To charge or not to charge: the data

As far as I am aware of, decisions to charge or not to charge and how in Portuguese national museums are never based on research. Those who scrap admission fees do it in the name of “democratisation” and “accessibility” and state that the loss of income is not significant (never mentioning how much it is, though). Those who reinstate them usually speak of the need to generate some income.

Although previous research and summative evaluation is not part of our practice in Portugal, this is not the case in other countries. And even though we seem to lack our own specific data, we can always learn from the experience and shared knowledge of others.

Looking for sandy ground

"Free access to museums for under 30s", one reads in portuguese newspapers. The measure was approved in parliament yesterday. 

"Can anyone explain to me the logic of under 30s?", asks a Brazilian colleague.

"Is it to stimulate young families, like couples with small children?", replies another colleague. "Is it because it was found that unemployment is higher among the under 30s?"

Is it worth looking for the logic? Was there a logic? Was the measure based on any management report? Was it based on some audience survey? Were the professionals of the sector consulted? Are there concrete objectives that can be evaluated in one or two years’ time?

Managing museums: a portuguese case

"Panels of St. Vincent" at NMAA (image taken from the National Museum of Ancient Art Facebook page)

The claim of a new legal status, of a special status, by the National Museum of Ancient Art (NMAA) in Lisbon has resulted in a very healthy debate among museum professionals in Portugal, especially (and unfortunately) after the announcement of the Minister of Culture that this status will actually be given to the museum. Independent of our criticism, positive or negative, of this case and this process, there is no doubt that we owe this very necessary debate to the NMAA, its director, António Filipe Pimentel, and to the entire museum staff*.

What we know and what we don't do about it

In the last few weeks, I had the chance to talk to a couple of colleagues regarding some accessibility issues in their exhibitions. Things like poorly illuminated labels, bad contrast between letters and background, labels placed too low, objects exhibited at a high level and without inclination, long and complicated texts. I believe that these are issues that can easily be solved, without any further investment in money, just with some forward planning and the concern not to exclude. Actually, when exhibitions are designed to be inclusive, not only do they not cost more, but they can actually bring more money in, as more people will be able to access them.

I felt a bit puzzled when the people I approached told me that they knew all about those problems. Why did things happen that way, then? Is it possible that we are consciouly creating barriers to our exhibitions’ content? What do we do them for, then, if not for people to enjoy them?

I feel the same kind of puzzlement in conferences or training courses, when we discuss issues of management, communications, marketing, visitor services, education, etc. Quite often, some colleagues approach me and say: “We’ve been telling our superiors what you’ve just said to for years and years.”

Thus, it seems that there’s no lack museum professionals (including museum guards) who are aware of a number of small and big management or communications problems.  We have also got feedack from visitors themselves, through visitor books, comment cards, visitor studies, etc. Finally, there is also the contribution of academics, thinkers, bloggers, such as Maria Isabel Roque - who recently reminded us of some of the things that are still to happen, in her insightful post Acerca do que (ainda) falta ao património - or Luís Raposo - one of the few museum professionals in Portugal who regularly share their views publicly, his latest opinion article concerning the opening of the new Coaches Museum and future plans for museums in Lisbon’s Belem area.

So, we can’t complain that we haven’t already got truly valuable feedback – both from insiders and outsiders - which can help build strategies, correct mistakes, make decisions, register trends, understand changes and developments. Why don´t decision makers and those directly responsible for museum management act on it? What´s stopping us, what kind of barriers are we dealing with? Why are we going after more studies, new studies, if we haven’t done anything yet about the things we already know? Why existing knowledge seems to have no impact whatsoever on museum management and practices?

Here’s my attempt to identify some reasons:

It might be because, despite politically correct statements that museums are at the service of society, they are rather at the service of those who manage them. People – those who come and those who don’t come – and their interests and needs are actually not our principal concern. Objects are and it’s enough that they look beautiful for those who know how to appreciate them.

