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Museums as Battlefields in the History Wars

This is the title of the guest post I’ve just written for the Museum 2.0 blog by Nina Simon. I’ve long been a fan of the blog and it’s exciting to be able to make my own small contribution to it.

The blog post is part of a series called the Blueprint book club – a series of reactions to the book Blueprint, the story of the Dutch Museum of National History. This project to build a new national museum was cancelled in 2011, and this book is a way of recording the plans and vision of the project from its inception to its demise. My take draws parallels between the Dutch museum’s fate and the slightly shaky early history of the National Museum of Australia.

There will be more instalments by other guest contributors over the coming days and weeks. So why not have a read and contribute?

 

 

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Behind the scenes

OK so I’m feeling a little guilty.

Somewhere along the way I got it into my head that for a blog to look “active”, it should be updated at least 3-4 times a month. And so I try to have something new to post here at least every 7-10 days. But here I am, over two weeks since I last posted anything. I even have a couple of things to write about up my sleeve. I just haven’t had the time to put it all together.

But since it’s because I’ve been so busy working on some really interesting things, why don’t quickly I tell you about that?

  • I’ve started data collection for my PhD. Finally! Largely thanks to the power of social media, I’ve managed to recruit a good population of volunteers – more than I actually need – which is a relief as I thought that part of it would be a bit of an uphill slog. I meet these volunteers at the SA Museum, and we go around the galleries together as they tell me what they think of everything we’re looking at. I then transcribe and analyse the audio recording of the visit. It’s pretty painstaking stuff – the recordings can be tricky to follow due to the inevitable background noise, and I’m finding it’s taking about an hour to transcribe 10 minutes worth of visit. Given that I’m spending, on average, about an hour on the exhibition floor with each of my volunteers, I have my work cut out for me! But it’s also fascinating, following a visit as it unfolds at snail’s pace – you get a chance to notice things on a whole different level that you didn’t pick up on while following the visit in ‘real-time’.
  • Planning for the Museums Australia conference is intensifying. I’ve been on the committee of the SA Branch of Museums Australia for a few years now, and last week I was elected as SA Branch President. Given we are hosting the national conference this year, there is a lot to sort out! We’re just in the process of going through all the abstracts that were submitted so we can flesh out the program. It’s a really strong batch of proposals and it’s unfortunate that not all of them will be able to make the cut.
  • I’m working on some interesting interpretive projects. There are a few things in the pipeline on this front. It’s a little early to go into details, but it’s been good to have the opportunity to do some creative work with both new and existing colleagues and clients.

So watch this space: normal visitor experience insights will resume shortly. . .

Something for my British colleagues, fans of Life on Mars, or both . ..

 

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Audiences: a vicious cycle?

Are our audiences our audiences because that’s who we think our audiences are?

Let me explain. Say our audience appears to be from a particular demographic. So we tend to target that demographic in the way we position ourselves. In so doing, we create the impression that what we have to offer is primarily of interest to that particular demographic. Thus (surprise, surprise!) that is the demographic that primarily visits. But by setting ourselves up as being for a particular demographic in the first place, who are we excluding? Are we narrowing our appeal instead of broadening it?

Is there a circular logic to the way we see or audiences?

My thinking was first triggered by this article, which contends that by predominantly targeting families with kids aged 8-12, science museums are limiting their appeal to adults (this has a lot of implications for science and society, but I won’t cover that here – read the article!). Parents will say that they don’t go to the science centre anymore because their children have ‘outgrown’ it. Is it possible to ‘outgrow’ science? Can you imagine anyone saying that about an art museum?

Since then I’ve had similar conversations about other types of cultural heritage sites. If we make too many assumptions about who our audiences are, are we sending the message that we don’t have anything to offer anyone else?

It’s a tricky balance: saying you’re for “everyone” is too much like saying you’re for no-one in particular. But conversely, it would be prudent to challenge the assumptions we have about who our audiences are, and think more about who they could be.

 

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PhD FAQs

A few weeks ago I completed the “Confirmation of Candidature” milestone of my PhD.

At my university at least, confirmation happens roughly one year into your candidature and is the first major litmus test of your PhD. Basically, when you pass your confirmation milestone you’ve managed to demonstrate to your Department that your proposed research is of sufficient scope, originality and feasibility to be “PhD-worthy”. After clearing this hurdle you can go forth into the world and start collecting your data (subject to ethics clearance of course – which I received earlier this week). So this seems to be as good a time as any to describe a bit about what I will be doing during my PhD and why.

