Museum musing

One year of school, when I was about ten, I had a fairly lazy teacher, and a bright set of classmates. The combination meant that we went on school excursions to the Australian Museum six times that year. I think we must have exhausted the Australian museum’s available school excursion kits.

I was left with a lasting dislike of traditional museums – the objects that had meaning to someone when they were collected, with closewritten explanatory text that rely on you already knowing something about the subject.

So when the National Museum of Australia opened (back in 2001), “devoted to the stories of Australia and Australians, exploring the key issues, events and people that have shaped and influenced our nation”, I was really looking forward to visiting. They say on their website that the ”museum doesn’t look like a museum and it doesn’t feel like a museum. It uses state-of-the-art technology and hands-on interactive exhibitions.”

Yesterday, we took Chatterboy and Hungryboy for a visit. Clearly, the philosophy has been to replace the iconic object with an interactive experience that tells you something about Australia. And I’m all for that. I think the problem lies in the execution.  I didn’t find it a particularly interactive or compelling experience. There were a lot of fairly static displays, which didn’t encourage me, at least, to stop and read and play and interact.

It’s not necessarily a fair test, taking two small boys to a museum, and expecting an adult experience. And it’s pretty demanding to do a critical review, based on that experience, but it’s the only way I experience a museum these days. 

I’m probably more of a museum visitor than most; I’m a member of the Australian Maritime Museum, and the Powerhouse Museum. I’ve been to the Australian Museum this year twice.  On the same trip to Canberra we also visited Questacon (more traditionally known as the National Science and Technology Centre).

Thinking about what I like about all those museums, it is, actually, the “use of state-of-the-art technology and interactive exhibitions. It’s also looking in depth at particular subjects with a set of ever-changing exhibits, and using stories from individuals to tell a story. The occasional iconic object doesn’t hurt - but they have to be pretty amazing to sustain the experience (The Rosetta Stone, for example). These are all things that the National Museum of Australia is holding itself out to do, but other museums do it better.

My favourite all around museum in Australia turns out to be the Australian Maritime Museum. It does have objects to tell a story - one that I always have to stop and imagine is the small Vietnamese fishing boat Tu Do which sailed to Australia from Vietnam in 1977 carrying 31 people. But more importantly, it has a great mix of regular and new exhibitions which are genuinely interactive. The story of Australia’s maritime history is a fascinating one – intermingled with the story of Australia.  Interestingly, they had a recent exhibition - about Surf Life Saving in Australia. I was disappointed with it at the time, and then discovered today that it was developed by the National Museum of Australia. It didn’t live up to the Australian Maritime Museum’s usual high standard.

The National Museum of Australia came in for a huge amount of criticism when it opened – mostly from critics who didn’t like its focus on a nuanced view of the history of Australia, particularly Aboriginal Australia. But a bit of the criticism came from the people who didn’t like its post modern nature. Given the criticism, I was expecting to really enjoy my visit. And I was disappointed. But I really think that the problem doesn’t lie in the strategy, just the execution – it could be so much better.