It might be because in this field we work with very short-term plans, which follow the electoral circles and which may easily be abandoned, with no further explanation or responsibilities taken. Thus, big and small issues remain and their discussion is perpetuated without brining any concrete developments.

Finally, it might be because we tend to settle for what’s “good enough”. We know what the problems are, but there comes a moment when we cannot insist anymore: either because we can’t get our arguments across or because we feel that we cannot expect or demand more from other people. Only that “good enough” is not good enough and the argument of “one step at a time” doesn’t always take us as far as we should go. In fact, it often keeps us just where we are.

More on this blog

Why things aren’t happening?

What or who is the barrier?

Barcelona: one conference,two museums putting it to the test

Self-barometer

All photos taken from the Facebook page of Accion Poetica.

The Eurobarometer carried out a new survey on Cultural Access and Participation (full study and executive summary). The previous one had been in 2007, before the crisis hit Europe, so this recent study may give us an insight into the possible effects of the crisis on peoples habits and practices.

Speaking in very-very general terms, and in what concerns Portugal, the study shows that Portuguese participation is under the European average in all activities considered in the survey, both in terms of attendance and in terms of involvement in artistic activities. The biggest differences refer to reading a book (EU: 68%; PT: 40%), visiting a historical monument or site (EU: 52%; PT: 27%) and going to the cinema (EU: 52%; PT: 29%).

The main barrier to access referred by Europeans is lack of interest or lack of time. For the Portuguese, lack of interest was the main reason for not participating, marking a higher percentage than the european average in all activities considered in the survey. The activities that least interest the Portuguese in comparison to the rest of the Europeans are reading a book (PT: 49%; EU: 25%), visiting a museum or gallery (PT: 51%; EU: 35%) and visiting a historical monument or site (PT: 44%; EU: 28%).

The reason I want to write today about the study of the eurobarometer is not to analyze graphics and results. It is to question how we are going to interpret them and what we are going to do about them, being professionals in the cultural sector. 

The results were primarily met on Facebook and the blogosphere with pessimism or a certain fatalism; with statements such as “We are a country of uncultured” or “The Portuguese don’t want to know about it, they are not interested, they think it´s not worth it” - with some kind of implicit accusation, I thought, of the kind “Is it worth doing anything for those ignorant and ungrateful people?”.

I confess that I was full of questions, some of them permanent ones, frequently discussed in this blog, regardless of the existence of formal studies. Trying to summarize them here, I would like to consider two main issues:

Question 1: How large was the definition of “cultural participation” in the study? Did it only consider attendance and involvement in what we may call “formal cultural institutions”?

Having access to the full report and questionnaire, I was happy to see that the definition was not a narrow one (it did consider participation through the internet, activities like dancing or doing photography or handicrafts), I am just not sure if, the way the question was asked, it also helped those surveyed consider their activities in such a broad sense (how many people, for instance, would have thought that dancing at a wedding or club is a form of cultural participation?). The “Public Participation in the Arts” surveys of the American National Endowement for the Arts, carried out every four years, do give is this kind of details regarding the “what exactly; where exactly; how exactly” – all reports are available online, but check, for instance, the last full report, referring to 2008 (some highlights here), or the highlights of the 2012 survey, the full report expected to become available  2014.

Regarding especifically participation on the internet, one should highlight that the Portuguese mark above the European average in what concerns playing computer games (+11%), putting their own cultural content online (+3%), listening to radio or music / dowloading music / reading or looking at cultural blogs (all +1%). 

Question 2: Are people little interested in culture in general or in the kind of culture “formal cultural institutions” offer them? Do we programme bearing in mind people’s interests, concerns, existing knowledge, questions, needs, practical and psychological barriers that might be keeping them away? Are we ever going to question the way we are doing things and the sincerity of our statement “We are here for the people”?

