Engaging audiences through Perth's CHOGM exhibitions

There was much discussion during the Museums Australia & Interpretation Australia conference At the Frontier about audience engagement, storytelling and collaboration. John Holden spoke of the development of active and intimate relationships between museums and audiences and Viv Golding spoke of the embodied knowledge objects hold and gave us some wonderful examples of the alternative histories and understandings that can be held within an object. I was particularly struck by Susan Cross's presentation where she reminded us that storytelling is at the heart of our work and that visitors are wanting a good story to take away from their visit so that they can share the experience with others.
Perhaps because all of this was so fresh in my mind, I was struck by the very different way in which I responded to these two exhibitions that on the surface appeared to have a shared focus on powerful, singular objects that highlight the power and majesty of the former British Empire.

Princely Treasures

Princely Treasures is an exhibition of key works from the Victoria and Albert Museum focusing on European decorative arts from 1600 to 1800. The exhibition includes a number of pieces owned by European Royalty, popes and significant figures of the period. Objects are simply displayed with the focus on the works themselves. There are a few wall panels that contextualise each theme (Princely Patronage, Power and Glory, Religious Splendour, Display in the Interior and Fashions & Personal Adornment) with images taken from paintings of the period to give some further context.

Descriptive labels that tell something of the object's history (if known) and some information about its manufacture and the materials used are provided for each object.



The Art Gallery of Western Australia appear to be opening their doors to a broader audience. The Gallery has extended their opening hours on a Friday night, visitors are invited to take photographs (no flash of course), a range of events have been held in conjunction with the exhibition, the children's program with an enormous crawl in palace and puppet show is delightful and the blog on their website is both lively and engaging. Despite these efforts, and perhaps because it was late on the Friday evening, I didn't feel engaged with the exhibition- there was no contextual information about the objects on display, no map of Europe to help understand the political geography of the region and no information about how these incredible objects were made (admittedly this could have been provided in the audio tour which I didn't take). None of the liveliness of the blog was present in the gallery spaces, the only staff were uniformed security staff clearly more interested in the imminent weekend's activities than the exhibition or the visitors.

Despite this, visitors were finding ways to build their own engagement, tell their own stories and provide further context to the exhibition. I overheard one visitor explaining to her friend in great detail the process of producing a sword with a nielloed surface. Another visitor was so enthralled by a pair of 1800 pointy pink shoes with polka dots that she called out to her friend "you must see these, they are SOOO you!!". Interestingly, these same shoes feature in Miss Hijabi's blog. All this left me wondering- do we need the contextual information? Can people just do it for themselves?

Extraordinary Stories

The next day I visited the British Museum's exhibition Extraordinary Stories from the British Museum at the WA Museum. Like Princely Treasures, Extraordinary Stories focuses on significant objects with interpretive labels. In this case the objects are from a range of Commonwealth countries and time periods (1.8 million years BCE to 2011 CE), mostly drawing on the British Museum's collection with several key items from the WA Museum. A short text panel at the entrance to the exhibition sums up the intent of the exhibition "Some of the most important stories are not those told by gold and silver, but through wood and stone. All of these objects have unique tales to tell." Even though this exhibition used a similar approach to Princely Treasures, the experience was quite different. The focus was on drawing out the story behind each object, at many points the label text invited the visitor to think further, admitted uncertainty and made connections with other objects in the exhibition.  

One of the first objects in the exhibition is a handaxe from Tanzania. The label is titled "Is this the World's most successful technology?" it invites the visitor to hold their hand up in front of the object and asks "Is it a coincidence that this ancient tool is roughly the shape of a hand?" The label goes on to explain how a handaxe is made and points out that handaxes have been made in the same manner for over a million years (whilst metal objects have only been made for 7,000 years).

Cone Shell beads, Exmouth area WA

Nearby, a set of cone shell beads from Exmouth WA (in the WA Museum's collection) dated to 30,000 BCE are identified as being the "oldest examples of human adornment in Australia", a link is made to a necklace from Kiribati, also in the exhibition. The label then asks "But 32,000 years ago were they merely a form of personal adornment? Or were they an indication of status, or the wearer having passed a formal stage of growth to adulthood?". I was particularly entranced by the objects that told stories of trade, mysterious items that turned up worlds away from where they'd been created. One such item was The Asante ewer, a bronze jug made for King Richard II of England between 1390 and 1399 that 500 years later was owned by the King of Asante, West Africa where it sat under a sacred tree in royal palace in Ghana, 1896. Another fascinating item was a drum that entered the British Museum's collection soon after opening in 1753. The drum came from what was at the time the Colony of Virginia (contemporary USA) and had been thought to be a native American drum. Further research has since revealed that it is an African drum from Ghana that would have been brought to Virginia on a slave ship.  

To provide further information, a series of touch screens are positioned around the exhibition where the exhibition's curator (British Museum's Head of Research, Jeremy Hill) talks personally and with great enthusiasm about some of the objects. An interview with Jeremy on local Perth radio station RTR gives a sense of his engaging delivery style.  

As well as engaging with audiences, the exhibition has drawn in many Perth locals who have volunteered as guides for the exhibition. Rather than running tours of the exhibition, numerous volunteer guides are positioned throughout the exhibition space acting as both storytellers and low key security. The guides are extremely well informed and very keen to share their knowledge about the exhibition. I myself prefer to look at exhibitions on my own and the guides were in no way pushy, nor did they intrude on my viewing of the exhibition. In conversation with one of the guides, he spoke with great delight about curator Jeremy Hill who came out to Perth prior to the opening and spent a week showing the guides through the exhibition, giving lectures on aspects of the exhibition and generally involving the guides in the final phase of the exhibition's realisation. 

 I suspect that it is this process that has led to such enthusiasm with the guides who are clearly delighted to be associated with the exhibition and keen to share its stories with visitors. Exhibition experiences are by their nature a personal thing, but for me, the emphasis on stories so prominent in Extraordinary Stories was an unexpected delight and has given me numerous stories to pass onto others following my visit.

Wooden Shield, Kaipel Ka PNG 1980s

Jandamarra Crossing Helicopter, Alwin Reamillo & Roseline Eaton Fitzroy Crossing WA, 2003

Throne of weapons, Cristovao Canhavato (Kester) Mozambique 2001

Snettisham great Torc, 150-75 BCE found England 1950 CE