What’s your PhD on?

My draft thesis title is “Design Factors in the Museum Visitor Experience”.  I’m interested in how visitors perceive different kinds of exhibition environments, and how this may influence what they notice, what they do, and how they describe their experiences. In a nutshell, does the exhibition environment make a difference, and if so, how?

How are you going to study this?

I’m taking what’s called a “sequential mixed-methods” approach. This means I’m using both qualitative and quantitative approaches to data collection, with each stage informing the next round of research. There are three main stages to my research:

  1. To start off, I’ll be accompanying a small number of people (about 20 I reckon) as they visit a range of different exhibition spaces. I’ll be asking them to “think aloud” their visit, telling me what they see, what they notice, what they think and feel about it and what attracts or repels them. This will all be audio recorded, as will a subsequent ‘debrief’ interview where we talk about and compare and contrast the different exhibition environments we visited. I’ll use the audio transcripts to identify key themes, patterns and commonalities in the way people describe exhibition environments.
  2. Based on these key themes, patterns and commonalities, I’ll design and refine a questionnaire to try to quantify these perceptual qualities. As part of the analysis I’ll apply a statistical technique called factor analysis to see what the important underlying factors are in the way people perceive exhibition environments.
  3. The final stage will be relating how visitors perceive the environment to how visitors respond to it, by measuring their behavioural, affective and cognitive responses. I’ll do this by combining the questionnaire I developed in the second stage with existing survey instruments for measuring visitor experience. I’ll also observe visitors and ‘code’ their behaviour to help me analyse the patterns. I’ll then use a statistical technique called path analysis to quantify the relationships between environment, affect, cognition and behaviour.

That’s the plan anyway. I’m sure things will evolve as my research progresses.

What made you decide to approach it that way?

The theory and methods I’ll be using have their roots in environmental psychology, which is the study of the interplay between people and their environment (in this context “environment” means any physical setting, built or natural). Environmental psychology has informed a lot of museum visitor studies, including the work of venerable researchers such as Stephen Bitgood, John Falk, and David Uzzell. So I feel I’m working within a strong academic tradition.

I’m also interested in applying some of the theories and techniques that have been developed in the study of retail environments, a field of study that can be considered to fall under the heading of “atmospherics”. Developed by Philip Kotler back in 1974, atmospherics contends that the (retail) environment influences consumer behaviour, and that this happens in fairly predictable ways. Kotler’s paper spawned a whole tranche of research in the marketing and retail spheres, which is now starting to find its way back to the museums sphere, at least from a marketing perspective (1, 2). My choice of methods is inspired by particular approaches that have been used in the study of retail environments (3, 4) that I think will also be applicable to museums.

Why are you studying this?

I spent several years planning museum and exhibition environments in collaboration with many talented and creative people. But because of the nature of the work at hand, we often never really had the chance to see our creations in action; test the assumptions upon which our designs were based. I want to see how much of our intuition was correct, and also see where we might have done things based on false assumptions. I’m hoping my findings will eventually improve the way we design exhibition environments.

Who are you studying with?

I’m studying through the School of Tourism at the University of Queensland, being supervised by Jan Packer and Roy Ballantyne. I was keen to work with Jan and Roy as they have a great reputation and strong publication record in visitor studies. And as luck would have it, they seemed happy enough to take me on (I have yet to ask them if they regret this decision . . . )

As I have firm roots in Adelaide, moving to Brisbane (a two-hour flight away) to be on campus was not an option. But I’ve been lucky to secure some desk space closer to home, at the South Australian Museum. This will be my principal study site.

So how is it all going? Have you finished your thesis yet?

This question is probably the most infuriating one for a PhD student to hear. By way of analogy, it’s a bit like asking the Colorado River “how’s that canyon thing you’re making going?” And from the outside, PhD research can seem positively geological in the timeframes involved. A lot may be happening, but it’s at a slow and deliberate pace – this means that months can go by without any tangibly new progress to report.

So over the next couple of years at least it will be a long chipping away at my research problem – collecting data, analysing it, refining my hypotheses, collecting more data, doing more analysis, rinse & repeat. Of course, during this period I hope to have preliminary findings that I can publish as papers or present at conferences. But a whole thesis is quite a while away yet.

In short, please don’t ask me this until AT LEAST early 2014.

There is obviously a lot more to my proposed research than I can cover in a mere blog post. But if you have any questions or comments, please get in touch – challenges and critiques are all part of it . . .