Some personal facts: some times I look at the agenda of exhibitions in museums and, judging from the titles, nothing sounds exciting or interesting enough for me to go all the way and visit them; a number of concerts and interpreters, of all musical genres, are promoted as “the best in the world”, but this is simply not enough for me to make the decision to buy the ticket, as the world is so full of “best” artists; in what concerns lesser known artists, the big majority of the institutions presenting them behave as if we should already know about them, adding absolutely nothing to the title and/or name.

So this may be my problem as culture consumer. But it might also be a problem for cultural institutions that wish to communicate with me (at least, they say they do):  a problem of choosing interesting and inspiring titles; a problem of choosing subjects (meaning stories) that might appeal to a more diverse, less specialized, audience; a problem in trying to attract more using basic information that is only understood by few; and also a need (I would even say obligation) to understand what people choose to do in their free time and why. Because, when I, as a person /consumer, don´t go to your exhibition / concert / theatre play / festival, it’s not “simply” because I am uncultured, uninterested, ignorant or ungrateful (and frankly, I don’t appreciate hearing you say this about me...). It might be because someone else was more sincere in wishing to communicate with me and engage me and did a better job in getting my attention, interest and precious time.

-------------------------------

In 1996 Mexicans would, in average, read one book a year. Writer Armando Alanis Pulido, concerned with the decline of literature and poetry and with the widely held idea that poetry is opaque, difficult to read and understand, turned to city walls in an effort to make it part of people´s everyday life. He initiated a movement called Accion Poetica (Poetic Action). Since then, it has spread in about 20 Latin American countries and even crossed the Atlantic. The other day the newspaper Le Monde had this title: The walls in Latin America speak of love. Only one, unique, signature: Accion Poetica.

Still on this blog

The Louvre, my son and I

Opera and the City

Don’t shush me!

The industry of the vast minorities

On public value

We are for people. Or... are we?

Ministry of Culture: Which culture? Whose culture?

What can make the difference?

Crise oblige?(ii) Programming challenges

To be or not to be (free on Sundays)? That’s not the question

The difference between ‘more’ and ‘diverse’

Changes: are we paying enough attention?

Crise oblige? (ii) Programming challenges

"Community relevance is the first and foremost element of sustainability.”

WolfBrown In Is sustainability sustainable?

I was asking myself a few months ago if we were paying enough attention to the changes that are taking place in the socio-cultural environment in which we are acting. I had just finished reading two texts that showed me new ways and helped me structure my ideas regarding the relationship between cultural institutions and their audiences: Culture and Class by John Holden and The Excellence Barrier by Diane Ragsdale. There were both defending the urgency, importance and need to look outwards; to try and understand the habits, tastes and expectations of the communities we are here to serve; to try and relate to them, making our offer more relevant to their lives, creating demand together with them. Engaging them.

A photo from the exhibition In Your Face (Art Gallery of Ontario, 2007), an exhibition of portraits collected from the general public to celebrate the inividuality and diversity of Canada.

I have now read a third text, a report on a research that was undertaken in the USA, UK and Australia, called Getting in on the Act: How arts groups are creating opportunities for active participation. It presents the various ways in which we can get the audience involved (from the spectator who´s simply a receiver to the member of the audience who gets involved as an artist) and brings to us a number of case studies from various institutions and initiatives. It also presents some conclusions which stengthen some of my ideas and confirm some intuitions regarding the way forward for us here as well:

- It is believed that, now more than ever, the arts organizations that will thrive in our current environment will be the ones who create new and meaningful opportunities for people to engage (p.2);

- Culture is not ‘being shaped’ by someone or something else. We all are shaping our culture. We all are creating what is meaningful, vibrant and real – the amateurs and the experts, the institutional and the individual, the privileged and the disenfranchised, the mainstream and the alternative (p.4);

- Technology has fundamentally changed the way people interact, learn and think about culture. What is different now is the unprecedented ability of the average oerson to access, make and share art and ideas on a global scale (p.6);

- It is important to recognize that the young people entering today´s cultural scene are not aesthetically bankrupt. More often, their creative interests lie elsewhere – beyond attendance (p.11);

- It is becoming more difficult to satisfy everyone with one experience. Audience development, therefore, is not just a marketing problem. Primarily, it is a programming issue. Attracting the new generation of audiences and visitors will require a transformation in programming, not just better marketing (p.11).

