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| Folheto do World of Discoveries |
How many times have you visited a museum
that was not a museum at all? And just how upset does this make you feel?
After years and years of
visiting museums, I am able now to identify some “signs” and avoid being
tricked, but still, not always. And I am also thinking, of course, about all
other visitors, non-professionals, who might not be able to “see the signs” and
for whom the word ‘museum’ might be carrying a specific ‘promise’.
The abuse of the term is
something we encounter in many countries; probably in all countries. A small
collection of anything put on display and there you go, we have a museum and,
quite to often, we charge for it... Can anybody open an establishment of some
sort and call it a “pharmacy” just like that? And do people indstinctively call
a restaurant “café” and vice versa (while there also exists, at least in
Portugal, the hybrid definition “café-restaurant”), even if both establishments
offer services withing the area of catering? Doesn´t each one have specific
characteristics transmitted (‘promised’) to customers through the name they are
called by?
My concerns about the use of
the word ‘museum’ came back while listening to the presentation of a new
project, World of Discoveries – Interactive Museum and Thematic Park, soon to open in the city of Porto (Portugal). The presentation was included
in the seminar “Tourism and Cultural Heritage – Opportunities and Challenges”
organized in Lisbon by Pporto dos Museus.
World of Discoveries is a
private project that will aim to tell the story of the Portuguese discoveries,
a chapter in the country’s history that attracts many people, both national and
foreign. If I remember correctly, it involves at this moment 35 members of
staff, including people with a background in museology. Presenting the project,
Helena Pereira highlighted the team´s concern to offer a both enjoyable and
educational experience, a rigorous presentation of the historical facts, a
product of quality. The story is going to be told through multimedia devices,
as well as through a journey in time that will take visitors through a number
of especially created historical settings. The potential is enormous, of
course, and the project is being developed in order to be able to guarantee its
financial sustainability. Prices will be €8 (children from 4 to 12), €14
(adults from 13 to 64 years old – I always find it curious when certain venues
define adulthood from the age of 13) and €11 (seniors).
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| Mapa no folheto do World of Discoveries |
World of Discoveries has
chosen to explain the nature of its offer as “Interactive Museum and Thematic
Park”. It was actually presented as a new model of museum, that of the 21st
century, given the means which will be used in order to tell the story and
which go beyond the display of objects. I don´t actually agree that this is a
new model, as science centres have been using similar means for a long time
now, that is exhibits specifically created to tell a story and not historical
objects, which we find in science museums. And this is the point I would like
to make: I haven´t seen so far a science centre calling itself a “science
museum”. Why would an interactive interpretation centre be called an
“interactive museum”?
According to the ICOM
definition, “A museum is a
non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development,
open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and
exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment
for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment”. The ICOM
definition embraces a number of institutions which are not museums, but are
considered as such, given that they assume a number of common functions and
share concerns and objectives. Those institutions are science centres,
planetariums, interpretation centres, zoos, aquariums, exhibition galleries
maintained by libraries and archives, to name a few. Now, most of these
institutions don´t change the way they are defined: a zoo is still a zoo, an
archive is still an archive and an interrpeatation centre is... precisely that.
World of Discoveries is not
the first case in Portugal to raise my concerns as to what is exactly being
‘promised’ to people, potential visitors, and if the use of the term ‘museum’
might be imprecise and potentially also misleading. A few years ago, I had
questioned in an ICOM meeting the option of calling the Côa Museum, which was not open yet at the time, a “museum” and not an “interpretation
centre”. There is a centre in Aljubarrota that bears many similarities, in
terms of product/offer, but it is actually called Interpretation Centre of the Battle of Aljubarrota.
“What’s in a word?”, you
might ask. Everything, I say. There is absolutely no intention on my part in
raising issues of “quality” or “validity” here. I have visited a number of very interesting interpretation centres,
in Portugal and abroad, and although I am not a big fan of thematic parks, I do
believe they can provide enjoyable, interesting and valid educational
experiences to many people. But it’s in the name that lies the meaning, the
promise, the creation of an expectation, the kind of experience one might have,
the decision to have it or not, to pay for it or not. This is why I believe
that things should be called by their name.
