The term relationship can denote a simple equation or function between two things, such as a bed being located in the middle of a room, or a barnacle attached to the flipper of a whale. A relationship can also be described at a deeper level than placement, containing an understanding of reciprocal actions. These actions can be functional - the barnacles aid the whales in securing food - or emotional - a parent loves a child, a child hates dark spaces, including the one under the guest bed where her coat is placed when visiting Nana's.
Whether one is reading the University of Rochester's core curriculum statement or Alfred North Whitehead's "The Aims of Education," you will learn that there are those of us who strongly advocate the idea that humans engage most fully - be it learning, working, or giving of themselves - if we fully engage - yes, love -that on which we are focused.
If learning happens best when you have the freedom to study what you love and if to learn something new you must first fall in love with the subject matter, how does an exhibit creator in a museum create a romance between visitor and object? Interpretive planner Alice Parma advocates creating "entry points that allow your visitors to connect, relate and fall in love."
Let's use Parma's six steps of exhibit planning to envision an entry point for the First Person Museum experience that will create functional relationships that elicit emotional responses to the objects in question.
STEP ONE Successful exhibit planning emerges when one uses the organization's mission statement - its reason for being - as a starting point to determine both the key messages you wish visitors to learn and the storyline that will be the teaching tool.
"Ordinary things can capture extraordinary stories."
The First Person Museum experience is built on seeing stories behind objects.
"Transforming the drama of real life into memoir and documentary art
to foster appreciation for our unique and shared experience.
Everyone has a story to tell.
Sharing our stories connects us with each other and the world."
First Person Arts Mission Statement
Visitors to the exhibit need to leave with a sense that objects tell stories
and that through sharing our most beloved objects,
we share our own story,
pieces of ourselves.
In a very real sense,
these objects are windows
into the individuals who share their stories.
The exhibit offers a chance
to go beyond looking in from the outside,
and allow us to step through the glass
into the story.
STEP TWO Galleries of thought allow "visitors to make sense of unfamiliar material." Key concepts during this step are perspective and organization. How will you organize what visitors see in order to pull them into the subject matter, engage them emotionally, and begin the journey towards internalizing your take home messages? Parma suggests several organizing concepts: category, chronology, analogy observation/deduction, comparison/contrast, theme, watchword. I am going to combine and spin the concepts of category and comparison/contrast slightly.
How can we pair items with each other in a way that simultaneously give us enough of a categorical grounding that we can establish a starting point of understanding while launching a line of what is similar/what is different questioning?
Grouping the objects allows us to play
with the concepts of community and interconnectivity
while challenging how people think about how things fit together.
Knowing the stories, and history, of each object
allows us to pull key, but not necessarily obvious facts to the surface.
For example, the stories for Kathy's Pendant and Jon's Fishing license both feature a car, and how the object was used in relation to the car.
Beth's Sock and Renee's Boxer shorts both represent a life halted or ended.
This type of grouping draws visitors into a specific
element of the story, and lends a tangible sense of inclusion.
STEP THREE What to display? From our starting point, the objects are chosen. If we step back to the process First Person Arts employed, we need to return to step one, and the importance of mission. The objects that were chosen were the ones with the staff felt had compelling stories with the best chance of drawing people into a connection. These are our objects:
STEP FOUR Motivate and engage. This step is about the curiosity and knowledge visitors bring with them to your exhibit and how you validate their questions and understanding. The form of the First Person Museum lends itself well to this step, as by design multiple viewpoints are provided. Where we need to be creative is how to invite interaction with the object and contribution by the visitor to the comprehensive experience that is the exhibit.
We need to bring the visitor into the space
that physically represents a piece of the story
invites the visitor to be an active participant.
Window frames.
On the way into the space allotted for each grouping of items,
you will pass by a close to life size window frame.
Depicted in the four panes of the frame
will be a collage highlighting elements of each story.
Colors and textures will be used on both the windows and in the images.
The objects themselves will be displayed in a way that continues to pull the visitor into the story.
A picture of the inside front of a car on the wall behind the display cases
for Jon's Fishing License and Kathy's Pendant.
And on the next wall, blowups of newspaper headlines
of the news related to Beth's Sock and Renee's Boxer Shorts.
When you step by the window, you are in essence stepping into the story,
which is then depicted on the wall and represented by the object.
On the way into the space allotted for each grouping of items,
you will pass by a close to life size window frame.
Depicted in the four panes of the frame
will be a collage highlighting elements of each story.
Colors and textures will be used on both the windows and in the images.
The objects themselves will be displayed in a way that continues to pull the visitor into the story.
A picture of the inside front of a car on the wall behind the display cases
for Jon's Fishing License and Kathy's Pendant.
And on the next wall, blowups of newspaper headlines
of the news related to Beth's Sock and Renee's Boxer Shorts.
When you step by the window, you are in essence stepping into the story,
which is then depicted on the wall and represented by the object.
STEP SIX Before producing and installing an exhibit, smart steps include: creating a blueprint and thinking through how you will assemble the pieces.
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| Grouping the Objects |
 |
| Sketching a Blueprint |
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| Thinking out loud |
 |
| Another option |
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| Getting the right window |
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| Thoughts for Assembly |
If the exhibit comes together as envisioned (and budget and time and resources allow), one has a physical and visual experience that brings the visitor directly into the story. Other elements planned by First Person Arts such as films and audio recording of the story can be build into the design presented. (Imagine turning on a car radio to hear Jon tell of fishing with his grandfather.) The collages and wall backdrops allow the historian to intersperse images and pictures that speak to the objects history beyond the story. To finish the goals, there can be a large window on the way out of the exhibit on which visitors can tape hand written notes of their own stories or pictures of their own objects.