In my previous post I raised some questions regarding the impact the currebt crisis might have on the way cultural institutions are being programmed. Even in periods where there is no crisis, any institution, any business, any sector knows that there are factors that affect their activity and force them to re-evaluate and adapt. These are external factors – social, political, economic, technological – which are beyond our control, but which we cannot ignore, since they present us with opportunities and threats. These are realities we must always be aware of. Thus, I would say that the crisis ‘simply’ makes it urgent for us to wake up, to react, to not continue doing everything the way we´ve always done it.

I don´t think the crisis will make people less willing to partiicpate and get involved in cultural activities. On the contrary, demand might even grow. There is no doubt that people are being much more careful in the way they invest the, little, money they have. But they continue to invest on what they consider essential, unmissable, relevant, entertaining, inspiring. There is no doubt that, due to the crisis, audience numbers have recently decreased, but there are still shows that sell out or sell a significant proportion of their seat capacity. And it is also at this time of crisis that people form a long queue to visit the dinosaur exhibition currently showing in Lisbon, despite the high ticket price (and bad quality of the exhibition).

The question here is: do we know what is essential, unmissable, relevant, entertaining, inspiring for the people we aim to serve in order to, through our programming, keep the relationship with them alive? Maybe not... I believe the majority of us belong to the group John Holden calls “the new mandarins”: we fight for access to culture, but to that culture which we consider valid; we fight for the ‘democratization of culture’ but haven´t realized that this concept has developed into another, that of ‘cultural democracy’. Can the crisis force us to become aware of what has been happening, for quite some time now, around us; to abandon our role of ‘guardians’ and also consider what our audiences crave to experience, discuss, debate, create, share? Can the crisis make us share the responsibilty of programming? Would we be compromising its quality?

The idea of sharing this responsibility is not completely new for cultural institutions. All over the world, there are museums that choose the subjects of new exhibitions and create contents for them with the help of members of the communities they are serving - their opinions, knowledge, memories and objects; when I visited Tate Britain a few years ago, next to the labels written by curators I found those written by visitors – equally interesting and, in some cases, more understandable and touching; and, to give one more example, Concord Museum in the USA is celebrating its 125th anniversary with a temporray exhibition – with the suggestive title Crowdsourcing a Collection -, where members of the public were asked to choose and talk about objects from the museum collection that have a special meaning to them. Also in the field of the performing arts we can find this kind of experiences. For example, in 2009, the Theatre Royal Statford East (known as 'the theatre of the people') started consulting the audience for the preparation of the programme of the first semester of 2012 (read here).

Nevertheless, and although these initiatives demonstrate great willingness on behalf of cultural institutions for a more active involvement of the public, these are still decided and ‘guided’ by them. It´s not exactly sharing the responsibility of programming. The change that is occurring at this moment demonstrates a willingness to co-curate. Just as the public is willing to finance cultural projects (crowdfunding initiatives are multiplying all over the world), there are lots of knowledgeable and interested people willing to contribute for selection or creation of a cultural product. It´s the so-called crowdsourcing. Ian David Moss and Daniel Reid, authors of one of the most inspiring texts I have recently read, Audiences at the Gate: Reinventing Arts Philanthropy Through Guided Crowdsourcing, explore this idea and suggest a wikipedia-like system in order to discover and finance new artistic projects. In this context, I found extremely relevant for the future of theatres a piece of news I read a few days ago about the Slowbizz network, which aims to connect talented musicians and music fans for small, in-house concerts (read here).

Join the Slowbizz.com artists community from slowbizz on Vimeo.

