This paper was presented in the Open 2009, International Symposium organized by Media Lab Helsinki

1. Openness, Inclusion and Participation
in Museums
Mariana Salgado
Media Lab- University of Art and Design Helsinki (TAIK)
H ämeentie 135C (00560) Helsinki
mariana.salgado@taik.fi
ABSTRACT [11]. I found his statement also true in the context of
doing research on interaction design in museums
One of the assumptions that some members of the because the designers and researchers in this group
museum community share is the benefit of opening the share the assumption that an open museum is an ideal.
museum for new audiences and sharing roles of As a consequence it is much discussed how to design
curatorship together with these audiences. In this essay towards an open museum providing different
I unravel the background of this assumption and draw strategies to measure or describe audience
points for future consideration related to the idea of participation [17][3][10].
open.
Should we question the assumption that an open
An open museum is an ideal that seems new and museum is beneficial? Not necessarily, but a
revolutionary, in the context of such traditional redefinition would certainly be good since the term
institutions as museums. However, researchers in open is blurred. I do not propose to investigate on the
museum studies have long considered their openness in museums, but rather on some set of
contribution as openers of new opportunities, but they characteristics related to open that can help to clarify
used a different vocabulary. In the museum opportunities for designers committed to a more
community, inclusion and accessibility are already democratic design process in the museum context.
established values that museums pursue. Inclusion
focused on people and participation on practices. So, At first sight the ideal of open appears new and
are we proposing something new while talking about revolutionary, specifically in the context of such
open in this community, or it is only a way to update traditional institutions as museums. Researchers in the
the vocabulary? Thus, the main question of this essay museum field have been considering their contribution
is what is the innovation that we refer while referring as openers of new opportunities already in the ‘70s,
to an open museum. The answer to this question aims though they used a different vocabulary. For example
to clarify also the assumptions that the museum in his seminal article “The museum, a Temple or the
community shares related to openness. Forum” [4], Duncan Cameron (1971/2004) proposed
aspects of this openness that some researchers are
I argue for the need to embrace inclusion and realizing today, while designing exhibition integrated
participation as pillars that support the open museum with social media tools. He tried to demystify the
not only because these are already approved values, museum as a temple and propose it as a forum for
but because they can bring to the discussion around discussions. Cameron states it in this way:
openness the necessary background and possibilities
for sustainability. It is in tracing the path from “In my view, it is clear that there is a clear
participative and inclusive practices that an open and urgent need for the re-establishment of
culture within the museums will emerge. the forum as an institution in society” [4].
He goes further by saying “I am proposing not only
exhibition halls and meeting places that are open to
Keywords: inclusion, open, participation, museums, all, but also programs and funds for them that accept
interaction design, accessibility without reservation the most radical innovations in art
forms, the most controversial interpretations of
history, of our own society, of the nature of man, or,
1. INTRODUCTION for that matter, of the nature of our world” [4]. The
issue of opening the museum as a forum for
According to Thomas Kuhn (1962) “normal science, discussions is not new, but has at least 40 years.
the activity in which most scientists spend almost all
their time, is predicated on the assumption that the Furthermore, other researchers in the museum field
scientific community knows what the world is like. have identified a radical change in museums. For
Much of the success of the enterprise derives from the example, Gail Anderson (2004) affirms that there is a
community’s willingness to defend that assumption” paradigm shift from collection-driven institution to
visitor-centered museums [1]. In line with this
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2. paradigm shift, museums have appropriated the need perform and take part in during a process.
to be accessible and inclusive to visitors with different
needs. For example the museum association code of There exist many models and frameworks for
ethics states that museums should “consult and involve participation. In this section I refer to the ones that
communities, users and supporters” [13]. The code of have been key in design discourse or in the museum
ethics created by ICOM (The International Council of community. Participatory design approaches have
Museums) states that “museums work in close been in the discourse of designers from the ‘70s,
collaboration with the communities from which their onwards with the contribution of Scandinavian
collections originate as well as those they serve” [12]. designers and thinkers. The Scandinavian tradition of
Inclusion has been used to address people, as I argue participatory design includes the user in a series of
in the following section. Therefore, for building an activities such as role-playing, games, mock-ups and
open museum we should consider aspects of inclusion simulations [7]. Pelle Ehn (1992) characterizes
and participation. participatory design as a learning process in which
designers and users learn from one another [6].
