Australia Yearbook - 2001

Chapter 12—Culture and recreation 545
sometimes incorporates a more open-ended
vision of the role of the museum in learning and a
less mechanistic vision of the visitor. Visitors are
now often understood to take an active role in
interpreting the material of exhibitions, bringing
to the museum attitudes, ideas and expectations,
and knowledge, through which they construct
responses to museum programs. 27 The
development of ‘front-end evaluation’ in which
ideas and prototypes for exhibitions are
introduced to potential audiences to gauge
interest, expectations and existing knowledge,
has facilitated the emergence of ‘audience
advocates’ in museums. These staff work to
ensure that a vision of the visitor is at the centre
of any museum development. The museum’s role
in learning is more frequently, or at least ideally,
understood not as a technology for the
transmission of information, but as a facilitator for
stimulating inquiry and discovery over the long
term. These understandings of visitors and of
learning tend often to sit at odds with the needs
of museum administrators to demonstrate
measurable behavioural outcomes from
exhibition visits.
The growth in visitor research, and the factors
driving it, have resulted in Australian museums
becoming increasingly ‘visitor focused’. A century
ago, museums were concerned to distance
themselves from the excitements and pleasures
of ‘entertainments’. At the close of the twentieth
century, museums’ interest in attracting increased
numbers of visitors, and especially visitors
uncomfortable with the sober display techniques
of traditional museums, has led museums to
reintroduce techniques more often associated
with entertainment than education. The use of
multimedia and computer technology, stronger
reliance on narrative, and different aesthetics of
colour and sound, indicate museums’ attempts to
move closer to the styles of popular culture.
Australian museums now attempt to integrate
their traditional pedagogic function with the
concept of visitors having fun, being moved, and
feeling excited.
Conclusion
In March 2001, the National Museum of Australia
will open its new exhibition showcase in Canberra
as part of Australia’s celebrations of its centenary
of Federation. Opening almost two hundred years
after museums were founded in Australia, the
National Museum will encapsulate in some ways
much of that history. The Museum will focus on
Aboriginal history and culture, Australian
history since European settlement in
Australia, and the continent’s environmental
history, integrating these three themes to tell
the ‘stories of Australia’. The National
Museum claims some of the nineteenth
century heritage of Australian museums,
drawing on the ethnological collections of
the Australian Institute of Anatomy which it
acquired in the 1980s, but weaving these into
contemporary stories about the continuity
and experiences of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander cultures and peoples.
Incorporating some of the earliest
government collections of historical artefacts,
the Museum will follow developments since
the 1980s to explore the social history of
Australia’s people. And regarding Australia’s
environment in a new way, the National
Museum will examine the continent’s natural
history in the context of how people from
many different backgrounds have forged
connections on and with the land, and how
the land has shaped Australians’ diverse
experiences.
Consciousness of the ‘visitor’ sits at the heart
of the National Museum. The institution
seeks to reach out and speak to all
Australians, bringing a sense of the diversity
of Australian society and history to all its
exhibitions. The Museum’s programs are
designed to be as accessible as possible,
attempting to incorporate even audiences
distant from the physical exhibitions through
technologies such as broadcast and
computer media. Information about visitors,
their interests and attitudes, have informed
exhibition development, influencing the
Museum’s character and aesthetic. The
Museum, remains, however, acutely aware of
its role as an institution for public education,
seeking to disseminate information about the
forces which shaped Australia historically and
as it is today, and taking seriously its mandate
to encourage visitors to reflect on their role
within the Australian nation. Like all of
Australia’s contemporary museums, the
National Museum of Australia will be
required to both educate and entertain, to
reach and be relevant to all sectors of
Australian society while also maintaining an
intellectual rigour in its programs and
providing an accessible experience for
international tourists. Ongoing investigation
of its actual and potential audiences,
assessments of their experiences in the