Putting a Window in The Wall

“Let’s Take Back Control”, “Make America Great Again” and make “Nederland Weer Van Ons” (“Make The Netherlands Ours Again”). In the early part of the twenty-first century, governments around the Western world are shoring up country borders, building walls and protecting the values of the “indigenous” people. It would seem that we’re now witnessing a withdrawal from cultural interconnectivity nurtured by the internet and are becoming more afraid of the rest of the world, retreating into nationalist ways of thinking.

Messages of hate can be shared from one side of the globe to the other on Facebook in an instant but can we share empathy and make our cultures understood just as easily?

Giving power to the people in the museum

The challenge of shaping the layout of an Exhibition Space

In the last couple of months, I have been working as an intern in an art gallery called Kunsthuizen situated in Amsterdam. My role in the gallery doesn’t involve interaction with visitors, but the desk where I work most of the day is situated on the first floor in an open space of a three storey building, which allows me to be a kind of ‘participant observer’. In fact, I can pick up various comments that visitors make about the artworks displayed but also on aspects of the gallery’s architectural layout in terms of space and the interior design. Since observing visitor behaviour is considered a useful tool in the museum field for understanding ‘facts and actions that are preconditions for learning and non-learning situations’ (Bollo and Dal Pozzolo 2005 in Tzortzu 2014: 329) and, complementary to other research techniques to provide a comprehensive picture of the visitors’ experience, it is very interesting for me to use this opportunity to reflect on the behaviour and the interaction of visitors with the museums and art galleries’ space.

Going beyond the performance.

“Empathy; The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” – OED.

 

There is no denying that empathy is slowly disappearing. Given the current political climate which has seen the rise of right-wing, self-proclaimed ‘anti-establishment’ parties in all corners of the western-world, empathy is the one emotion that many seem to be lacking, at a time when it is most needed. And indeed, it is this very sentiment which fuels museums and heritage

Visitor Meaning Making – Opinion, Perception, Perspective and Illusion?

The definition of an optical illusion is, ‘an experience of seeming to see something which does not exist or is other than it appears.’ [1] Optical illusions always fascinated me as a child (and they still do). Perhaps that’s why I am so interested in the mind-boggling fact that people can look at the same thing yet conceive of something completely different. But you can apply this simple statement to anything – that’s pretty much what having an opinion is all about, right? Let’s run with this idea anyway, an optical illusion shows us that two people can look at the same thing, have different perceptions, yet both can be right. Both can be honest and sincere and both can be right according to their perspective. Does this then mean that everything we interpret is intrinsically linked to our own preconceived opinions and perceptions? This question fascinates me, especially when we apply it to the museum space.

Oh. My. D.

It occurred to me when thinking of the Dutch Open Monuments Day (OMD) that it could serve as an interesting platform for a survey performed on the museum-going crowd.

What do Coachella and Museums Have in Common?

When the National Museum of the American Indian opened to the public in 2004, it was immediately subject to a passionate and controversial discussion on museums, representation and ownership of aboriginal culture. As part of the Smithsonian institution, the primary intention of the museum was to ‘redefine the relationship between the museum world and native nations.’ Over a decade since its establishment, the museum has become a testament to the trials and errors of representing a minority culture in one of the biggest museum establishments in the world. Even the name itself- “American Indian” immediately triggers the implication of ownership over indigenous cultures in the Americas; such details prompt the question of how such a museum possibly be an empowering institution for the cultures it seeks to represent?

Meet van Gogh

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is one of the most popular museums in the country. Despite a changing heritage market, the number of visitors to the Van Gogh Museum have only increased. In 2015 the museum welcomed 1.9 million visitors. All day every day, people are waiting in line to visit the museum and see the paintings of van Gogh. In a clever way, the museum defined its position in the current heritage market and anticipates on the changing role of the museum in society. Something that becomes more and more inevitable for museums who wish to keep their head above water in the contemporary ‘experience economy’, as was mentioned by both Bernadette Schrandt, researcher experience design for museums, and Annemarie de Wildt, curator of the Amsterdam Museum, in a guest lecture given to students of the master Heritage and Memory Studies at the University of Amsterdam.