Eleventh International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

How does a museum find the meaning of natural history specimens in different levels and show them to audiences? These are the author’s questions on the exhibition “ Discovering Taiwan “ at the National Taiwan Museum (NTM). The National Taiwan Museum is the oldest museum in Taiwan. “Discovering Taiwan “ is the first permanent installment by NTM this century, which is very different from the previous permanent exhibition in terms of the theme and display techniques. This exhibition traces an age of discovery of Taiwan’s natural history, naturalists, and natural history; it also presents the explorers and their investigation to manifest how Taiwan’s natural world has been “discovered” by modern natural history. The study found that this exhibition was originally set up as a museum history exhibition, and the curatorial team expanded the topic linking with the natural discovery process in Taiwan in order to make the history of NTM more connected with the public. Under this concept, the curatorial team hopes to present the historical aspect of natural history specimens. Naturalistic specimens are used as historical artifacts. To achieve this goal, the curatorial team decided to take two measures. The first is to adjust the display content, adding descriptions of objects themselves. The second is to change the display method that used artistic exhibition design to help audiences to switch their focal point. “Discovering Taiwan “ shows audiences the richness of objects. NTM expects audiences to discovery the museum’s collections from different perspectives.