Re-imagining museums through the ninth art: five comic books as case studies

ABSTRACT

This work attempts to approach the image that museum institutions disseminate among their potential public through the resource of the comic. It also tries to show how this 21^st-century image surpasses the characteristics granted to museums in postmodernity. The idea of a museum capable of creating a public or a transformative visiting experience is not as unidirectional as one might suppose. This work takes the nine concepts of museology suggested by Mara Jiménez Blanco, professor in the UCM, as theoretical categories. These concepts result from an original synthesis of the history of internationally renowned institutions. This study shows how all these concepts appear to a greater or lesser extent using mass media such as comics or comic strips. Different methodological approaches and techniques have been used for this purpose. The results obtained have implications both for museums and for their public. For the former, by encouraging reflection on their public image. For the latter, the presentation of the museum in a different language that combines imagination and history, two elements that are part of the co-creation of the tourist experience at cultural heritage sites.

KEYWORDS:

• Musée du Louvre
• British museum
• Museo del Prado
• BD
• manga
• imaginary museum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Recently, in August 2022, the definition of museum has been expanded. To access the new definition: https://icom.museum/en/resources/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/

2. Louvre museum: https://bit.ly/3sM5frm and El Prado: https://bit.ly/3Pyy4RZ

3. Link to the synopsis of the five adventures.

https://bit.ly/3wuXLdv

https://bit.ly/3FGsGHT

https://bit.ly/3sA2R6N

https://bit.ly/3N7Yo38

https://bit.ly/37LPs4C

4. The notion of captive audiences is used by several authors to define the profiles of an organisation’s usual audiences: schoolchildren, university students, seniors, etc.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Diolinda Ramírez-Gutiérrez

Diolinda Ramírez-Gutiérrez is PDH candidate in social science at the Universidad de la Laguna. She holds a M.D. in Cultural Heritage Management and B.A. of Philosophy. She leads the project “La Museologa inocente” in social network. She had carried out research stays and articles in the international framework on the following topics; museums, tourists’ experiences, cultural heritage, etc.