The links between accessibility and participation. Multiple voices in the Helsinki Design Museum.Mariana SalgadoMedia Laboratory – University of Art and Design Helsinki

FOTOS

FIGURE: 1) 2) Details of the stand 3) Interface with the Interactive Map with commentary from a visitor 4) Printed commentary absorbed into the exhibition

“The Secret Life of Objects, An Interactive Map of Finnish Design” was a temporary exhibition (March 18th to the first week of June 2008) at the Helsinki Design Museum, Finland, that brought together a selection of design objects belonging to the permanent collection.The exhibition sought to reinterpret the objects through the active participation of the museum’s visitors, encouraged by a series of resources designed for this purpose. The co-design strategy consisted of organising, together with the museum staff, workshops and prototype evaluations of the various interactive tools through which the texts, videos, music and drawings related to these design objects would be compiled before the exhibition. These edited materials went on to form part of an interactive map that invited visitors to make comments inspired by the objects on display.

During the exhibition, the interactive map collected in the region of 110 commentaries from visitors and museum staff, which varied greatly in tone and content. The strategies used to achieve active participation and ownership of the exhibition were of different natures. I think it is important to describe them, because they could be useful as design tools for future projects.

Various elements were deployed to make known the possibilities available for participation in the exhibition: an interactive map that served as a navigator for the comments, texts replaced by visitors’ comments and the introductory board that is usually used to describe the main objective of the exhibition was replaced by a postcard of the objects handed out to visitors asking them to explain stories that would relate the objects to their lives.

The interactive map was based on a building plan representing the exhibition area and the objects displayed there. For one week before the exhibition opened, we worked with museum staff in the education department in order to integrate the workshops, organised in the museum itself, into the material generating process for the forthcoming exhibition.

The inspiring comments created before the exhibition by workshop participants brought together poetry, stories, musical improvisations and plastic activities. Contributions that could be compiled in the form of texts were translated into three languages: Swedish, English and Finnish.

Including a visitor’s interpretation within the exhibition’s general discourse is a significant way of validating their personal opinion. Displaying diverse commentaries allowed us to show a vision that was non-consensual, quite the contrary in fact; it opened up a plurality of voices generating new discussions based around the exhibition material. The website allowed us to share these comments through the use of new technologies. And lastly, we used a blog to spread word of the project and to share material.

However, I cannot leave aside the risks that this kind of participation involved. The

museum is thought of as a respected site, something akin to a temple (10). This meant that the casual, personal, creative and humorous contributions could be seen by audiences and even by museum staff themselves as out of place. In our experience on only two occasions comments were unrelated to the exhibition contents. For this reason supervision was not too arduous. I think that the quality of commentaries produced is directly related to the participation strategies employed for a specific project.

Currently, and increasingly, the museum paradigm is no longer based around the displayed object but on the context surrounding that object. It is crucial, then, to suggest that an exhibition is a living element. The visitors will therefore give context to the objects on display based on their own histories of use, perceptions and interpretations. For this reason, I believe that the commentaries generated during the exhibition should be taken seriously as part of our cultural and industrial heritage. This intervention by visitors in the museum represents an affective relationship and reflects the objects’ situations of use in our society.

After this experience at the Design Museum it seems necessary to consider an exhibition not as a completed, closed work but as a sketch that needs to be finished. Planning the exhibition as something incomplete, in this case, was the key to motivating participation and enriching the visit. Opening an exhibition to controversy, in the sense of accepting a variety of voices, is one way of creating a museum for everyone. Displaying and exhibiting differences in ways of interpretation is a strategy for encouraging debate and facilitating dialogue. In this case, through an exhibition map, the visitors and museum staff revealed their parallel, and at times differing, points of view.

The visitor needs to know whether the commentary will be used for educational or commercial ends, in virtual forums or in any other form of publication. How can we let visitors know the uses to which the museum might put their contribution? How can we respect the intellectual property of those who created the contributions? There are other challenges too, such as the storage of these contributions and the means by which they can be made accessible to the general public.