Narrative and Museums
I am currently working on an article about narrative structure in Museums.
This is a snippet:
'There is a sense, however, in which Museum exhibitions have led the way in breaking down the shackles of authorial dominance – whereby the visitor/reader has to follow the structure imposed by the author/curator. Originally, virtually all Museums were housed in buildings with rectangular rooms, normally with 4 doors in the centre of each wall, and with display cases and wall hangings scattered around each room. This structure made it hard for the curator to imposed a fixed route, and allowed the visitor the ability to override the given structure and create their own narrative experience. In addition, the visitor can skip, linger, jump and can construct their own learning experience. This may or may not be analogous to leafing through a coffee table book or picking particular articles in an encyclopaedia at random but it is a particular feature of the museum as a medium, which in effect means that most museum visits do not consist of a traditional narrative at all but are user orientated, participative and thoroughly post-modern. The curatorial authorial voice, which is the normal mode of transmission of the Museum message, can thus often be subverted by the physicality of the museum experience and, in this sense is most un-literary.
The Museum of London building opened in 1976,by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, was one of the first museums in Britain that was purpose built with the demands of museum narrative in mind. They designed the Museum with a single route way through the system – starting with the prehistoric gallery, which lead to the Roman Gallery, a dark passage led through the Dark Ages to the Medieval section. A Tudor gate led into the Tudor and Stuart period rooms, while a modern glass vaulted roof lead down to the modern period. The visitors were lead by the hand and by the architectural metaphor to enjoy the transition from the primitive rural pre-London prehistory to the joys of modern London. It was a model of clarity. Non-stop development has obscured the clarity now as introductory displays, and a temporary exhibition space has interposed the Great Fire of London between the prehistoric and the Roman periods ....'
Anyway, I am resolved to consider the narrative structure of all Museums I visit in the near future.
This is a snippet:
'There is a sense, however, in which Museum exhibitions have led the way in breaking down the shackles of authorial dominance – whereby the visitor/reader has to follow the structure imposed by the author/curator. Originally, virtually all Museums were housed in buildings with rectangular rooms, normally with 4 doors in the centre of each wall, and with display cases and wall hangings scattered around each room. This structure made it hard for the curator to imposed a fixed route, and allowed the visitor the ability to override the given structure and create their own narrative experience. In addition, the visitor can skip, linger, jump and can construct their own learning experience. This may or may not be analogous to leafing through a coffee table book or picking particular articles in an encyclopaedia at random but it is a particular feature of the museum as a medium, which in effect means that most museum visits do not consist of a traditional narrative at all but are user orientated, participative and thoroughly post-modern. The curatorial authorial voice, which is the normal mode of transmission of the Museum message, can thus often be subverted by the physicality of the museum experience and, in this sense is most un-literary.
The Museum of London building opened in 1976,by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, was one of the first museums in Britain that was purpose built with the demands of museum narrative in mind. They designed the Museum with a single route way through the system – starting with the prehistoric gallery, which lead to the Roman Gallery, a dark passage led through the Dark Ages to the Medieval section. A Tudor gate led into the Tudor and Stuart period rooms, while a modern glass vaulted roof lead down to the modern period. The visitors were lead by the hand and by the architectural metaphor to enjoy the transition from the primitive rural pre-London prehistory to the joys of modern London. It was a model of clarity. Non-stop development has obscured the clarity now as introductory displays, and a temporary exhibition space has interposed the Great Fire of London between the prehistoric and the Roman periods ....'
Anyway, I am resolved to consider the narrative structure of all Museums I visit in the near future.
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