‘My voice counts because I’m handsome.’ Democratising the museum: the power of museum participation

Abstract

Participation – where visitors are invited to leave a comment, co-create, or contribute to exhibitions – has been hailed as an opportunity to democratise the museum experience. New qualitative data from on-site and follow up interviews with museum visitors and practitioners at the experimental exhibition Power of 1 at the Museum of Australian Democracy has been used as a case study to determine if the rhetoric of the highly interactive, audience-centred approach of the participatory museum is meeting its aims. This paper argues that participation has the potential to democratise the museum experience for visitors, particularly when a more expansive definition is applied which acknowledges the benefits of participation beyond simply leaving a comment. Participation can provoke conversations and forge connections with real and imagined communities within the museum and beyond; however this potential is hampered by the often unacknowledged undemocratic practices within institutions by professionals who devalue visitor participation and power-sharing in order to uphold traditional museum practices.

Keywords:

• Participation
• democratisation
• relevance
• social inclusion
• community
• politics
• power-sharing
• museum conversations

Notes

1. I am cognisant of the fact that the ‘Power of 1’ is an overly simplistic message, based on liberal humanist assumptions which do not account for the many ways that power is mediated through class, race and gender, for instance, either individually or collectively (Belsey 1985). The exhibition explored generational and historical changes to democratic participation as an entry point to engage visitors and for consistency these themes remain the focus of this study.

2. Visitor interviews, F8/P74, 2015. (F8/P74 refers to the 8th person interviewed for follow-up interviews, and the 74th person interviewed in exit interviews.).

3. M5 refers to the 5th museum professional interviewed for the case study.

4. Visitor interviews, P26, 2015.

5. Visitor interviews, P48, 2015.

6. P26: Female, aged 35–44, engineer, Italian/Burmese Australian. Occupation and ethnicity are self-defined by the visitor.

7. P90: Male, aged 35–44, aged care/disability care, Aussie.

8. F6/P76: Female, aged 35–44, Driver, Middle eastern Australian.

9. F8/P74: Female, aged 16, Driver, Middle Eastern.

10. P48 Female, aged 45–54, lawyer, South African.

11. F2/P63: Female, aged 35–44, public servant, Anglo.

12. P99 Female, aged 18–24, retail, Australian.

13. P142: Male, aged 45–54, doctor, Caucasian.

14. P58: Male, aged 25–34, Student, Australian.

15. P141: Female, aged 25–34, Events producer, German Taiwanese Australian.

16. P142: Male, aged 45–54, doctor, Caucasian.

17. P58: Male, aged 25–34, Student, Australian.

18. P58: Male, aged 25–34, Student, Australian.