UPDATE: This research proposal was recently featured in April edition of the Museum Education Monitor. Online version available here.

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USA here I come . . .

The flights are booked and I’m off in about three months’ time. But given how quickly this year is flying by, it will be upon me before I know it I’m sure.

So what brings me to the US? Well I was fortunate enough to receive a student scholarship to attend the Visitor Studies Association conference in Raleigh, NC from July 24-28. And it seemed like a long way to go for just a few days, so I thought it would be a good idea to stay a bit longer and see some of the sights – museum-related sights in particular of course!

So between the end of the VSA conference and August 10, I will be making my way up to New York where I’m meeting my return flight back to Australia. So 12 days to cover some 500 miles, according to Google maps:

So far I have no fixed plans for this study tour besides the start and finish of my journey. Rather than the hassle of short-hop flights, I’m hoping to travel by train, making it feasible to stop at a few places along the way. I’ve been to Washington D.C. before, but it was only a short visit and I only had time to visit one museum (the Air and Space museum as it turns out). So much more to see there. And it will be my first time to New York City – so excited!

So over to you – what are the must-see museums in Washington, New York or elsewhere that I should try to fit in my itinerary? Are there any hidden treasures en route I should know about? Please add your suggestions in the comments below.

Also, any hints and tips for travelling on a budget in these parts would be most welcome too . . .

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Interpretive Signs of Kangaroo Island

Following our visit to the Flinders Ranges (see previous post), we recharged our batteries for a few days in Adelaide before heading down to Kangaroo Island. K.I. (as we South Australians call it) is renowned for its wildlife and interesting landscapes. Interestingly, even though we were a few hundred kilometres and several hours’ drive away from the Flinders Ranges, both KI and the Flinders are part of the same ancient geological region. But once again, of course, this post will concentrate on the interpretive signage.

Flinders Chase National Park

While this park covers more or less the whole western third of the island, the most popular destinations are Admirals Arch and Remarkable Rocks, both at the south western tip. At the entrance to the National Park, there is a visitor centre which also acts an an entry checkpoint, where you pay your park entrance fee. At first my (UK-based) travelling companions were a little surprised at this, but were satisfied that the money was being well-spent when they arrived at Admirals Arch to find well-maintained boardwalks and viewing platforms. It took plenty of stairs to get down to the arch itself, but even for older visitors this was not too big a problem.

First, notice the positioning of the signs – they were located at the bottom of the boardwalk platforms at an angle, so you could read them as you were taking in the view:

Interpretive sign at base of boardwalk, viewed in profile
View of interpretive sign from boardwalk. Seals are basking on the rocks beyond as the waves crash around them.

I thought this was a good way for the signs to be positioned. As you were looking down from the boardwalks they were in easy sight without being intrusive. However, the sea air is obviously not good for them – as you got further down to the Arch itself, they got increasingly more tatty, and at the bottom of the arch the interpretive sign (whatever it was about) was so degraded as to be just a yellowed and dog-eared blank rectangle.

A sign interpreting the arch structure itself. Notice how this one is showing more signs of wear and tear than the seal identification one.

Around Admiral’s Arch there were a few walking trails, including some that were a bit more of the “off the beaten track” variety. On one of these we encountered some signs about the strategies the local flora use to survive in such a windswept and saline environment:

Sign on the Cape du Couedic walking trail

While walking this trail (ostensibly a loop), I started to get the distinct sense that we were doing it ‘backwards’ compared to the way that the designers intended. One clue was that the order of the interpretive signs seemed to be telling a story in reverse – in itself no big deal. A bigger problem was that we sometimes had trouble picking up the trail among the undergrowth, as the line-of-sight direction arrows of the trail were presumably placed on the assumption that you were heading in the opposite direction and sometimes were obscured from the other way. A lesson to trail designers – make sure your wayfinding and directional signposts work in both directions!

Remarkable Rocks

Still in Flinders Chase National Park, Remarkable Rocks are a short drive from Admirals Arch. (Incidentally, the rock structures were formed by similar geological processes to those which created Uluru [Ayers Rock] – something I picked up from reading the signage.) As well as interpreting the formation and significance of the rock structures, safety is a strong message here.

