Exhibitions are exhiVISIONS
There are various kinds of exhibits inside museums and cultural institutions.
Some of the first exhibitions were ethnographic, with life-like replicas like in the natural history museum or period rooms that attempted to conserve and recreate rooms as they existed in the past. As transportation and globalization took off in the early 1900s, there was an increased focus on streamlining exhibit design to favor travel and integrating radio, television, and other alternative experience formats.
Around the 1960s, portability took the back burner as social change took priority. There was a shift from the institution and an increased focus on participatory, hands-on experiences. The shift highlighted the power of community in exhibitions and its ability to trump controversy.
In the 80s and the 90s, there was a renewed reconsideration of the social implications of exhibitions and their diversity.
Although communication technologies took off in the 90s, there was an initial rejection of technological integration, but a united understanding that museums are experiences.
Now that portable communication technologies have been living with us for the past 30 years, we have a heightened understanding of who we are as humans and how we experience things mentally, physically, emotionally, sexually, spiritually, and unconsciously.
The place most exhibits take place in is in museums.
In America, museums are important to the state because they are platforms for demonstrating the nation’s ideal version of civic-mindedness. National museums are ceremonial monuments where citizens ritually perform political virtue and national identity. In that exhibition space, the work of art becomes a means to create political discussions. However, think of the MET or the Louvre; how do they (as national institutions) control the representation of a community and its truths? What influence do the decisions of what goes on or off the wall make them identity-defining machines?
“National museums are ceremonial monuments where citizens ritually perform political virtue and national identity.”
From the 90s to 2020, museums have been in a trance.
Suddenly, the internet and the film industry were competing creators and exhibitors of culture. Nowadays, people are not limited to libraries and museums as their sources for research. Documentaries and websites allow people to experience cultural data in a new format, which confused, overwhelmed, or intimidated some museums. Others, like the New Museum, have evolved and adapted themselves to flow with culture’s technological methods of the exhibition of data.
How should museums respond to cultural and political pressures while being diverse and not censoring the rough edges of history?
How can we create safe spaces of debate and understanding while wrestling with difficult knowledge? While also considering the use of controversy for the sake of fetishization or deeper understanding. Regardless of their policy on technology, museums of the post-covid era should be advocates of the community that provide memorable experiences by learning about the community and making exhibits for them.
