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4. Location, Location...

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Intro Chapter 4: Location, Location...

Intro Chapter 4: Location, Location...

To attract as many visitors as possible, a Museum should be located in a major tourist city. It should be easy to reach by public transport. It should be large enough for the Museum's needs. Most important of all: it should be affordable as well as sustainable in the long term. As you can read in this chapter, the locations of very few Deaf Museums meet these criteria. In some cases: with disastrous results. 

Mainstream Museums have been experimenting with other, more flexible solutions that may be relevant for Deaf Museums, too: a pop-up museum in a shop or a library, a Mobile Museum in a bus, and even a Museum in a Box.

Another option is a virtual Museum on the internet instead of a physical exhibition. 

In this chapter, you will find some more information about these options.

4.1. Location

4.1. Location

Location is probably the biggest challenge for Deaf Museum, and maybe for all Museums. Location is about a place on the map: do many people go here? Can people find it? Is it easy to reach by public transport? 

But it is also about the building, both the outside and the inside. The building: is it an important landmark? Is it easy to recognize as a Museum? And for the inside: How many rooms, how large or how small? Is there room for a cafeteria, a Museum shop? Are the building and all rooms accessible to people with mobility problems? And of course the finances: how much does it cost to rent or buy the rooms? What are all the additional costs: maintenance, heating, lighting, insurance? 

In this chapter, we'll describe some alternative solutions that mainstream Museums have found to solve the location problem. Alternatives that can be used instead of a 'brick and mortar' physical Museum or as an addition to a physical  Museum.
We'll also look at the locations of the Deaf Museums in our survey and their costs, size and sustainability. 

4.2. A Pop-up Museum

4.2. A Pop-up Museum

A Pop-Up museum is not really a Museum because it is not permanent, see the definition of Museum in Chapter 2. It is a temporary exhibition that is set up in an empty shop, restaurant,  church or some other unused building.

The objective is to attract new visitors: people who are just walking by and decide to have a look.

A pop-up Museum can also be set up at a conference or festival, maybe just for 1 or 2 days. See "How to make a Pop-Up Museum",  below.

ruskinmuseum

"The Ruskin Pop-Up Museum was based in an empty shop in the neighbourhood of Walkley, a stone’s throw away from St George’s Museum (1875-1890), the original home of the Ruskin Collection of the Guild of St George. The free pop-up museum was rooted in Ruskin’s belief in engaging people with arts, crafts, nature, heritage and each other for greater happiness and wellbeing."

Source:  How to create a pop-up museum

Further Reading:

4.3. A Mobile Museum

4.3. A Mobile Museum

If a Pop-Up Museum goes from one place to the other, it becomes a Mobile or Travelling Museum. The idea behind a Mobile Museum is that the Museum brings its exhibition to the people, instead of the people travelling to see the exhibition.

Some Mobile Museums are set up inside a bus or trailer, making it very mobile.

Structures Culture Moveable Museum 

  Further Reading:

4.4. A Museum in a Box

4.4. A Museum in a Box

A smaller alternative to a Mobile Museum is a Museum in a Box: a box with museum artefacts that can be used by schools, libraries and other organisations to set up a temporary exhibition.

The box can be any size, with any number of objects. A website can provide additional information, games and activities, making the Museum  in a Box a hybrid museum. 

Museuminabox

source: http://www.mottodistribution.com/shop/duchamp-museum-in-a-box-de-ou-par-marcel-duchamp.html

Further Reading:

4.5. A Hybrid Museum

4.5. A Hybrid Museum

A hybrid Museum is a Museum that is partly physical - a Museum in a permanent or temporary physical location - in combination with a virtual Museum on a website. 

The advantage: the physical Museum can be small, temporary and/or mobile. Additional information such as videos, photos, interactive activities, and games can be on a website. Visitors may see the virtual information on an interactive display, or on their own mobile phones. The Museum can use QR codes next to exhibits that send the visitor to the information on a website. 

Augmented Reality can be used as well: visitors wear a VR headset to see additional information that is streamed from a website. 

VR

The Roald Dahl Museum uses Augmented Reality to give sign language users access to information in sign language (starting at 1:42)

Further Reading:

4.6. A Virtual Museum

4.6. A Virtual Museum

Museums started out by adding online information and exhibits to their 'physical' exhibitions, then they made 'virtual' tours of their physical exhibitions. And now, some museums  exist on the internet only. There is no physical building at all. 

