MusLi (Museums Literacy) - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

36 MusLi - No qualifications needed: museums and new audiences
case 01
This impacts very much on the museum possibility of effectively communicating and “pushing” the
museum-product amongst audiences (the museum can easily address at least the partners’ workers
and customers).
The museum was founded in 2004 and it rises in a specific area in the outskirts of Turin, once densely
populated with industries, now undergoing a heavy transformation into a residential area. The percentage
of inhabitants from low social layers is still high anyway.
The museum display, strongly interactive and based on hands-on exhibits, corresponds to its educational
mission. It was conceived as an educational tool both for children and adults. Generally it’s open
only for schools during the working days, and for individuals during the week-ends.
The audiences
During the Museums Literacy project lifespan, from November 2009 to March 2010 a survey on museums
audiences was made. The survey allowed to collect precise data about individual visitors visiting
the museum during the week-ends 1 .
The major categories composing the public of individuals, coming during the week-ends are:
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couples, families with children (later in the text, it will be clearly explained the role of children
in attracting families at the museum). This is the biggest segment (more than 75% of visitors
declare to have come and visit the museum with the family).
organised groups.
The percentage of public having a low schooling level is not altogether different from the incidence in
the regional museums’ statistics (in total around 15,5% of the visitors), but it becomes relevant when
considering the age of “over 65”, or even the “over 60”. A good percentage of them has got a low
educational level 2 (round 50%, a percentage much higher than in the regional statistics of museums
audiences where it is 26% for the same age range).
This seems to be the result both of a specific attention to the elders when addressing to families
(see “Communication and promotion strategies” here below) and of the offer of organised tours inside
the museum to groups of elders, mainly through cooperation with the museum’s partners
firms 3 .
The answers to the question “With whom have you come and visit the museum?” reveal a strong propensity
of elders to visit the museum in group or (less commonly) with their families.
1 Total sample: 927 questionnaires. The questionnaires were filled in autonomously by visitors, but the museum guides were ready to help them during the compilation.
Processing of the survey’s data: in May 2010 by Fitzcarraldo Foundation. Four different groups of questionnaires have been analyzed: the total sample of visitors; the
visitors having a low schooling level; the visitors “over 65”; the visitors “over 65” having a low schooling level.
2 In the present analysis for “low schooling level” (l.s.l.) is intended a level corresponding to qualifications obtained at 16-17 years old maximum. The datum includes,
then, vocational qualifications (that can be obtained in Italy at the age of 17).
3 The majority of the elders having visited the museum in group were members/customers of a big Italian cooperative distribution chain, the COOP, that is partner of the
Association running the museum.