Haley Stodart

Professor McCleary and Dr. Gordon Jones

Exhibits at Museums/Historical Sites
11 November 2020
Best Practices for a Museum Exhibition
While there are various adjectives that could describe an exhibit, the one that I feel fits

best after this semester is: an experience. Large amounts of time, energy, decisions, and actions

go into these experiences, which—as simplified by John Summers—becomes “a place where the

visitors meet the stuff.”1 This “stuff” can be objects, images, interactives, content, or even

people. Combined together, this stuff should evoke additional conversation, emotional

connections, and possible change. The best way to create such an evoking experience is through

organization, proper engagement, and respectfully addressing hard topics.

When it comes to organizing an exhibit, the first thing every team should work through is

a concept statement. This is the big idea. It “inform[s] almost every aspect of your project…

[and] should be on the table at every meeting.”2 The beautiful whiskey derived from a field of

knowledgeable corn, the concept statement becomes the guiding force throughout the exhibit and

ensures that content and intention is consistent and organized. This statement should be thought

up by a diverse and inclusive group of people. Curators do not always know what is most

interesting or best to display; individuals from education, design, marketing, and the highlighted

community need to be present when making decisions. Beliefs and understanding will differ with

each individual who enters an exhibit; in order to engage with a diverse audience, exhibit content

—focused around the concept statement—should foster proper inclusion and understanding. The

inclusionary aspect means having “equitable distribution of historical recognition, inclusion in

1
John Summers, Creating Exhibits that Engage, (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 3.
2
John Summers, Creating Exhibits that Engage, (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 31.
dominant national identities, and the guarantee of civil and human rights.”3 This ensures not only

the possibility of bringing as many people into the exhibit as possible, but creates emotional

connection and heightened engagement, as diverse groups of visitors can see themselves in the

story that is being represented.

This engagement is essential to a museum experience as well. However, fostering

engagement between objects and visitors can often be difficult. According to Summers, “The

more you know about a given subject, the harder it can be to communicate, because the more

you know, the further away you are from the audience with which you need to communicate.”4

Visitors arrive with varying degrees of understanding on what is being displayed. In order for the

visitor to connect with the exhibit, the exhibit team needs to create a social space surrounding

new or unknown objects.5 To make objects social, we need to “design interpretative tools and

platforms that enhance the sociability of pre-existing objects across the collection.”6 The goal of

this design is to spark interest, encourage further engagement, and allow strangers to connect

with the new content and each other.7 This can be done in several ways: ask questions, create

provocative presentations, display objects in a juxtaposition, offer engaging interactives, provide

clear instructions, create live interpretations, and/or—most importantly—write appropriate label

copies.

Label copies are the most common form of exhibit content presentation. They are used to

provide information, give directions, highlight objects, and even encourage interactive/social

engagements. Creating a good label copy can be taxing, and there are things to keep in mind

3
Elena Gonzales, Exhibitions for Social Justice (New York: Routledge, 2019), 2.
4
John Summers, Creating Exhibits that Engage, (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 13.
5
Nina Simon, The Participatory Museum, (Santa Cruz, California: Museum 20, 2010), 128.
6
Nina Simon, The Participatory Museum, (Santa Cruz, California: Museum 20, 2010), 133.
7
Nina Simon, The Participatory Museum, (Santa Cruz, California: Museum 20, 2010), 138.
when dealing with diverse audiences. First of all, labels should be kept short. The shorter the

label, the more chance of people reading it. Second of all, to ensure the message gets across to all

visitors—regardless of their level of education, experience, and comprehension— “select the

content and style that will work for the commonest common denominator.”8 Labels should be

written around a sixth-grade level. This does not need to be the end-all-be-all, and certain

complexity can go into a label, but it cannot become so complex that the text is beyond

comprehension for the large portion of the audience. Exhibit teams must also keep in mind that

“Information, as such, is not interpretation.”9 So often labels are used as simply something that

provides further details on a piece (who, what, when, or where), but a label copy also has to

present the why. Why is this object or knowledge being presented in this exhibit? Why is it

important to the overall story or big idea?

Furthermore, the words that we use have power and influence, so be we must be careful

when choosing the content that fills labels. Even using words that assign gender to all (mankind)

or imply emotion (menacing vs. magnificent) can limit a visitor’s own interpretation or

connection. Summers makes the crucial point that “Museum exhibits are curated through choices

about what to include and what to exclude, so they are by their very nature neither neutral nor

encyclopedic. Effectiveness and inclusiveness are more important goals for exhibit text than

neutrality.”10 Instead of striving for a false neutrality, it is “more important to watch for

unintended biases and implicit points of view.”11 Exhibits must take a side, because failing to do

so, and using words without regard to their implication, can make the experience ineffective or

even offensive to the audience.

8
Beverly Serrell, Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 87.
9
Beverly Serrell, Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 21.
10
John Summers, Creating Exhibits that Engage, (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 65.
11
John Summers, Creating Exhibits that Engage, (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 66.
 This is most imperative when discussing recent histories, narratives, or actions. Curators

and exhibit teams may find it easier to explore things in the distant past, as they “often avoid

many of the more contested aspects of historical interpretation because of the public’s lack of a

direct or personal connection to that history.”12 Talking of the U.S. internment camps in WWII

may be easier to process for the audience than the ICE detention camps happening today. The

detention camps are present, affecting current lives, and a contested issue amongst the American

people. Addressing such topics could create conflict between visitors and the museum, but

“despite the difficulties and uncertainties that accompany work in the field of contemporary

history, presenting these often difficult and murky issues to the public is one of a museum’s most

important obligations.”13 It is the museum industry’s job and responsibility to create a respectful

space of open discussion and engagement surrounding such contested topics.

To create a meaningful and impactful exhibit experience, the practices listed above are

essential. There are other important factors—such as object choice and preservation, proper

design and marketing, and fabrication—that are needed to complete the whole picture. However,

without proper organization, engagement, and historical recognition, the audience will miss the

intended purpose. Exhibit—and museums at large—must choose a stance, organize and construct

ideas in an inclusive manner, and create an engaging experience that leaves the audience

searching for more and making change.

12
William Yeingst and Lonnie G. Bunch, “Curating the Recent Past:  The Woolworth Lunch Counter,
Greensboro, North Carolina,” from Exhibiting Dilemmas:  Issues of Representation at the Smithsonian, ed. by
Amy Henderson and Adrienne L. Kaeppler (Smithsonian Institution Press: 1997).
13
William Yeingst and Lonnie G. Bunch, “Curating the Recent Past: The Woolworth Lunch Counter, Greensboro,
North Carolina,” from Exhibiting Dilemmas: Issues of Representation at the Smithsonian, ed. by Amy Henderson
and Adrienne L. Kaeppler (Smithsonian Institution Press: 1997).
Bibliography
Gonzales, Elena. Exhibitions for Social Justice. New York: Routledge, 2019.
https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=nlebk&AN=2203711&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Serrell, Beverly. Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2015.
Simon, Nina. The Participatory Museum. Santa Cruz, California: Museum 20, 2010.
Summers, John. Creating Exhibits that Engage. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield,
2018.
Yeingst, William and Lonnie G. Bunch. “Curating the Recent Past: The Woolworth Lunch
Counter, Greensboro, North Carolina,” from Exhibiting Dilemmas: Issues of
Representation at the Smithsonian. Ed. by Amy Henderson and Adrienne L. Kaeppler.
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997.