Tag: travel

Places to play in the art museum

In September I was fortunate to be invited to Columbus, Ohio by Dr Dana Kletchka, Associate Professor of Art Museum Education at Ohio State University. During my short visit I met with Dana, her wonderful students and colleagues from the Wexner Center for the Arts. I was also taken on a tour of the Columbus Museum of Art (CMOA) by Hannah Mason-Macklin, the Director of Interpretation and Engagement at the Museum. There is much I could talk about from this inspiring visit, but in this post I want to focus on the suite of spaces at CMOA designated as the JPMorgan Chase Center for Creativity, in the middle of which is ‘The Wonder Room‘.

On the CMOA website The Wonder Room is described as ‘as a place for intergenerational exploration, play, connection, and discovery. Art is displayed in unexpected ways, and custom, hands-on activities are featured prominently near great works of art to inspire creativity in this family-friendly space.’ In reality the space is brightly coloured, with objects to handle, climb on and creatively respond to. The invitation made explicit in the space is for visitors to experiment and connect with art and artists through play, and as the website says ‘to exercise their courageous imagination’.

In the spaces circulating around The Wonder Room are further interventions that connect with the art in the museum through hands-on making activities. And although I was visiting the museum on a day when it was closed, I could easily imagine how engaging these spaces would be for visitors of all ages. The questions posed on the walls were open-ended and stimulating and the materials given for visitors to create with were simple, yet adaptable enough to allow for thoughtful creative responses.

Visiting CMOA reminded me how vital it is for art museums to provide opportunities for play and not only for children. Play, as writer and museum educator Claire Bown talks about in her ‘Thinking Museum‘ podcast is when we immerse ourselves in something for enjoyment’s sake. It is when we allow our imagination to range freely and when exploration and enquiry can bring joy and pleasure. Play empowers us and improves our social and emotional skills, whatever our age and playing with others brings us closer, allowing for human connection.

Increasingly art museums are providing spaces where play is actively encouraged. These spaces are generally curated by members of a Learning or Education department and frequently involve collaborations with artists. The brilliant ‘Come Think with Us’ initiative at the Munch Museum in Oslo is an example of Learning colleagues and artists working to create an immersive environment for intergenerational engagement and play. The most recent iteration of this being ‘Sofie’s Room‘, a collaboration with artists Roza Moshtaghi and Ronak Moshtaghi. Likewise the Uniqlo Tate Play interventions in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern are collaborations that actively invite the playful participation of visitors of all ages. In the summer of 2024, for example, the artist Oscar Murillo worked with Learning and exhibition curators to create ‘The Flooded Garden‘, an installation where visitors were invited to work together to create a huge canvas inspired by the work of Claude Monet.

Creating these playful spaces in the museum achieves many positive outcomes for visitors and institutions. Primarily they act as a draw for families, but in my experience adult visitors can also relish opportunities to make things and have fun in the museum. These spaces also allow for a different mode of collaboration with artists, which requires expertise and sensitivity on the part of curators. It takes considerable skill to create genuinely engaging interventions that encourage productive structured play. Too many directions and playfulness is no longer possible; too little structure and visitors may not know how to connect, or not have the confidence to experiment. I know from talking with colleagues working on these programmes how much work goes into creating these generous and generative spaces. It is a serious business designing for play.

The importance of welcome and care

These days I am more likely to visit a museum or gallery for my own personal pleasure and curiosity, rather than in a professional capacity. I go to see an exhibition that interests me, to meet friends and to see works in collections that I especially like. Perhaps for this reason I have become acutely aware of the overall visitor experience I have when I visit. I am more conscious of the costs of entry, or of buying a drink in the café, for instance. I notice how easy or not it is for me to get around and what information is made available to help me with this.

In particular I have started to register the extent to which I am made to feel welcome, both when I arrive at a museum and during my visit. In my mind, the welcome we receive is a fundamental and revealing manifestation of the values of any institution. As with any act of hospitality, a warm welcome is grounded in generosity, consideration and trust in those that are being invited into the space. It takes care to make people feel welcome. And, as Maria Puig de la Bellacasa writes in her book ‘Matters of Care‘, care is ‘a concrete work of maintenance, with ethical and affective implications’. In other words, care requires some affective involvement – I care for, I worry – but must be accompanied by the necessary labour, ‘the sometimes tedious maintenance of a relation’ through ‘putting in the work’ as de la Bellacasa notes.

A welcoming institution genuinely wants all those who visit to occupy their spaces, to relax and enjoy themselves and feel at home there. They pay attention to what will support their visitors to be inspired, challenged and comforted, should they need or wish to be. These institutions put in the work to try and make that happen.

There are multiple ways that we are made to feel welcome or not in the museum. One of which that has caught my attention is through the messages the museum chooses to communicate when you arrive. Below are two entirely unscientific observations based on my experiences over the last twelve months.

When I visited the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts last Autumn. I was immediately struck by the message that greeted me by the entrance. It reads as follows:

Here is an explicit invitation for me and everyone else to come in and to join in. It locates the museum as a meeting place where we are encouraged to share our ideas and views. It communicates the museum’s appreciation that we have made the effort to visit. I, in turn, entered the museum feeling that, even though my knowledge of science and technology is minimal, I was welcome to be there.

A contrasting but equally significant message greeted me when I visited the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, UK in December 2023. It said:

Although not an explicit message of welcome, to me this sign also demonstrates care on the part of the institution. As has been highlighted particularly in recent years, museums are not neutral and their historic lack of transparency regarding their histories and exclusionary institutional cultures has contributed to many feeling profoundly unwelcome. As far back as 2001 the British museologist Eilean Hooper-Greenhill was arguing that museums need to acknowledge visibly the conflicts and contradictions implicit in the presentation and interpretation of culture. To become what she calls an inclusive ‘post-museum’ institutions need to recognise their responsibilities in addressing all aspects of their histories. This sign indicated to me a willingness on the part of the Fitzwilliam to attempt to do this.

I am, however, well-aware that it is relatively easy to install a sign and to state a desire on the part of the museum to invite everyone in and to be more open about their origins. I am also conscious that as a museum professional it will probably not take too much to make me feel at home in these spaces. Taking the necessary care and putting in the work so that those who might feel less confident in the gallery is what really counts.