It all started when I put the headphones on. In a frantic attempt to complete my summer itinerary, “gate closed” notices etched into my mind, I strode into the Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom in Tallinn, Estonia. This was not to be a typical museum experience, however. Promptly after arriving, I was ushered into the uncertain world of mid-twentieth century and post-war Estonia. All that accompanied me were a pair of headphones, a handset, an in-ear narrator, and carefully placed objects. I turned to one of them, a history book from Estonia’s time under Soviet occupation (1940–1991). Its half-empty pages, partially obscured by a torrent of black ink, threw questions into my mind. To my surprise, I was not met with a densely-written label when I inspected it closer. Instead, I received an invitation from the in-ear narrator: “would you like to know more?” I was in control. Fitting, perhaps, for a museum whose central theme is freedom — and the lack thereof.
Freedom makes or breaks a visitor’s experience. Get just enough of it, and one leaves feeling refreshed, enriched and educated, as I did when I left the Museum of Occupations. Not enough, though, and one feels confused and exhausted. If I could append fifty Ds to the end of ‘exhausted’, I would. ‘Museum fatigue[d]’, a more precise term, will suffice. Coined by Bostonian Benjamin Gilman in the 1910s, its causes are manifold and highly context-dependent. One recent study has put it down to “visitor attributes” and “environmental factors” like exhibition layout. Whatever its causes, it’s something the museum industry — like clumsy children (read: me, still) in the Greek pottery section — can’t seem to completely tame. How have Cambridge’s museums sought to do this? How successful have they been? Spoiler alert: it’s complicated.
“People often view museum visits as a race against the clock”
Nestled inside its splendid neoclassical clothing, the Fitzwilliam Museum seemed the most logical first option. The Fitz is the kind of grand museum that leaves you feeling enlightened, curious, confused, and exhausted all at once. Its medieval Italian triptychs and Egyptian sarcophagi compel one to comment pretentiously “oh, yes, yes, how delicate” before hurrying toward the next room, the cold hand of fatigue drawing ever closer.
While often necessary when one lacks time, this behaviour is somewhat detrimental to our comprehension of museum objects. According to the Tate, it culminates in us perceiving the visit as a “race against the clock,” making tiredness and disinterest inevitable. Elenor Ling, Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Fitz, concurs. She tells me: “Visitors typically only devote six seconds to inspecting an object before moving on.” This has led her to consider the practice of “slow looking” while curating her exhibitions: “whereby visitors are encouraged to spend, say, five or ten minutes looking at an object”.
A practice first proposed by education scholar Shari Tishman in 2017, ‘slow looking’ seeks to allow the visitor to ‘get to know’ an object – rather than just brushing past it in the street. For Elenor, this is primarily achieved by “emphasising details”. Citing a digital project dubbed “Walking the Landscape: [John] Constable,” which will be adapted into a physical exhibition at a later date, these details are that of those we notice while out walking. The digital project seeks to enable the visitor to “walk with Constable” through the Essex countryside, which involves ‘slow looking’ by carefully examining his various landscape drawings in a sequential manner.
“Visitors don’t read text labels in the order they’ve been designed in”
I must admit, it’s rather engaging. As I compared his Summer Evening and The Glebe Farm (1830 and 1855 respectively), I gained a nuanced understanding of the physical geography of Langham, Essex in the nineteenth century, as well as an insight into how Constable utilised perspective in his works. The two prints, seemingly disconnected in their subject, are united by one minor detail: the dainty tower of St Mary’s Church, which is centre-stage in The Glebe Farm and a mere speck in the peripheral forestry of Summer Evening. Simply by concentrating on this detail, I ‘got to know’ Langham — and Constable’s world more generally. Though I may need to forgo a second date (read: a physical visit) for the meantime, this encounter alone was entirely worthwhile. Every ounce of tiredness was expelled from my body.
Of course, this type of remedy is not one that can be applied universally. I am reminded of this truth by Sarah-Jane Harknett, Head of Public Engagement and Learning at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA). At smaller, more subject-centric museums like the MAA, curators must be more selective when authoring information panels. Why? When Sarah-Jane inspected the results of a research project, conducted between 2013 and 2018, that attempted to assess how visitors behaved in 7 of the University’s museums, she discovered that “visitors really like looking at objects”. Around two-thirds of a visitor’s time was spent looking at displays, the project found, which prompted Sarah-Jane to comment that “visitors don’t read text labels in the order they’ve been designed in […] In fact, they might not even read text panels at all.” Regardless of whether this kind of behaviour was caused by ‘museum fatigue’ or something else, it suggests that perhaps text labels in these subject-centric museums may need to be presented in a different way.
One alternative option, tried out by Sarah-Jane and her colleagues at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, was an in-museum app. Installed on a touch screen, the app provides a variety of minigames and puzzles themed around the contexts of the museum’s objects. In Autumn 2017, the Museum found that one-third of visitors used the app at some point, with 147 seconds being the average amount of time spent doing so. With its “easy to use” nature, Sarah-Jane noted that it was “one of the most engaged with elements of the museum”. Like my faithful audio guide all the way back in Estonia, this app puts visitors in the driving seat.
“Freedom is Cambridge’s museums’ greatest weapon in the fight against fatigue”
At this point, you might be screaming: “But what about Kettle’s Yard???” And I don’t blame you: it’s an attraction that seems to have sent museum fatigue to bed. After all, Jim Ede, who co-founded the Yard with his wife Helen, dubbed it a “living place where works of art could be enjoyed […] where young people could be at home unhampered by the greater austerity of the museum or public gallery.” With its elegant compactness, lack of labels, and ‘natural’ object positions, the Edes’ former home does indeed make one feel liberated and energised. Naomi Polonsky, Assistant Curator at the Yard, summed it up very well: “Visitors should not feel compelled to engage with every work of art. Instead, each artwork and object plays its part in the creation of a greater whole.”
But that’s not all. Armed with my awareness of the interactive app at the Sedgwick, I was curious about how, if at all, visitors to the Yard are able to ‘get to know’ or interact with it in a more reciprocal manner. After I posed this question to her, Naomi drew my attention to the ‘Respond and Reflect’ area within the house, which was installed in 2018 during a major refurbishment project. It allows visitors to “rest and to contemplate their experiences of encounter art,” as well as to “share their thoughts and impressions”. We have once again returned to that surely crucial theme: freedom.
Freedom is Cambridge’s museums’ greatest weapon in the fight against fatigue. From encouraging ‘slow looking’ at the Fitz, to utilising interactive apps at the Sedgwick, to wandering through Kettle’s Yard’s ‘Respond and Reflect’ area, making visitors active participants in their museum experiences seems to be essential in sending museum fatigue into eternal slumber. Talk about getting a taste of your own medicine — or, should I say, sleeping pills.