Signage hut on the way from the car park to Remarkable Rocks
A safety message. The salutary tale here is that you are risking the lives of others, not just your own, if you stray into prohibited areas.
A sign featuring then-and-now photographs, highlighting the continuing erosion of the rocks

Seal Bay

Another stop on our travels was Seal Bay, famous for its colony of sea lions. I don’t have any photographs of the signage here – access to the beach is via guided tour only, and the boardwalks overlooking the beach have signage of identical design to those at Admirals Arch. They must have all been commissioned together. But we did take the guided tour, on which I learned:

  • The difference between seals and sealions: the former are predominantly ocean dwellers; the latter are equally at home on land and on sea.
  • Sealions are related to wolves and bears, so you’d better keep your distance! Especially during the breeding season, it’s essential to keep your distance. This point was made more than once, and I wondered if the analogy to wolves and bears was to reinforce, particularly to international tourists, that these animals are not to be taken lightly.
  • Female Australian sea lions have 18-month pregnancies, with only two weeks off in between. So they are almost constantly pregnant with one pup while nursing another. The long gestation period makes it slow for a population to recover if their numbers are reduced for any reason.
Prospect Hill
Our final stop on the way back to the ferry terminal was Prospect Hill. I’m not sure how many steps it is from the car park to the summit, but it sure is a long way up!
View from Prospect Hill, facing Penneshaw. We climbed up here from the car park at highway level - quite a trek!

Once at the top, there was a lookout with a few signs about the view, the exploration history of the site (apparently Matthew Flinders climbed up in 1802, without the help of the stairs . . .) and the local wildlife to keep an eye out for.

Interpretive sign on Prospect Hill

Another sign (elsewhere on the island) had included diagrams of the different kinds of footprints you may see in the sand, and what animals might have left them. Unfortunately, from this vantage point, all I could see was evidence that the Trainer Wearing Off-trail Tourist (Inconsideratus destructii), had been by recently.

NB: For the benefit of Australian readers, I assure you that the timeliness of this post is completely unintentional. And that no payment has been received 😉

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Interpretive signs of the Flinders Ranges

I’ve just come back from a couple of weeks’ holiday showing visiting relatives some of South Australia’s sights (a good excuse to finally get around to seeing them myself!). Our first trip was to the picturesque Flinders Ranges in the state’s mid north.

While most people take photos of the scenery when they go on holiday, I like to photograph the interpretive signage I see on my travels. So here are some holiday snaps of the interpretive signs of the Flinders Ranges:

Animals in the First Person

On the walk into Wilpena Pound are a series of interpretive signs written from the perspective of the animals of the area, both native and introduced species including goannas, frogs and mountain goats. It’s an interesting way to present messages on conservation and species loss.

Species loss through the eyes of a goanna

Geological Time Travel

A drive along Brachina Gorge is a trip through time between 640 and 520 million years ago, as you drive across 13 km ancient rock sediments that have been folded and eroded over the millennia. There are interpretive signs along the way, as well as large signposts pointing out the different geological types and ages as you drive along. However I’ve only got photos of the signs in a small shelter located at the end of the trail. While these were a little dry and technical in places, the text was broken up into small manageable chunks and subtitles making it easier to get the overall gist. Also, the diagrams were reasonably clear and helpful in placing what you had just seen in a broader geological context:

Diagram showing the trail in context of the geological layers
Another example of the Brachina Gorge signage

Dreaming stories of the landscape

At Stokes Hill Lookout there is a 3-D map of Wilpena Pound (known as Ikara to the indigenous Adnyamathanha people), that offers a good point of orientation to the topographical features of the surrounding landscape.

The topographical map of Wilpena Pound . . .
. . . that lines up perfectly with the landscape beyond.

Also at this lookout were a series of interpretive signs describing the Adnyamathanha stories of the formation of the landscape and how this is reflected in art and oral history.

Dreaming stories sign

Assuming these signs are the same age as the 3D map, they are about 20 years old now (the map had a plaque which was unveiled in 1992), so they have survived the ravages of the outback climate quite well it would seem (the looked like an enamel-coated metal of some kind). However, they did seem to be oddly located in the context of the lookout – the row of signs had their backs facing you when you were standing at the 3D map or looking out across the landscape. I wonder what the rationale of this positioning was?

Old Wilpena Station

By the time we made it to Old Wilpena Station, it was towards the end of a day’s sightseeing, when both daylight and the stamina of my fellow travellers were in short supply. So I only had a chance to have a quick scoot around the Living with Land Interpretive trail about the pastoral history of the Flinders Ranges.

One of the signs on the Living with Land interpretive trail.

I would have liked to have seen more of this trail but it really was a lightning trip. And when I returned to Adelaide I realised that the text of the one sign I photographed didn’t really come out at all . . . but that’s holiday snaps for you.

