5. Exhibits
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Intro Chapter 5: Exhibits
A book uses words and language to tell a story. Museums use exhibits to tell their story. Anything can be an exhibit: paintings and statues, but also rocks, machines, photos, videos, animals. Even people.
When you have decided what story you want your Museum to tell and what the location will be, you can start thinking about the content of your Museum: the exhibits. What exhibits do you need to tell your story? How many do you need to fill your spaces? How large can they be? And: how can you collect or produce the exhibits that you need?
Mainstream Museums collect exhibits in different ways. In the past: even by stealing.
Go to Chapter 5: Exhibits
5.1 Exhibits
Something automatically becomes an exhibit when it is displayed in a Museum or an exhibition. Or - as is often the case in large museums - when it is part of the collection that the museum has in storage.
Even a performance - a dance, a discussion, a poem - can be an exhibit.
There is a shoe museum; all the exhibits are shoes. Or photos or videos of shoes.
In the Museum of Ice Cream, the exhibits are different kinds of ice-cream and things that have to do with Ice Cream.
The Museum of Ice Cream, a pop-up museum in New York.
"Over the next decade, museums need their collections to be:
Empowering – using collections to bring communities together, promote health and wellbeing, explore issues of place and identity, and equip people with the facts and understanding that are relevant to contemporary issues.
Relevant – working with users and stakeholders to better understand how collections can be relevant to diverse audiences.
Dynamic – ensuring collections are well-managed, understood, rationalised and accessible to audiences in person and online."
From: EMPOWERING COLLECTIONS
5.2. Collecting and Selecting
In general, Museums collect new exhibits in different ways:
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- They receive them as gifts, for instance from other Museums, from collectors, or as legacies when people die;
- They buy the objects or performances that they want;
- They borrow exhibits - from other Museums, from collectors, from the community. In this case, Museums probably don't have to pay for the exhibits, but they do have to return them after an agreed period;
- They steal them - this sounds controversial, but it is what many Museums did in the past. A large part of the collection of some Museums consists of artefacts taken from foreign countries, from indigenous communities, or from persons or other Museums during times of war. Many Museums are now returning these stolen objects, see Ownership, below.
- They have someone produce the exhibits that they want This can be interactive displays, videos, instruments, but also live performances.
Selecting
Most Museums have large collections. They use what they have in their basement or storage rooms to make a new exhibition. The main task then is to select the materials that they want to display in an exhibition.
- Which materials support the story that we want to tell?
- Which materials best inform, touch, engage, entertain, instruct our audience(s)? And:
- Which materials fit our exhibition design (e.g. they have the right size, format, etc.).
"Museums need to listen to audiences, users and stakeholders to understand how collections can be relevant and what stories they can tell.
Objects and collections can be meaningful to a person, group, or community in ways that can be overlooked by curators working alone.
We need new and critical public reinterpretations of collections and to think imaginatively about how to broaden the range of people to whom collections can be meaningful."
from: Empowering Collections
Further Reading:
- We Are Museums: Reframe Collecting
5.3. Ownership
In the past, mainstream Museums often exhibited materials and objects from other countries or from minorities. They used these materials to tell a story from a 'mainstream' perspective.
This has changed. Museums are now returning objects to the countries and communities that are the rightful owners.
Instead of telling the story from perspective of the curator or some other expert, they now ask the original owners, makers, users of artefacts and objects to tell the story from their perspective.
Some Museums go a step further. They create exhibitions together with a community, so that this community becomes the co-owner of the exhibition. This is called a community centred or participatory approach. See chapter 6.4 for more information.
"Partnerships should bring communities together and be based on the principle of equity. Museums should work with a diverse range of partners and think beyond traditional partners and audiences."
Museum Association,
https://www.museumsassociation.org/campaigns/learning-and-engagement/partnerships/
Further Reading:
5.4. Stories and Oral History
Oral History
Many Museums now use stories, oral history, as an integral part of their collection.
Instead of just displaying an object, the Museum adds a video or text that tells the story of this object. Stories can even be the main exhibits: the stories become exhibits themselves. If the stories are about the past, they are often called 'oral history'.
"The objects themselves are only one aspect of a collection, the memories and stories an item can unlock for an individual or community is often the real value of the collection."
from: Working with Collections
There are different ways that Museums collect stories:
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- They interview a large number of people, then select the best stories to use.
- They organise a workshop and at the workshop, they ask people to tell their stories.
- They use social media and the internet to collect stories. For instance: they post a photo or video on Facebook or on their website and ask people to send them a short video or text about what they know and remember about this object, person or event. This is what the Foundling Museum did, see below.
