Discussion: Museum Ettiquette #@^%!

In class today there was a dialogue about the museum environment and the excessive rules that often make us feel uncomfortable and even irritated at times, bringing to light issues of exclusivity/exclusivity and the #@^%! characteristics of elite institutions.

Stories were flooding the room:
"At the Louvre I couldn't even sketch with a pencil!"
"I was trying to text my friend, and the guard was yelling at me!"
"The exorbitant entry prices are ridiculous"

As each person shared, the layer of museum-stigma grew. The first thing that came to mind was shit. Yes, just plain, brown shit. While working for a children's museum in SF, a child shat on one of our exhibits. I'm not shitting you. Seriously.

So I raised the point that although feeling uncomfortable is not a good thing, the responsibility of museum etiquette and values lies in both the institution and the public. It's up to the educators, parents, and chaperones to communicate the value and preservation efforts of museum objects. It is a privilege to experience an artifact that is thousands of years old! Similiar to the social etiquette we expect in restaurants, the same should be for museums. We spend hours aesthetically perfecting our Pez Collection exhibit, and get annoyed when someone messes with it, why wouldn't it make sense not to mess with someone else's exhibition?

Corianna responded saying that it was an unfair analogy, that restaurants are private institutions and museums should be public ones.

She brought up a great point. Her response reminded me that we are not a socialist society and it is the systems and policies above that need more questions. YES museums should be public institutions, but they are not. We DO rely on private funders, we DO have to wine and dine them, we DO have to sell the value of public institutions...

Furthermore, Matt raised a good point about how objects in museum are often assumed to be priceless, such that a painting could be millions of dollars, a value that the general audience is not able to empathize or interpret in relationship to the value of objects in their own lives!

Respecting and understanding the value of an object - (someone else's object?) is a whole other discussion about personal and social values.

But not to forget, knowledge and discourse surrounding these issues are pertinent to our roles in the field, equipping us to work towards changing policies, diversifying the museum audience and maybe, just possibly, getting rid of #@^%!