 

 

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Big stories in small places

Last week I gave a presentation to the Flinders University Archaeology Department, titled “Big Stories in Small Places:reflecting community identity through the interpretation of heritage sites”.

Big stories in small places

View more presentations from ReganForrest.
I drew upon two case studies of past projects: Fort Stanwix National Monument in upstate New York; and West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide. Several years ago I worked on the development of a new exhibition and site interpretation at Fort Stanwix, while my work at West Terrace Cemetery is more recent (and in fact, ongoing).
I chose these two because I thought there would be some interesting parallels – both are in downtown locations, and both can be used as a starting point for wider and more complex narratives. Through Fort Stanwix we can tell the interweaving stories of colonialism and the formation of the American nation; while West Terrace Cemetery acts as a springboard for many stories of South Australia’s colonial period.
As I was going through the case studies, it also reinforced to me that the way we choose to interpret sites such as these inevitably says something about how we see ourselves, and how we want others to see us. How we see ourselves as a community will shape what stories we see fit to tell. But our heritage can also bring us face to face with uncomfortable truths that demand to be told.
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Museums as Social Experiences

(N.B. The following is a section rescued from the cutting room floor of my literature review – I thought I might as well put it to some use . . . )

The Social Visitor Experience

Museum visiting is fundamentally social activity – the co-presence of others is an integral part of the experience, even among visitors in different social groups. As we experience museums, we see and are seen by others, creating a sense of mutual or ‘public visibility’ (Choi, 1999; Jansen, 2008; Macdonald, 2007; Zamani & Peponis, 2010).

The social aspect of museum visiting is a principal motivator for a significant subset of visitors (Falk, Moussouri, & Coulson, 1998; Packer & Ballantyne, 2002), and can be considered a “fundamental source of satisfaction in museum visiting” (McManus, 1988, p. 43). There also appears to be qualitative differences in the learning experiences of social groups as compared to those of lone visitors (Packer & Ballantyne, 2005).

The social context can have an impact on the strategies used for moving through exhibition areas. Social visiting groups such as couples and families periodically separate and reform, guiding one another to areas of interest. In this way visitors participate in a collaborative learning experience (Phipps, 2010). In the case of family groups, McManus likened the family to “a collective hunter-gatherer team actively foraging in the museum . . . their behaviour is practical and economical since the exploration and information-gathering is shared out between family members” (McManus, 1994, p. 91).

Through observations of visitors to the Museum of Jurassic Technology, a site of “labyrinthine layout and bewildering exhibits”, Jansen (2008)  identified five navigational techniques used by groups: tour guiding (where one member of the party takes the role of leading others), conjoining experiences (using physical intimacy to merge perspectives while using exhibits, in particular by couples); leapfrogging (where visitors stay within general proximity but are viewing exhibits separately, occasionally interacting in brief exchanges); scouting (where one visitor strikes ahead to preview upcoming exhibits before returning and reporting to the main group) and flagging (where visitors move in a seemingly uncoordinated way, but will highlight exhibits of particular interest to other members of their party to ensure they do not miss them).

In light of the importance of the social dimension, some researchers have criticised the tendency of curators, designers and researchers to conceive exhibits and the visitor-exhibit relationship in terms of an idealised individual visitor, rather than studying the social dynamics of multiple visitors interacting with exhibits together and influencing each other’s experiences (Heath & vom Lehn, 2004; Macdonald, 2007). Studying social interactions beyond overtly observable behaviours is inherently complex, as a full understanding requires analysis of both behaviour and conversations (and other social interactions) between visitors. It requires detailed and rich data, and thus necessitates the use of either audio or video recording of visitor behaviour (Allen, 2002; Heath & vom Lehn, 2004, 2008; Sanford, 2010). Given the ethical, logistical and practical complexities that the use of recording equipment presents, there are relatively few studies which have used recording data (Allen, 2002; Yalowitz & Bronnenkant, 2009).

However, the use of recording equipment allows the study of the complexity of behaviour and social interactions, the nuances of which are difficult to document by other means. For instance, in a landmark study, McManus used audio recordings taken at exhibits in the British Museum (Natural History) to demonstrate that visitors read exhibit labels to a greater extent than is evident from direct observation – manifesting itself in a phenomenon known as text echo (McManus, 1989).  In a more recent study, the conversations of visitor pairs were studied as they moved through an exhibition at the Exploratorium, using audio recording supported by visitor tracking. The results revealed that learning-related talk took place at 83% of the exhibit elements at which either person stopped. Coding of the conversations into five different categories: perceptual, affective, conceptual, connecting and strategic, revealed that the most common categories of learning talk were perceptual, affective and conceptual (Allen, 2002).

