Dollhouses and Dioramas: The First Museum 2.0 ?

I'm doing some work with the Nassau County Museum of Art on their funky free-standing annex building they have called the Tee Ridder Miniatures Museum. (I'll report on some of the design modifications and "tweaks" we're coming up to make what is now a bit of a "fussy" collection more visitor-friendly, in a future posting.)

For background, Tee Ridder was a lady who collected and displayed miniature rooms (what most people would call dollhouse rooms) and the Tee Ridder Museum is entirely devoted to these miniature rooms, a "million dollar dollhouse" (actually a very large scale model of a castle) and related displays. Even the gift shop sells dollhouse furniture and related "miniatures" paraphenalia!

Working on this project got me thinking again about the incredible drawing power that miniature environments, and on the opposite end of the scale, dioramas, have on visitors.

Both of these "old school" exhibit techniques are for the most part dead art forms.

[UPDATE: As several people have rightfully commented and emailed me, museums are still creating dioramas and immersive diorama environments. Take for example the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center. Sorry for the hyperbole --- please resume reading your regularly scheduled blog posting...]

Preparing classic wildlife dioramas was never humane (killing animals deliberately for display would rightfully never be tolerated today) and the people with the esoteric skills needed to create these displays have largely vanished as well. Most natural history museums no longer employ (or can afford to employ!) staff taxidermists and artists like the master Carl Akeley (Check out this NY Times article about the "New" Way of Making a Stuffed Animal Lifelike from 1917!)

Leaving all that aside, I still marvel at how visitors will become completely absorbed in finding little details like a miniature box of Cornflakes in the dollhouse kitchen at The Long Island Children's Museum, or the hovering dragonflies in a pond diorama at The Field Museum in Chicago. Why do these anachronistic gems still entrall people, even within the context of museums filled with multi-media marvels and cool hands-on gizmos?

I think part of the answer lies in an appreciation, if not awe, of the art, and craft, involved in creating these facsimile worlds. But I think another aspect of the power of dioramas and miniature scenes is the ability for every visitor to somehow mentally insert themselves into these artificial worlds and to create their own stories and realities within.

And in the end, being able to find personal, emotional connections with objects and displays is still one of the most important, and singular, strengths of museums.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to subscribe right now via email (or your favorite news reader) with the tools on the right side of the blog.

Exhibit Design Inspiration: The Glue Society

The Glue Society is a group of writers, directors, and designers based in Sydney and New York.

As you can see from the example of their work entitled "Chair Arch" in the video above, and the image of the melted ice cream truck entitled "Hot with the Chance of Late Storm" they really know how to put creative twists on familiar materials and environments.



Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to subscribe right now via email (or your favorite news reader) with the tools on the right side of the blog.

Museums and One Laptop Per Child

ExhibiTricks reader Sean Hooley asked for some space to express his enthusism for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program and its applications to the museum world, so take it away Sean:

This spring I started doing some work with One Laptop per Child (OLPC) as I transitioned from working in interaction design back to the museum exhibit field. While not involved in deployments or the learning team, I have seen the enormous potential of the XO (the '$100 laptop') including talks by volunteers about the great educational opportunities afforded by the laptop.

OLPC just restarted the Give One, Get One (G1G1) program, where people/organizations in the US can pay for 2 XOs and get one, while the other is donated to a child in the third world. So, it seemed like a good time to get museum people talking. Here is an interesting use of the XO, at a science club in Washington, DC: http://www.olpcnews.com/use_cases/user_groups/olpc_learning_club_d.html

I feel that the museum world would benefit from working with XOs (and vice versa) so I am trying to get people thinking about ways for museums to participate in the US (OLPCs mission is to deliver them to children in the third world). OLPC is making the XO available again in the US (and probably for longer than the 2 months it was for sale last year.) This could allow more opportunities for museums to get involved with the XOs.

Therefore, I created an outline for a section in the community media page of OLPCs wiki for museums and hope that people will edit /add to it. You can also email me or check out some of the links below.

Some ideas were:

1. Museums acting as local XO community centers where XO users can get together, taking advantage of the social aspects of the XO (this is happening at the MIT museum, but why not more?)

2. Museums can create educational activities (applications) for the XO to add to the community (both in the US and abroad), based on their subject knowledge as well as their experiences with informal learning

3. Educating the public about the open source software movement and OLPC's work in developing countries through exhibits/programs, etc.

4. Learning tools for Children's Museums, often within the exhibit halls

This is the wiki page where I just started (still pretty empty and rough) putting museum resources down. I expect to put goals/ideas and other info about museums and the XO, and wanted others in museums to add to and start a discussion about this.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_media#Museums

To participate in 'Give One, Get One’:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?ie=UTF8&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&me=A34NLXJLC88VVS

General OLPC Info:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/The_OLPC_Wiki

Thanks to Sean for bringing up many interesting ideas about the OLPC program!


Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to subscribe right now via email (or your favorite news reader) with the tools on the right side of the blog.

Exhibit Design Resource: Think Anatomy

For those of you who work in more traditional natural history museums (with lots of mounted skeletons and specimens floating in jars) you'll love the new anatomy-based portal called Think Anatomy.

Put together by their sister site Street Anatomy, Think Anatomy has assembled a great collection of web-based resources for learning about, as well as gathering content information on, all things anatomical.

Some of my favorite resources so far are the Anatomy Arcade games and the dissection videos from the University of Michigan. (WARNING: not all of this material is good for those with weak stomachs!)

Come to think of it, beyond natural history museum folks, both Street Anatomy and Think Anatomy provide great resources for anyone developing classroom, outreach, or teacher-training programs as well.

Do you have a favorite online resource to share? Let us know about it in the "Comments" section below, or send us an email.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to subscribe right now via email (or your favorite news reader) with the tools on the right side of the blog.

Good Experience: Uncle Mark Gift Guide and Almanac

I'm not sure when I first came across the "Uncle Mark Gift Guide and Almanac" put together by Mark Hurst, but I've found it a great resource, and something to look forward to as another year draws to a close.

In addition to the other creative ideas Mark puts forth to the public under the "Good Experience" umbrella, I'm also a fan of his "Good Experience Games" site that keeps a running list of fun internet-based games, and I hope to attend the "Good Experience Live" or GEL Conference (especially since it happens in NYC) one day.

Thinking about "Good Experience" --- whether it is customer experience, user experience, or any other type of human experience is essential whether you work in the for-profit or non-profit spheres. But more about that in a future post!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to subscribe right now via email (or your favorite news reader) with the tools on the right side of the blog.

Exhibit Design Inspiration: Interactive Mirror