Nina Simon and Co-Creation

I like the idea of Co-Creation with the community and some of the points Nina Simon makes, but I still feel she puts too much emphasis on the community and visitors doing all of the work. I think co-creation is a great idea but to a certain extent. For example, the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. worked with members of all of the tribes featured in the museum to ensure that what they did was accurate and did the tribe justice. I think this is a great idea. Anytime a certain group of people or community or anything along those lines are represented the best way to get your point across is to have them involved. They of course know the content that anyone outside of the group ever could and therefore will make the exhibit that much greater. But even with their involvement in the exhibit I don't think they should have freedom to do whatever they please and there may be certain parts of the exhibit project they should not be involved in. The content and the information would be the most important part of their involvement, even the placement of some of the objects. But they should not have control of everything. There input is extremely important but they should not be in charge. I still feel she relies too strongly on visitors and members of the community. While people who are being exhibit or if their community is being exhibited they may have more motivation to work on such a project but otherwise something like this that is all volunteer, will not be on the top of peoples priority list.

Last Project Update

Well everything is all done! Im finishing up my last few notes for my presentation, but otherwise everything is all ready to go! I cant believe its over already!

Nina Simon and her reliance on the visitors

This weeks readings in Nina Simon's book reminded me a lot of the ideas she talked about before where it put a lot of responsibility on the visitors and caused the museum to rely greatly on the visitors. I like a lot of her ideas about collaborating with the visitors and getting them involved in the museum and the exhibit. If people are involved in whats going on and get to have an actual hands on experience they generally remember it better. I feel like she puts too much emphasis on fully relying on the visitors of the museum. As I have said before I personally don't feel comfortable giving visitors that much responsibility and that much freedom to do as they please. While some visitors may take the project seriously and give great input and make a great exhibit or project many others will not. There will also be a problem with visitors not wanting to work together to create a final project and so on. Plus there is still the risk of it not getting done. For museum professionals it is their job to create an exhibit or program and get it done on time. Visitors will only do this work in their free time and may not be able to spare enough time in the day in order to work on the project for something that is not their job and especially something they are not getting paid for. So while I agree with many of Nina Simon's ideas about involving the visitors I think it should be done on a smaller scale so the museum is not completely reliant on their involvement and if they don't get many visitors to participate the project still gets completed.

Project Update

Everything with my project is really starting to come together and it feels great! I just have to finish up both my storyboard and dossier and it will be good to go!

More of the Visitors experience...

I liked a lot of what Falk had to say this week but again I am skeptical about some of it. I like how he broke down the different types of visitors and explained a little about what each type of visitor expects upon arriving. I feel as though he really pushes the fact that labels need to be good. He mentions a couple times about the different groups reading the labels for different reasons. But he did not seem to mention the content of the exhibit a whole lot. So it makes me wonder. Is there anything that can be done specifically to the content of the exhibit to make it better accommodate the visitors experience. I also did not like how he made the fact that certain visitors will visit the gift shop such an important topic. I don't think whether or not a museum has a good gift shop or not will make or break whether or not a visitor had a good time. I did like what he had to say about breaking down the visitors experiences but I feel as though he focused on some areas that maybe didn't need as much attention and didn't focus on some that needed it. One of the parts that I question the most is the part that he talks about museums goals are to make visitors happy. I completely agree with this fact but I also think we need to think into it more. If someone comes to an exhibit with an interest in something but not much knowledge and they realize that they knew nothing about the topic wouldn't this make them feel bad about themselves for maybe not being as knowledgeable as another. Or if they think they do know a lot about the topic and learn that they in fact don't, you would think this would make a visitor almost disappointed in themselves. Also some exhibits consist of very difficult subjects matters such as the Holocaust or other horrible tragedies. This may extremely over whelm the visitor and upset them greatly. It doesn't matter what kind of labels or gift shop you have at this point the visitor is upset. While I know with subjects such as the Holocaust the museum itself cant do a whole lot in making sure the visitor stays happy, most people would think something was wrong if people were happy after seeing some of the horrible things involved. I just feel he could have touched more on the content and showed both sides I guess you could say to a visitors experience and ensuring their happiness.

Project Update

Well my project is starting to come along. I went to the store this weekend and picked up some things for my story board and also went to Sherwin Williams and got my paint squares. All that's left is putting that all together, finishing my floor plan along with my dossier!

A little skeptical....

While reading in Nina Simon's book today I found the chapter on Visitors as Contributors interesting but I am also a little skeptical of some of the ideas. First of all I think it is a great idea to allow visitors to contribute to both the exhibits and projects as well as contribute their ideas. We have read so many things this semester that say how much more visitors enjoy themselves when they are able to take an active role in something. A lot of times if you just walk through an exhibit it may be memorable to you but if you go through the exhibit and do an activity you will remember it a little more. And then if you go through an exhibit that you had a little part in and may have a piece of art or something in there, you will always remember it because it is something you had on display. Simon gives an example in her book of the museum that had people but memories such as smells or letters or anything they wanted into bottles to put on display. It was called Bottle It Up! I believe. She mentions the little boy who put multiple bottles in the display and went back every day to rearrange them and encourage the visitors to play with them. He will very likely have this memory for a long time. I also have a personal example of this. A friend of mine is a photographer and told me the other day that a few years ago the Akron Art Museum was doing an exhibit on a famous photographer and asked students and other photographers to take similar photos and they will display them as well. She had two photos in the exhibit. This is something she will remember for a very long time. So I feel that having visitors contribute to projects a great idea. The part that I am skeptical of is completely relying on visitors for the project. She calls this necessary contribution. I feel this is a risky move. People are not always very reliable and you run the risk of the project not getting done in time or at all. If you have plenty of willing people it is not as risky but I feel as though your asking a lot of people to be completely relying on them, especially if it is on their own time. Most of Simon's ideas I like and agree with, I'm just a little skeptical on some.