The Museum as Experience

Learning, Connection, and Shared Space

Susan Shifrin

• Publisher: Arc Humanities Press
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9781802701470
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: History of Art
• Index: Business

Museums have long been viewed as exclusive, excluding, and as antiseptic to intimacy. In the past few decades, however, humanized experiences—cultivated by curators, educators, artists, activists, and marketers alike—have emerged as the reason for being for these cornerstones of community. Such experiences are often possible only in museum settings, where cultural exploration, probing conversation, and safe risk-taking can occur in spaces now becoming sacred through inclusiveness.

This book brings together an interdisciplinary collection of essays examining the kinds of human experiences and interactions that have converted the once-sterile museum into a space of enlivenment and enrichment, as well as physical and emotional well-being. The essays focus for the first time on the uniquely human and humanizing experiences to be found in the collections, programs, exhibitions, and spaces of today's museums.

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
• EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
• Part One EXPERIENCING EDUCATION IN THE MUSEUM
• Chapter One EXPERIENCE TO ENCOUNTER: THE MUSEUM AS PERFORMATIVE SPACE
• Chapter Two TEACHING AND LEARNING IN A UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM: EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION AND COMMUNAL SPACES
• Chapter Three FINDING EMPATHY IN ART: HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS AND THE MUSEUM EXPERIENCE
• Part Two THE MUSEUM AS EXPERIENTIAL SPACE
• Chapter Four KNOW THYSELF: IDENTIFYING WITH THE MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY’S YOU! THE EXPERIENCE
• Chapter Five MUSEUM CONSTELLATIONS: HOW DEMENTIA-FRIENDLY PROGRAMS BUILD AND STRENGTHEN RELATIONSHIPS
• Chapter Six AWAKENING OUR SENSE OF TOUCH
• Part Three THE MUSEUM AS A SITE OF RE-EXPERIENCING
• Chapter Seven “A POWER IN THE PLACE”: DISRUPTING THE SILENCE AND MEMORIALIZING LEGACY
• Chapter Eight THE ICONIZATION OF A MONUMENT: THE MIQUA IN COLOGNE, BETWEEN INTERPRETATION AND IMAGINATION
• Chapter Nine A LABOUR OF LOVE: (RE)BIRTHING THE BABIES OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA’S DESTITUTE ASYLUM
• Part Four WITHIN (AND WITHOUT) MUSEUM WALLS
• Chapter Ten BOTH WAYS: GROWING ART AND COMMUNITY THROUGH TOUCH
• Chapter Eleven “THE ARC OF PROMISE”: AWAKENING THE HEART THROUGH ART
• Chapter Twelve CRAFTING COMMUNITY, CONNECTION, COMPASSION IN A PANDEMIC
• FURTHER READING
• INDEX