Video recording has also been used to record the visitor-visitor and visitor-exhibit interactions at exhibits incorporating multimedia as well as traditional object displays (Heath & vom Lehn, 2004, 2008). These studies have demonstrated how visitors play an important role in directing and mediating each other’s exhibit experience. However, given the inherent limitations in video data collection in a museum setting (described in Yalowitz & Bronnenkant, 2009), these studies document only small and fleeting aspects of the visitor experience, for instance what happens at a single exhibit interface.

References:

Allen, S. (2002). Looking for learning in visitor talk. In G. Leinhardt, K. Crowley, & K. Knutson (Eds.), Learning Conversations in Museums (pp. 259-303). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Choi, Y. (1999). The morphology of exploration and encounter in museum layouts. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 26, 241-250.

Falk, J. H., Moussouri, T., & Coulson, D. (1998). The Effect of Visitors’ Agendas on Museum Learning. Curator: The Museum Journal, 41(2), 106-120.

Heath, C., & vom Lehn, D. (2004). Configuring Reception: (Dis-)Regarding the “Spectator” in Museums and Galleries. Theory, Culture & Society, 21(6), 43-65. doi:10.1177/0263276404047415

Heath, C., & vom Lehn, D. (2008). Configuring “Interactivity”: Enhancing Engagement in Science Centres and Museums. Social Studies of Science, 38(1), 63-91. doi:10.1177/0306312707084152

Jansen, R. S. (2008). Jurassic technology? Sustaining presumptions of intersubjectivity in a disruptive environment. Theory and Society, 37(2), 127-159. doi:10.1007/s11186-007-9054-9

Macdonald, S. (2007). Interconnecting: museum visiting and exhibition design. CoDesign, 3(1), 149-162. doi:10.1080/15710880701311502

McManus, P. (1988). Good companions: More on the social determination of learning-related behaviour in a science museum. Museum Management and Curatorship, 7(1), 37-44. doi:10.1080/09647778809515102

McManus, P. (1989). Oh, yes they do: How museum visitors read labels and interact with exhibit texts. Curator: The Museum Journal, 32(3), 174-189.

McManus, P. (1994). Families in museums. In R. Miles & L. Zavala (Eds.), Towards the Museum of the Future: New European Perspectives. London.

Packer, J., & Ballantyne, R. (2002). Motivational Factors and the Visitor Experience: A Comparison of Three Sites. Curator: The Museum Journal, 45(3), 183-198.

Packer, J., & Ballantyne, R. (2005). Solitary vs. Shared: Exploring the Social Dimension of Museum Learning. Curator: The Museum Journal, 48(2), 177-192. doi:10.1111/j.2151-6952.2005.tb00165.x

Phipps, M. (2010). Research Trends and Findings From a Decade (1997-2007) of Research on Informal Science Education and Free-Choice Science Learning. Visitor Studies, 13(1), 3-22. doi:10.1080/10645571003618717

Sanford, C. (2010). Evaluating Family Interactions to Inform Exhibit Design: Comparing Three Different Learning Behaviors in a Museum Setting. Visitor Studies, 13(1), 67-89. doi:10.1080/10645571003618782

Yalowitz, S., & Bronnenkant, K. (2009). Timing and Tracking: Unlocking Visitor Behavior. Visitor Studies, 12(1), 47-64. doi:10.1080/10645570902769134

Zamani, P., & Peponis, J. (2010). Co-visibility and pedagogy: innovation and challenge at the High Museum of Art. The Journal of Architecture, 15(6), 853-879. doi:10.1080/13602365.2011.533550

 

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Theatre Review: Sepia

I recently went to see Sepia – the play at the RiAus Science Exchange. Ostensibly, it’s a play about Whyalla’s cuttlefish. But Sepia uses this as a springboard to offer us a window into the tensions and compromises facing many of the communities that are dependent on resources wealth.

It is a play in three parts, told in reverse chronology. As a prelude to the first scene, we are surrounded by the gurgling sound effects of an undersea environment, accompanied by projected images of frolicking cuttlefish. Through the darkness we see a lone figure sitting in a wetsuit, looking wistfully into the distance. . . 

Read the rest of this review on the RiAus blog.