Museums are tools for connection. When people experience exhibits, learning extends far beyond the museum itself. They have the ability to connect people of all generations despite different generations potentially interacting with exhibits in a variety of ways.
Rebecca Ferlotti, Content Marketer, sat down with Marnie Louis, Studio Director at St. Joseph Parish School and Concept Developer at RGI, to understand the considerations RGI takes to develop museum exhibits that offer something for everyone—no matter their age.
When it comes to all of a museum’s potential audiences, what are the similarities they have in interacting with museum exhibits?
The first thing that comes to my mind is the notion that no matter how old you are, we all have different learning strengths. When I was getting my teaching license, I went through child development courses, and the one development theorist we talked about a lot was Gardner. Gardner was responsible for the eight intelligences (modalities for learning). I think that’s come more and more to the forefront, which is great. Everyone is much more in touch with ways of tapping into those different intelligences.
Museum exhibits are a wonderful place to do that. They can cover visual learners, kinesthetic learners, oral learners, those who learn through nature, and others. There are so many ways exhibits can be designed. With many museums using interactive exhibits, they have the chance to hit on a lot of those different modalities. Whether you’re an adult or a child, that’s something important for museums to keep in mind, regardless of age.
I also think that no matter what age you are, everyone wants to hear a story and learn something new. You could be real little or you could be 99 and you still enjoy getting lost in a good story.
My Dad used to take me to museums a lot when I was little, and we didn’t always get along. But museums were one of those places we went to together where I could go into my own head, and he enjoyed it too. Museums can bridge a gap between people who may not have as much in common. They can foster conversations across generations.
I think sometimes museums are cost-prohibitive for folks, so it’s nice when we’re able to go as younger individuals to get that exposure right away. We’re also lucky in Northeast Ohio to have a lot of free museums, which a lot of people don’t get.
To be able to be exposed to a lot of different multisensory experiences is helpful for developing curiosity. What do you think are the differences that exist between different generations when interacting with exhibits?
When we’ve gone to museums as a family or taken groups of kids for a school trip, you see where the adults tend to be a little more comfortable standing and reading a narrative on a wall whereas children tend to want to do more listening or using other senses. That’s not to say adults don’t want to do that too. Nobody should feel like they’re just going to a museum to read words on a wall; that becomes extremely boring to anyone. Most museums have a nice balance. Generally speaking, though, we all have our reading limits. My kids probably aren’t going to want to take as much time to read. They want to be a little more immersed.
I also think that children learn through play. As adults, we like to play as well. But children need those play experiences to learn. An adult could go to a museum where there aren't many playful experiences and still get something out of it, but for a child, you need to have those experiences that allow for play, imagination, and autonomy. No one wants to be told what to do when you go to a museum—it’s your time to choose what you want to do. So maybe that part isn’t necessarily a difference. But it’s important that it’s a place where kids in particular feel they can make some choices in their learning so it doesn't feel like school.
I’m sure it’s super helpful to have that enrichment from museum education when you go to teach students though. They have that curiosity they’ve gotten from museums over the years. As far as younger folks go, if they’re going to a museum, you said they need to have some type of play element. Are there any other non-negotiable inclusions for kids?
For the youngest audiences, imaginative play is absolutely necessary. I always felt like large-scale exhibits are very impactful for children as well—anything where the scale is really distorted where they can feel like they’re immersed. For example, if they’re in a forest and the mushrooms and snails are huge in scale. Also, some children need to be able to move their body pretty regularly and like to climb things, and you need to give them safe places to do that.
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History has done some great exhibits with that. I was also impressed with the Cleveland Museum of Art—one of our great free museums—when they opened that children’s area. I haven’t been back in a few years and now my kids are getting older so they might not want to go, but they were seven and two when it opened and we were excited.
We go to the art museum all the time and whoever designed that did an incredible job of making art and art history so much fun for kids. They have walls of screens (at the ArtLens Studio) where you can go up and make a triangle with your finger. It takes that shape and locates a piece of art in the museum that matches the shape you drew and pulls it up for that person to view. That’s something anyone can play with for hours! Things like that are such a game-changer because young kids should go to art museums, but it’s hard when they’re tiny. So if you’re able to give them some outlet to touch things (within reason of course), it’s helpful.
That interactive wall sounds so cool! Since that was designed for children but also attracts adults, I’m wondering about the content as well. If a museum’s audience skews older, should they be writing to that audience when they create exhibits? Or should they stick with a standard reading level at all times?
I think most museums write to a 4th or 5th grade reading level, and it should be a standard across the board. Just because someone’s a certain age doesn’t mean they can necessarily understand something. The text shouldn't be too simple, but you want to make sure it’s comfortable and no one is struggling with what they want to learn. Language in a museum can be creative and fun without being too difficult. It shouldn’t cause people to struggle because of their developmental level.
That goes back to our accessibility talk too—speaking in a more easy-to-understand way. You don’t want this to feel like grade school or college. You don’t want people to think, “I don’t understand what all these words mean.” Using that standard makes the exhibit more accessible to everybody.
The last thing you want is for some to walk away feeling frustrated, like they aren’t “smart enough” to be there when that’s not the case. Museums want you to walk away feeling like you had fun and probably learned something (even if you didn’t realize it). It put you in a different place, helped you see things in a different way, gave you a vision into a different culture or time period. That’s what you want them to walk away with, not that they had to work hard to understand the point you were trying to make.
And that’s definitely a way to close generational gaps in content. We touched on this a bit, but are there other potential ways museums can close generational gaps within exhibits?
There are so many opportunities for that to happen. Make sure you’re hitting on all different ways of learning. That way, if someone isn’t going to be able to benefit from the content or maybe they visually can’t benefit fully from the exhibit or orally can’t benefit as much, there’s something for them. You can make sure the exhibit has a kinesthetic component or tap into some of the other senses. Then each person can come away with the feeling—regardless of their age, ability, and physical limitations—there was a place for them there and they want to come back.
That’s important for families to be able to do that together too. There are so many things families are divided on, but museums are a great place to experience together. It’s exciting for children, parents, and grandparents—to connect different generations together and discover certain things about each other.
Museums definitely have the ability to bring people together, and your point about families is especially true. But also, museums have the ability to bring strangers together. If your family and another family are there experiencing an exhibit, it’s an easy talking point. It’s not only cross-generational bonding within your family but interacting with different generations who are there enjoying the museum as well.
Definitely, and another key is to remember: You don’t know who your audience is going to be within museums. For the most part, museums want to be family-oriented—even more so now than in the past. Years ago, art museums might have been more for adults, but now, museums see they can have an impact on anyone. They need to be set up for that and remember to tap into what it feels like to be a kid. Museums aren’t just a place to learn but a place to escape and imagine being somewhere totally different. It’s an amazing place to do that, where you get to focus on other regions, environments, and time periods.
It’s always interesting to me when I ask students how many of them have been to local museums. There have been a few kids that haven’t gone to museums. That’s something to always keep in mind. We just assume kids have been exposed to museums, and many times they haven’t; they might go one time with a class or a family member and never go back again. So it’s important to remember we have to make those experiences special, playful, and memorable for them. At the root of it all, that’s what it’s about.