The main challenge for a virtual museum is how to design the online presence  in a way that is different from just another website or an online PowerPoint Presentation or YouTube video.

There are online platforms to create three dimensional spaces for a virtual museum or exhibition. Some museums use this to recreate their real physical presence in virtual space and offer virtual tours. Others create the museum or exhibition of their dreams - online only.

For some examples, see: https://blog.britishmuseum.org/how-to-explore-the-british-museum-from-home/ 

image 2022 05 12 162910672

But how can  you avoid that people get lost in a virtual Museum? How can you make sure that the online exhibition is accessible to all - even to people with limited computer skills? And to  people with disabilities?

Some visitors may actually prefer an online PowerPoint presentation - with its focus on the exhibits, instead of on the design of the virtual space. 

Further Reading:

backtotop

 

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Quotes:

  • "After all, we are all of us explorers, and we all have much to bring to each other from our own
    journeyings."
    Ladd, P. (2003). Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood.
  • "What has become clear is that museums don’t just function as custodians of the past anymore; instead, they have embraced their responsibility towards the communities of the present: a responsibility to represent them, to speak to them, and to be open to dialogue with them."
    Tim Deakin, August 2021
  • "The Finnish Museum of the Deaf) was founded by deaf people, and, thus, its task has been to strengthen their identity and historical communality.

    Most of our materials have a connection to the key experiences that generations of deaf people have shared. These are important in understanding the past and keeping the collective memory alive."
    In: TIINA NAUKKARINEN, Finnish Museum of the Deaf: Presenting the Life of Carl Oscar Malm (1826–1863)
  • "Until the fall semester of 1986, the history department at Gallaudet University had never before offered a course in the history of deaf people.
    In the 122 years, to that point, since the founding of the university, which was specifically intended for the education of deaf peoples, no one had ever taught a course about this very group of people.
    In all of those years the history department had offered courses on a wide range of topics but never deaf history. "
    ENNIS, WILLIAM T., et al. “A Conversation: Looking Back on 25 Years of A Place of Their Own.” Sign Language Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, 2016, pp. 26–41. 
  • "The Deaf community is international. What binds Deaf people, despite their different national sign languages, is their shared visual communication, history, cultural activities, and the need for a Deaf “space” where people come together."

    from: The Cultural Model of Deafness
  • "Museums can increase our sense of wellbeing, help us feel proud of where we have come from, and inspire, challenge and stimulate us."
    Source: https://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/museums-change-lives/
  • "Inclusion is moving from “we tolerate your presence” to “we WANT you here with us”.
    Jillian Enright in The Social Model of Disability, 2021
  • "Deaf mute, deaf and dumb, hearing impaired – the choices are many and not without consequences. Words have many meanings, they convey attitudes and prejudices and may hurt, even when used in a well-intended context."
    Hanna Mellemsether, in:  Re-presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum, 2013
  • "It was only during the past decade that recognition of the importance of preserving Deaf history has emerged. In the main, Deaf heritage, culture and folklore has been passed down from generation to generation via the medium of sign language and fingerspelling. (..) It is also vital that the history of Deaf people is made available to future generations, especially Deaf schoolchildren as part of their history lessons."
    A. Murray Holmes,  in: Cruel Legacy, an introduction of Deaf people in history, by A.F. Dimmock, 1993
  • “If you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are, and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong.”
    Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight
  • "For many members of the Deaf community their shared history is both personal and social. Deaf people will have gone to the same school, in many cases boarding schools where most of their younger lives will have been spent together, and then met again at their Deaf clubs, Deaf social events, reunions and other more personal events.
    One of the first things a Deaf person will often ask on meeting, before asking your name, is what school or Deaf club you go to. Making this connection is an important part of any greeting, as it will then help an individual to understand what shared history or people in common you may have."
    from: The Cultural Model of Deafness
  • "An important matter for any minority group is that written documents in public archives are often drawn up by the majority group and do not always reflect a minority as it sees itself. Thus, preserving sign language narration is of the utmost importance and a challenge to those working in the field of Deaf history."
    In: TIINA NAUKKARINEN, Finnish Museum of the Deaf: Presenting the Life of Carl Oscar Malm (1826–1863)
  • "As recently as the 1970s, deaf history did not exist. There were available sketches of various hearing men, primarily teachers, who were credited with bringing knowledge and enlightenment to generations of deaf children, but deaf adults were absent."