Participation happens through a series of activities and
inviting users in many stages of the design process. Up
2. ON INCLUSIVE MUSEUMS until now, only a few groups of researchers have
In 2008, the first international conference of the appropriated the activities proposed by participatory
Inclusive Museum took place. The same group of design and brought them to the museum scene to make
researchers and museum professionals later created the audience participate in the creation of exhibitions from
International Journal of the Inclusive Museum. During the beginning of their concept creation [18][19].
this conference, in which I participated, the largest Moreover, there are other modes and strategies for
part of the discussion was around the inclusion of participation explored in museums. Nina Simon, a
regional or ethnic communities in the museum. Other pioneer in the museum community bringing issues
visitors that were considered in the presentations were: around participation into discussion, analyses several
socially disadvantaged, children/ seniors, out of reach examples in which museums implemented strategies
(such as prisoners), far away, non-visitors, and people for participation. Currently, she has proposed a model
with disabilities. These categories could overlap. of visitor participation [16]. She has been
There were some presentations about making extrapolating from different contexts ideas for visitors’
inclusion as a part of the museum platform (staff active participation in museums. These ideas go from
organization and policies). Amongst the participants using social media in creative ways to implementing
there was a recognition that inclusiveness is about several analogical and simple strategies to motivate
people’s attitudes. visitors to take part in exhibitions.
Therefore it is possible to sum up that inclusion in the The work in museum around participation [16] and
museum community is understood mainly to mean the participatory design focus on the question of how to
attitude towards making different people participate make people participate, not defining exactly who are
and be part of the museum community, by, for the ones included and under which roles. The
example, visiting the exhibition. While inclusion has discussion related to inclusion brings to the front that
dealt with taking into account segregated or there are excluded people, such as people with
marginalised groups such as people with disabilities, disabilities and others, as I have presented in the
immigrants, and others, then open goes one step previous section, but does not stress the roles of those
further by eliminating the necessities of roles in a pre- people in the design process or during an exhibition.
defined hierarchical position. This is where the concept of open brings something to
The open paradigm would help us to specify under the discussion. Open brings roles, in a non-
what conditions do we include people and what hierarchical manner, proposing that everyone can have
special process of inclusion for certain excluded the same status.
people need to be taken in consideration during the
design process. I would suggest that the word
inclusion could be included in the definition of an 4. DISCUSSION ON AN OPEN MUSEUM
open museum. This will bring the open paradigm
proposed in the museum community, closer to the The paradigm forces scientists to investigate
discussions proposed by design for all, and other some part of nature in a detail and depth that
groups that deal with accessibility issues. would otherwise be unimaginable [11].
At this point it is important to remember that the open
paradigm started as a result of the collaboration of
3. ON PARTICIPATIVE MUSEUMS virtual communities, such as the Free and Libre Open
Source community. They have used a meritocracy
On one hand, inclusion has been used to address system wherein appointments and responsibilities are
people, as I argue in the previous section. On the other assigned to individuals based upon demonstrated
hand participation has been used to address the talent and ability (merit) and not pre-defined before
practices, including actions and activities that people hand. This community were formed by people that do
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3. not know each other, placed in different geographical methods, by building and adopting open source
locations and with different aim and goals towards the software and collaborating using open source models”
general Open Source project that they contributed [2]. [5]. Another relevant example of this collaboration
These facts did not affect negatively their appears the online library of software modules for
collaboration. On the contrary it allowed many people platforms that exhibit developers can use and
to contribute because of the open platform for configure, its name is Open Exhibits [14].
collaboration and the open and transparent way to
manipulate rules. When these ways of doing are The rules for this openness have to be negotiated by
translated to the museum, by proposing that the whole community, not only by the interaction
everybody, even people that do not come to the designer or the ones that are used to collaborations in
museum, can create material on the basis of the digital platforms. The open paradigm forces as to
exhibited material and their creation would be shared study in detail the tensions and forces that restrict and
in the museum space, a lot of disagreement takes support people to collaborate and contribute in peer-
place. This new practice, of opening the stage to other to-peer frameworks.
voices, goes against the traditional impersonal voice of In this paper I propose open as paradigm to better
the museum as the only one having knowledge on understand strategies used in the museum context.
their collection and the only one that could transmit it. There is a need to embrace inclusive and participative
At the moment, museums are one of the most trusted practices, as a way to include other members of the
media institutions in terms of the accuracy of the museum community and not restrict the discussion to
information that they communicate [15]. Concerning interaction designers and researchers. To develop
this issue, Sandell (2007) asserts that “the qualities vocabulary to talk about our work is part of designers’
visitors attribute to the museum as a medium – agenda, though we also have to learn to relate this
truthfulness, worthiness, reliability, the capacity to vocabulary to already existent one in order to not
‘tell the truth’ – and the potential for museum visiting isolate us from our design context.
to be an especially active mode of consumption, …
make the museum a relatively efficacious and highly
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