The Foundling Museum
In 2008 the Foundling Museum in London received a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to run an oral history project: Foundling Voices. The project recorded interviews with 74 people who grew up in the care of the Hospital in the first half of the twentieth century. They also interviewed one teacher, children and partners of Foundling pupils and townspeople from Berkhamsted who could remember the school.
People that were interviewed contributed photographs, letters and other documents to be used in the exhibition. You can find the online exhibition here: http://foundlingvoices.foundlingmuseum.org.uk/index.html
Further Reading:
5.5. Copyrights and Data Protection
Museums cannot use photos, videos or other materials that they have collected, without the written permission of the person who created a photo or video. And: without the written permission of the person(s) who can be seen in a photo, video or other artwork.
Copyright Law
The copyright law protects the person who made a photo, video or other artwork. A Museum cannot use anything publicly, without the explicit, written permission of the creator of that item or whoever has the copyright of that item.
There are exceptions, for instance for materials that are in the 'public domain'. Anything that is in the public domain, can be used without permission.
Museums may also be able to use old materials: 70 years (but the number of years is different in some countries) after the maker of a photo or video dies, the material becomes part of the public domain and can be used without permission.
An ongoing debate is whether 'embedding' a photo or video in an online exhibition is a breach of copyright law. The European Court of Justice ruled that embedding (or: framing) content on other sites is generally not relevant under copyright law. It is comparable to a link and therefore: allowed.
This means that any public material (photos, videos) can be re-used on another website - if the original work has been published openly and is accessible to all internet users with the copyright holder’s permission (see: Europeana).
Orphan Works
Orphan works are creative works or performances that are subject to copyright - like a diary, photograph, film or piece of music - for which one or more of the copyright holders is unknown or cannot be found. In this case, a Museum may use the work as an exhibit, but it must be able to prove that the work is indeed an 'orphan work'. A work will qualify as an orphan work after a ‘diligent search’ has been carried out and it is established that the owner of the copyright cannot be identified, or if identified cannot be located.
The Orphan Work Directive is a directive of the European Parliament and European Council enacted on 25 October 2012 that pertains to certain uses of orphan works.
Personal Data Protection (GDPR)
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is an EU-wide regulation that controls how companies and other organisations handle personal data.
The GDPR protects the people that are IN a photo, video, or other artwork. If an individual in a photo or video can be recognized or identified, the photo or video is considered to be personal data. You are not allowed to use these materials publicly, without the explicit written permission of the persons who are visible in that photo, video or other artefact.
Further Reading:
5.6. Preserving, Storing and Archiving
Storing
Large Museums have large storage spaces or depots, full of exhibits that are not on display. On average, Museums show only 10% of their collection to the public. The other 90% are stored in a safe way.
"Proper storage for museum collections should provide easy access to the collections while protecting the art objects in a safe and secure manner. Important concerns for safe storage are: adequate security, proper environmental conditions, selection of appropriate storage fixtures, and proper packing and support of artefacts in storage.
Storage areas should be clean, well ventilated and properly illuminated. Temperature and humidity levels and air quality must be monitored regularly.
Appropriate fire protection should be installed.
Illumination should allow staff access to the collection without causing damage to the collection. While stored, items should be in the dark at all times.
Objects within storage areas are packed, supported and stored in ways that can be either beneficial or deleterious to their condition." From: https://www.collectioncare.org/storage-guidelines
Storage of paintings in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Storage of feathers in the Smithsonian Museum.
Preserving
Preservation is about the prevention and the repair of damage.
Before materials can be stored, they must be preserved. The preservation of artefacts is of course very important for Museums. Documents, photos and films can now be digitised. In the Museum and online, the digitised versions can be displayed to keep the originals safe.
With objects, this is more difficult. Some objects that a Museum receives may be damaged. They must be restored before they can be used or stored. Other objects must be protected from deterioration.
A major issue for many curators is whether visitors are allowed to touch exhibits. Paintings, documents: no touching! But what about visitors who damage exhibits by accident? Or on purpose?
Machinery, interactive displays? Visitors should be allowed to interact with them - but then there is the risk that the exhibits will be damaged. What if you have only one original artefact that cannot be replaced? Or an artefact is very expensive to replace?
Cataloguing and Archiving
To keep track of the exhibits in their collection - both the exhibits that are on display and those that are in storage - Museums use a Collections Management System (CMS) or some other database system.
DAMS is short for Digital Asset Management System. This is a Collection Management System that also stores digital files: digitised magazines, articles, photos, videos. The DAMS stores the files and makes them accessible so that they can be found at a later time.
Further Reading:
- Managing Collections
- The British Museum on Conservation
- SMALL MUSEUMS CATALOGUING MANUAL (free download), with
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Sample- Record.pdf document (pdf)
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Blank-template-record.docx document (docx)
- https://lucidea.com/blog/does-your-museum-need-a-dams/