Does this path towards shared responsibility for programming make sense for our cultural institutions? Probably more than ever, especially in what concerns public institutions. Because the changes in the way arts and culture are being created, distributed and consummed (and the place where this occurs) are a reality; because the volume of production is so big that we would not be able to know and follow everything, in order to remain updated and relevant; because there are, indeed, people, non-professionals, but with an excellent knowledge and experiences, willing to share them. And because, at a moment where people are forced to make choices, the cultural institutions that will win the race are those that will better engage their audiences in their activity and remain relevant for them. We don´t know everything, but I am sure we know enough to be able to manage with honesty, intelligence, creativity and quality (and also with humility) the sharing of such a responsibility, as the programming of a cultural institution, with those we are here to serve.

More readings

Roy Strong, Return of the culture vulture

Tom Jacobs, Are the arts irrelevant to the next generation?

Jane Howard, We don´t need your traditonal legitimate taste or how the youth are redefining culture

Libby Maynard, Expanding community participation

James Page, Is Leonardo worth the wait? Ask the audience, not the experts

And more

Gripsrud, J., Hovden, J.F., Moe, Hallvard, Changing relations: Class, education and cultural capital (report on Norway)

Shirky,C., Cognitive surplus: How technology makes consumers into collaborators

Is it possible to measure the impact?

Pororoca, by Brazilian choreographer Lia Rodrigues,
presented at Culturgest in April 2010. (Photo: Sammi Landween)

When we speak about the intrinsic value of culture in general, and the arts in particular, we believe there is no way to evaluate it. We defend it by intuition, from our own experience, using empirical evidence, but it doesn´t seem possible to us to research it scientifically. This is a subject of particular interest to me, so I was very curious when I came across a reference to a study entitled Assessing the intrinsic impacts of a live performance. What I found on the Interner was this summary of the results of the study, which I started reading with great interest.

The study was carried out by WolfBrown, an american company dedicated to the study of the arts and culture. Alan Brown, in particular, has carried out various studies related to the intrinsic impact and community involvement. Together with the co-author of the study, Jennifer Novak, Brown explains that through their research they tried to define and measure how audiences are transformed by a live performance. More specifically, they based their research on three hypotheses: 1) that the intrinsic impacts from attending a live performance can be measured; 2) that different types of performance create different sets of impacts; and 3) that an audience member´s ‘readiness to receive’ the art affects the impacts received. Between January and May 2006, they surveyed audiences of a total of 19 performances of various genres of music, dance and theatre. They used two questionnaires, one before the performance, that would evaluate the respondents´s mental and emotional preparedness for it, and another one after the performance, filled in at home, that aimed to investigate a range of reactions to that specific performance.

Through the first questionnaire, the researchers aimed to measure: the context index (how much experience and knowledge the individual had about the performance and the performers); the relevance index (an inidividual´s comfort level with the performance experience, that is the extent to which one was in a familiar situation, socially and culturally); the anticipation index (the individual´s psychological state immediately prior to the performance, his/her expectations). Through the second questionnaire, Brown and Novak tried to identify and measure the impacts of the performances on respondents. The indices defined were: captivation, intellectual stimulation, emotional resonance, spiritual value, aesthetic growth and social bonding.

All this sounded fascinating. But I couldn´t imagine what kind of questions they had asked in order to evaluate and reach some conclusions regarding these factors. So I wrote to Alan Brown and he was kind enough to quickly send me the complete report, including the questionnaires and tables of results.

Neva, by chilean company Teatro en el Blanco, presented at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in June 2010, part of  the programme Next Future.
(Photo: Taina Azeredo)

The first part of the study tried to identify the openness / preparedness of people for living the performance experience. Questions in this questionnaire, that aims to explore the above mentioned three indices, seem to be quite obvious and direct: previous knowledge of the work of the performers and familiarity with the specific art genre; frequency of attending performances of this or other kinds; information sources regarding the performance; details about organizing going to the performance; group constitution; main reasons for attending; state of mind, enthusiasm and expectations that one would enjoy the performance. Very briefly, the results of this first part of the survey indicate that respondents with a higher context index were more likely to benefit from the performance; the majority buys tickets for performances within their cultural comfort zone; expectations for a pleasant experience are the best indicator that the performance will result in satisfaction.