    In: Preface to: "Deaf History Unvailed, Interpretations from the New Scholarship". John Vickrey van Cleve, editor
    Publisher: Gallaudet University Press, 1993
  • "Nina Simon has described true inclusion in a museum context as occurring when museums value the diversity in their audience, value those individuals’ potential and contributions, when they actively link those diverse people across differences, and when the organisation reaches out with generosity and curiosity at the core.
    On a practical level this sort of museum practice would see widespread inclusion of people with disabilities in the planning of museum exhibitions, on museum boards and steering committees, and working in curatorial roles."
    In: Corinne Ball: Expressing Ourselves, 2020
  • "Deaf people have always had a sense of their history as it was being passed down in stories told by generations of students walking in the hallways of their residential schools and by others who congregated in their clubs, ran associations, attended religious services, and played in sporting events.
    With these activities, the deaf community exhibited hallmarks of agency — an effort to maintain their social, cultural, and political autonomy amid intense pressure to conform as hearing, speaking people."
    BRIAN H. GREENWALD AND JOSEPH J. MURRAY, in: Sign Language Studies, Volume 17, Number 1, Fall 2016
  • “Stories of disability are largely absent from museum displays. Where they appear, they often reflect deeply entrenched, negative attitudes towards physical and mental difference. Research reveals that museums don’t simply reflect attitudes; they are active in shaping conversations about difference.
    Projects created with disabled people show that museums hold enormous potential to shape more progressive, accurate and respectful ways of understanding human diversity. Why wouldn’t we take up this opportunity? ”
    Richard Sandell, co-director, Research Centre for Museums and Galleries, University of Leicester

  • the past can hurt

    From: Walt Disney, The Lion King

  • "The UN Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community”. This is based on the principle that citizens are not just consumers of cultural capital created by others; we have agency and the right to contribute through culture to the wider good of society."
    Source: A manifesto for museum learning and engagement
  • "Museums can increase our sense of wellbeing, help us feel proud of where we have come from, and inspire, challenge and stimulate us."
    Source: Museums Change Lives
  • "And yet, even within a large and, in many ways, traditional organization such as this (Trøndelag Folk Museum, Norway), the museum's encounter with Deaf culture contributed to profound changes and a process, still underway, which challenges our own understanding of what a museum is today, our role in society and our obligations towards more diverse audiences than those we had previously engaged or even recognized."
    Hanna Mellemsether, in:  Re-presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum, 2013
  • “One story makes you weak. But as soon as we have one-hundred stories, you will be strong.”
    Chris Cleave in "Little Bee", 2008
  • "Opening ourselves to the Deaf community, listening to and respecting them as co-creators and experts telling the stories they want told, makes our practice richer, and has ongoing positive effects for the community.
    These embryonic relationships hopefully encourage Deaf people to feel welcome in our space — it’s their space too.
    For both side, communities and museum professionals, while genuinely, openly and truly committing to working together can be time-consuming, it repays any investment many-fold."
    Corinne Ball: ‘Expressing ourselves’: creating a Deaf exhibition", 2020
  • "Access to and participation in culture is a basic human right. Everyone has a right to representation and agency in museums, and communities should have the power to decide how they engage."
    Source: A manifesto for museum learning and engagement
  • "Beyond works of art and objects, museums collect shared heritage, memories and living cultures as well as what we call intangible collectables."
    Source: We are Museums
  • "Histories have for too long emphasized the controversies over communication methods and the accomplishments of hearing people in the education of deaf students, with inadequate attention paid to those deaf individuals who created communication bridges and distinguished themselves as change agents in their respective field of endeavour."
    from: Harry G. Lang, Bonny Meath-Lang: Deaf Persons in the Arts and Sciences, 1995
  • "The most significant function of museums is as centres for cultural democracy, where children and adults learn through practical experience that we all have cultural rights. Having the opportunity to create, and to give to others, may be one of our greatest sources of fulfilment. Culture is everywhere and is created by everyone."
    Source: A manifesto for museum learning and engagement
  • "This (Deaf) Museum is not intended as a casual show, to be seen once and forgotten. Its pretensions are nobler; it has a humanitarian aim. By its solid and tangible evidences, making history memorable and attractive by illustration, it serves a double purpose: to dispel ignorance and prejudice regarding the deaf, and to raise the victims of this prejudice and ignorance to their true level in society."
    The British Deaf Monthly, Vol. VI (p.265) 1897. In: Deaf Museums and Archival Centres, 2006