The Museum of Me

I want to work in the perfect museum. And I’m telling you, this museum would be perfect! Everything exactly the way I want it. Man, wouldn’t that be the perfect museum?

Well, perfect for me maybe. But what about the 299 million other Americans? Why would I be so brash as to assume my perfect museum would also be theirs? If I build it, would people actually come? And if they do, would they come back?

This type of logic happens all the time in the museum field. See, I was listening to an NPR piece the other day about virtual museums. And each “curator” spoke about their particular obsession, be it skateboard park IDs, antique mousetraps, toothpicks, or whatever. When asked why they chose to share their particular obsession, each response was the same: “I just think they’re wonderful.” One gentleman in particular went off about skate park IDs, desperately trying to impart upon the reporter why skate park IDs is the most supremely wonderful thing ever.

The weird thing is, people like this talk about their particular obsession with such devotion, such passion. I can’t understand it. Part of me thinks they’re subconsciously justifying the countless hours a week they spend on their particular obsession. Another wonders if they find their obsession lonely, and are desperately looking for a compatriot. But I also hear a desperation laced in their devotion. It’s as if they’re saying, “What do you mean you don’t like toothpicks?!? They’re the most supremely wonderful things EVER!”

I used to work with an obsessed curator. Every exhibition meeting he shared his ideas on what we should exhibit, and they were always collections that he had a particular fondness for. Victorian postcards. Silver. China. And every time, I had to be a wet blanket. What theme would we use? What the message should the visitor get? Why do you assume our visitors would enjoy the collection as much as you? It was quite frustrating.

See, museums shouldn’t exhibit what they want to because they can. It’s about the audience. What do your visitors want to see? What do people who aren’t yet visitors want to see? How do you connect with the people in your community? These are much harder questions to answer. But those who try often succeed. And by connecting to an audience, they build that audience. They become ingrained in their community. And with that comes new revenue, the potential to reach newer audiences, and ensures your long term health and stability.

But it’s really easy not to care. To just concentrate on what I like, what makes me happy. To throw the proverbial spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks. The museum of me would, in my eyes, be the best museum ever.

You know what, though? I enjoy connecting with my audience too much. Whether I’m showing antique mouse traps or toothpicks, turning a collection into a message and connecting that message with the visitor is why I got into this field in the first place. So my perfect museum, the museum of me, wouldn’t really be about me at all. It would be about you.