In what concerns the second part of the survey, questions regarding each index of impact were the following:

Captivation: to what degree were they absorbed, lost track of time and forgot about everything else?

Intellectual stimulation: did they feel provoked, challenged, intellectually involved, did they reflect on their own opinions and ideias, were there things they would like to ask the performers about, did they discuss the meaning of the performance with others who attended?

Emotional resonance: was the emotional response strong, which were most intense emotions, did they relate to the performers, was the performance therapeutic for them?

Spiritual value: did they feel inspired, empowered, was it a transcendent experience?

Aesthetic growth: were they exposed to a style or type of art with which they were not familiar, did they change their minds about it, did they feel more equipped to appreciate it in the future?

Social bonding: did they feel a sense of conectedness with the rest of the audience, a feeling of belonging, did the performance serve to celebrate their cultural heritage, were they exposed to a new culture, were they left with a new insight regarding human relations and social issues?

Once again very briefly, and highlighting only some of the results that were of particular interest to me, the study showed that the captivation index is related to high levels of satisfaction and influences other impacts; the majority of those surveyed would have questions to ask the performers and discussed the meaning of the performance with other people; there is a strong connection between the emotional index and the memory of the experience; feeling inspired is not necessarily an impact sought after by audiences; the majority felt better prepared to appreciate the specific type of art to which it was exposed; social bonding occurs when people are exposed to new cultures and also when they attend performances related to their cultura heritage.

In the summary of results mentioned above you may find many more details about this study and also about people´s levels of satisfaction. This survey does not aim to evaluate the quality of the performances, although some impacts may be related to it. I have some doubts whether respondents understood the meaning of some questions in the second questionnaire, especially it being self-completion one, that is, people filled it in at home without being able to ask any questions should they have any doubts. Nevertheless, I can say that reading this report satisfied my curiosity. It seems that yes, it is possible to measure and reach conclusions regarding the impacts of a live performance. My curiosity now extends to those impacts that persist, months or years later; to what remains; to how and why it remains. Registers in our memory and in our soul that don´t fade away.

Sonia, by The New Riga Theatre, presented at Maria Matos Theatre in June 2009, part of the programme Days of the (un) probable stories. (Photo: Ginta Maldera)

Talking about 'new' audiences...

Very frequently, we hear those responsible for cultural institutions talking about ‘new audiences’, their ‘creation’ (in the english-speaking world it´s called ‘development’), about ‘doors open to all’. I´ve been thinking about what this means in practice. ‘New’ meaning young or ‘new’ because they might be coming for the first time? They are ‘created’ because they didn´t exist before? We open the doors and wait for them to come?

I feel that in many cases ‘new’ mainly means ‘more’. More of the same. An effort to bring more people to our exhibitions, shows and activities, people whose socio-demographic profile, though, is not far from the usual. Because if we wanted it to be different, our work would have to be something more than simply reinforcing the promotion and publicity of our offer; it would have to be a joint effort on various fronts.

Cultural participation, let´s call it like this, takes various forms and develops at different levels of involvement:

1st level through the media, such as TV, radio, DVDs, CDs, the Internet.

2nd level attending live events, such as theatre or opera plays, concerts, visiting exhibitions and participating in activities that complement these activities, such as conferences, debates, educational programmes, etc.

3rd level through greater personal involvement in what concerns cultural /artistic practice, as it happens with amateur artists, volunteers in cultural institutions, board members, etc.

Having said that, we may conclude that the big majority of people do participate, one way or another, in cultural experiences. So, they are not exactly non-audiences. At the same time, the big majority prefers to - or is obliged to -participate from a distance. One of the challenges for culture professionals it to manage to convince more and more people to consider ‘changing levels’ and to have the chance to do so, should they wish to. ‘Changing levels’ not because one form of participation is more valid than the other, but because the experience, when crossing from level 1 to 2 or 3, may be more profound, enriching, liberating. And also because it can bring about a different and better understanding between the professionals and the public.

