by authors such as M.G. Hood and above all, J. Falk. It contained significant modifications, firstly distinguishing a separate block of motivations of the caretakers taking into account the children with whom the museum is visited. The results turned out to be quite unobvious. The structure of motivation of adult visitors was not statistically confirmed as it was assumed but the structure of motivation for children was demonstrated. The structure was also slightly different than assumed in the theoretical model. This preliminary stage provided valuable conclusions which enabled continuation of the research process.
Making Museum Exhibits Inclusive: The Importance of Design for All
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Agnes Chevallier, Alexandra Verdeil
Being practitioners of design for all in numerous countries, we offer an overview of the accessible for all stations of some of the major European museums. We point out the role of design aimed not only at being pleasant but relevant to a majority, hence sharable. We present and discuss some best practices on how encompassing various needs in the conception phase, and working on ergonomics and aesthetics improves the overall museum experience - being accessible, memorable, and enriching, for all.
