Complexity_in_Museum_Exhibition_Design

prevalence of edutainment and infotainment in museum exhibitions (Preziosi, 2006), with design
as ‘interface’ or the mediation of interaction, can be considered as an extra layer of complexity to
the already complex system of representation in museal world. The designed features, such as
push buttons, enable the audiences with a participatory and affective experience (Henning, 2007).
Although the use of design components in the form of physical/computer interactives and
multimedia applications (sound, video, and projection) helps achieve educational and entertaining
purposes, it also provides a predetermined discourse for the subject matter. Each design
component/technique – appropriated by the exhibition creators (curatorial staff and designers) to
represent – is not ‘a neutral medium through which, transparently, a message passes unaltered
from sender to receiver. It is itself a participant in the creation of meaning’ (Brett, 1996, p. 61).
These various technologies of representation thus have a formative power over the presented
content (Brett, 1996). They can influence the accuracy of information and/or the conveyance of
interpretation, and therefore impact the audiences’ interpretation. Consequently, the
communication with the aid of design can become overly contrived.
This paper addresses both the complexity of issues and phenomena in design as well as the
complex approaches developed in their response. The complexity in museum exhibition design, on
one hand, is a result of the subjective nature of the contents on display and the potential for
multiple layers of interpretations. On the other hand, a different level of complexity arises from the
semiotic process of exhibition design – an interdisciplinary, intricate approach developed to
showcase/communicate the complicated subject matter in an engaging and democratic fashion.
To help set framework for this paper, it is important to clarify the terms and conditions of the three
key elements of the research site: museum exhibition, culture, and design. One way of looking at
how these three are related is to refer to Donald Preziosi’s (1998) chapter in his book The Art of
Art History, in which he states ‘Museum, in short, established exemplary models for ‘reading’
objects as traces, representations, reflections, or surrogates of individuals, groups, nations, and
races and of their ‘histories’’ (p. 509). The term museum exhibition used in this essay is considered
as communicative means to convey interpretations of culture (message) through various
techniques of presenting objects and other contents. The use of the term culture is kept to a
general sense of the aspects of people, ethnicity, countries and societies and of their histories. As
for the term design, it implies a means of construction that helps materialize the interpretation in
the form of representation, what Preziosi refers to as the ‘exemplary models for reading’. However,
the term design goes beyond its physical attributes in museum exhibitions; it also implies
communication. According to Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary (2003), the etymology of the
word design shows its original meaning as ‘to outline, to indicate, or to mean’.
Furthermore, Preziosi (1998) describes an exhibition as a ‘practice of composition and narration
creating a reality through prefabricated materials and vocabularies…’ (p. 512). From this notion
two components involved in any museum exhibition can be derived, one being design and the
other being narrative. Design, as a medium to construct and/or communicate, involving
arrangement and careful organization of things to stand for something larger, implies an act of
interpretation. The narrative or storyline, as a means to deliver the subject matter, creates
coherence for the interpretation of various fragmentary contents (Ernst, 2000; Geertz, 1973).
To examine the complexity in museum exhibition design, this paper takes into consideration two
main types of exhibition: narrative and object oriented. The two types employ their artefacts
differently. Narrative-oriented exhibitions focus on telling stories using the objects to corroborate
the representation/interpretation; object-oriented exhibitions depend more on the collections of
objects to be the highlight and therefore tell their own stories (Edson & Dean, 1996).
The function of design in museum exhibitions has expanded beyond a technique of rendering truth
and cultural differences in ‘objective’ form (Mitchell, 2004). This is because ‘we inhabit a world
where virtually anything can be contained in a museum, and where virtually anything can
convincingly (or not) serve as a museum’ (Preziosi, 2006, p. 69). It entails materializing the
curatorial interpretation, enlivening the audience experience, and promoting learning in the
museum for diverse audiences. Design thus plays a direct, if not largely influential, role in
communicating the message within the exhibitionary system of cultural signification.