We do not lack today studies and reports on cultural participation, on the motivations and expectations of people when choosing one form of participation or another. Or none. (The links to some of my most recent readings are listed at the end of this post). Respecting everybody´s choices of participation, but wishing to promote and facilitate ‘the changing of levels’, I thought about what ‘new audiences’ can actually mean, after all, and how it can affect our work.

Enlarging existing audiences is one part of our work. ‘New’ in this case would mean ‘more’; more people among those with a predisposition for the consumption of culture, but who very often stay away for practical reasons: lack of information, problems in what concerns access/parking, opening hours / timetables, presence of young children in the family, etc. Issues related to styles of life, which we need to understand better in order to look for answers, and be able to facilitate the participation of those interested. This is about eliminating practical barriers, really.

But ‘new’ can and should also mean ‘different’. Another part of our work should be about diversifying audiences, making an effort to reach those people whose socio-demographic profile and habits of cultural participation (or lack of them) keep them away from our premises. In this case, barriers are not practical, they are mental and psychological, resulting from lack of previous experience, knowledge and practices. In these cases we usually speak about ‘creating’ (developing) new audiences. If we take a look at the various forms of cultural participation, though, we cannot exactly say they did not exist before. They are not ‘our’ audiences, they are not consumers of our offer. Our aim is to create the conditions for them to be able to taste it: raising curiosity, showing its relevance to them, making it somehow tangible, creating confort (mainly psychological), well, building bridges, as Donna Walker-Kuhne would put it. In many cases, we will have to open the doors; not only for them to come in, but also for us to go out, to leave our confort zone and go to meet them.

Still, another part of our work is about deepening the experience, in the sense of a greater involvement, with both cultural and social aspects: involving or training amateur artists, integrating volunteers in the teams, involving members of the public in the programming, including non- professionals in the boards, attracting sponsors, etc. ‘New’ in this case would mean... ‘in a new role’? Yes, I believe we can say that.

The work of ‘creating' (developing) new audiences in culture is mainly associated to education and communications (that is, when ‘new’ doesn´t mean ‘children and teenagers’ and when we do not consider this to be the responsibility of schools...). Nevertheless, if we could just leave aside the idea of ‘creation’ and concentrated on that of ‘building bridges’, I believe it becomes obvious that this is a work that involves the whole institution, and in particular the joint effort of programming, education and communications.

These three objectives – enlarging, diversifying and deepening – make sense in our work; somehow, they are an obligation we must take on. They make sense, but they also give it a sense. Among the three, the one that most appeals to me, that motivates and touches me the most, is the second. When four years ago São Luiz had its first theatre session with interpretation in portuguese sign language, the television interviewed a deaf lady when leaving the theatre, visibly emotional. She had just seen Moby Dick. “I am 74 years old”, she said. “It´s the first time I came to the theatre. Why?”.

That´s what it´s all about.

Readings

Holden, J. (2010). Culture and Class. Counterpoint

McCarthy, K.F. and Jinnett, K. (2007). A new framework for building participation in the arts. RAND

National Endowment for the Arts (2009). 2008 survey of public participation in the arts.

Ostrower, F. (2005). Motivations matter: findings and practical implications of a national survey of cultural participation. Urban Institute

Walker, C., Scott-Melnyk, S. and Sherwood, K. (2002). From Reggae to Rachmaninoff, How and why people participate in arts and culture. Urban Institute

Walker-Kuhne, D. (2005). Invitation to the party: building bridges to the arts, culture and community. Theatre Communications Group

Wallace Foundation (2009). Engaging audiences.

