Twelfth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

The museum visitors’ photography and the digital archive of the National Gallery in Oslo were the main elements of the project “Museum Clicks”, which was implemented in 2017. The project aimed at studying how visitors use their cameras in the museum and whether the content of the pictures they take is meaningful for their memory and identity. Photo-elicitation method, along with a narrative inquiry approach was used to investigate the visitors’ personal connections with the exhibits. These methods encouraged visitors’ meaning-making and, thus, contributed to extending the understanding of the museum experience. For example, the project demonstrates how an artwork in the Oslo National Gallery - Munch’s The Scream - becomes a touristic attraction and the primary reason for visiting the museum. Moreover, the project assesses how this painting constantly constitutes one of the choices of the visitor, or even the sole photographic choice. Later, a digital archive of the visitors’ photo-stories was created, enhanced with historical information from the online archive of the Gallery. It was an attempt for a participatory cultural archive created by the visitors and their museum experience.