Etched in memory

In the post Let´s talk business, last May, I was talking about analyzing memories as a way of evaluating the impact of the visit to a museum, of an exhibition or of a performance. I have been following with interest the publication of some of the results of a big survey with museum-goers on the blog Museum Audience Insight.

Museum Audience Insight is the blog of Reach Advisors, an american company of marketing research and strategy, that works with many museums. In the beginning of the year they launched a survey with the objective to collect data that could answer questions such as:

- Do childhood experiences at museums affect motivations and expectations of adult museum-goers?
- If certain types of childhood experiences are common among our most engaged adult visitors, can museums “stack the deck” so that children today have similar experiences?
- How crucial are school field trips to raising new generations of museum goers? How crucial are fathers?
- How important is curiosity as a motivation?

The survey was launched via mailing lists, Facebook pages and Twitter of 103 museums in 5 countries (USA, Canada, UK, New Zealand, Australia and India), although 97% of the respondents were from the USA. More than 40,000 responses were compiled. The methodology is explained here and here.

One of the main lines of inquiry concerned early childhood memories. The researchers are trying to understand, among other things, which are the factors that make a museum experience memorable; what ages are more impressionable; how early childhood memories differ among different audience segments. They asked people to talk about their earliest or strongest childhood museum memory, to say how old they were in that memory and who they were with. After that, they could go on and tell everything they remembered from the visit.

In general, the average age of memories was 7. More than half of the respondents remembered the presence of their mother. A bit less than half remembered their father. School visits were crucial for adult museum visitation, especially among people whose parents had a lower educational level. Memories related to history museums and historic sites (24%), natural history museums (21%), science museums and science centres (21%), art museums (17%).

In the last two months, Reach Advisors have published more and more specific results of the survey. All complemented with statements from people who took part in it. On the 28th of October there was a post totally dedicated to natural history museums (“When you´re seven, it´s all about the dinos, baby!”). That´s because data analysis indicated that memories from these particular museums stick around for decades, vivid and detailed memories. The determining factors here are the scale of the objects, dinosaurs, dioramas, but also, surprisingly, rocks and minerals. There are also many memories from natural history museums shops.

There was another post after that on interactive experiences (“Hands-on exhibits are very fun!” – Hands-on experiences in childhood memories). Researchers concluded that these are very important components in what concerns museum experiences. Nevertheless, memories that include only a hands-on experience tend to be less vivid and detailed, unless related to a specific object or an exhibition.

Another element that can profoundly mark memories from a visit is the building itself. In the post “A grand and beautiful building with cool things’ to look at” – Architecture in early childhood museums memories” we can read that in certain cases, more than the objects exhibited or the activities, it is the buildings that mark people´s memories. Nevertheless, scale and grandeur do not make them cold and prohibitive for children, contrary to what might be expected. Almst all memories are positive and certain among them refer to smaller and more modest buildings.

In the posts “Museums are awesome!” and “Awesome? Try fascinating!” we read about the analysis of language when describing the memory. The scale of the building and objects, as well as glitter, beauty and the exotic, impress children and stay in their memory. These experiences are described as ‘awesome’. On the other hand, experiences that have awaken an interest in a certain subject or the desire to learn more, the adjective mostly used is ‘fascinating’.

The last post of the series (more will follow) is entitled Career choices: how museums sometimes make a difference. It presents the cases (few, but significant, really) of people for whom a visit to a museum gave them an interest in a specific subject that determined their career choice when they became adults.

I was 8 years old when I first visited the Louvre. I was following my parents in the rooms and corridors of the museum, until we reached a huge staircase. And when I lifted my eyes, I saw at the top of the staircase the Victory of Samothrace. I was deeply impressed, I couldn´t take my eyes off her. I don´t know if it was at that precise moment, but it was during that trip that I told my parents I wanted to work in a museum (I changed my mind many times in the years that followed...). And every time I am back at the Louvre, I approach the staircase hoping and knowing that the Victory of Samothrace will have the same impact on me, as the first time.

What´s your earliest or strongest museum memory?