The latest edition of Museum Connectionsthe trade show for the tourism and cultural experience of tomorrow, took place on March 30 and 31, 2022 at Paris Expo. Over 19 conferences were held, as well as numerous pre-show online events: 8 meet-ups, 1 webinar and 4 conferences. {CORRESPONDANCES DIGITALES]In collaboration with Museum Connections, we take a look back at 3 major trends in innovation, sustainable development and accessibility that were discussed at the show.
This article is dedicated to the accessibility of cultural venues and the engagement of their audiences: what are the barriers faced by their audiences? What can be done to better welcome them in all their diversity? How can we get them to participate in and contribute to a venue’s strategic projects?
The recent definition adopted by ICOM in Prague this summer affirms and encourages a more social and societal role for museums (see Elisabeth Gravil’s excellent analysis of this definition and the questions it raises). This ambition is already at work in many institutions, which are opening up and committing themselves to forging links with a wider range of audiences, both within and beyond their walls. These links can sometimes be created (for the most remote audiences), enriched or developed by new forms of contribution to open up and engage a cultural venue towards society in all its plurality. Closely linked to this new definition of museums, this article looks at the various levers that heritage institutions can use to become more involved and accessible to their audiences.
1. Become more accessible: open up your walls.
According to a study carried out by the French Ministry of Culture in July 2022, 43% of French people claim to have visited a museum or exhibition in 2019 (only 22% between September and December 2021). This overall figure does not, however, demonstrate the variety of these visits in terms of seasonality (concentration of visits in the summer period), their modalities (many museums welcome school audiences) or the venues visited(only 6 museums in France welcome more than a million visitors a year). In addition to these initial observations, there’s a hard fact: 67% of French people had not been to a museum in 2019, and 78% in the last few months of 2021. There are therefore many barriers to approaching any cultural venue. These barriers can be physical, social or educational.
Some physical barriers and possible levers.
As far as physical barriers are concerned, they may simply be linked to the location of a cultural venue (and, therefore, to its geographical access). The building in which the museum is located and its scenography also contribute to making access more complex.
During the conference ” Le lieu culturel en bon voisin : Défis et bonnes pratiques” held at the last edition of Museum Connections, Cécile Dumoulin, Head of Cultural Development and Audiences at Mucem, shared a particularly inspiring project to reach out to the museum’s most remote audiences: Operation “Destination Mucem“. For many people in Marseilles, coming to the museum is a challenge: over 1? hours of transport for the most remote, with 2 changes and buses that don’t run on Sundays. This geographical distance is compounded by multiple socio-economic divides, accentuated by the health crisis. In spring 2021, to meet these challenges, the museum has decided to put a collection bus into circulation in Marseille’s outlying districts. Every Sunday, the bus will travel to 22 different neighborhoods on 4 routes to pick up the most remote visitors. The “Destination Mucem” operation not only provides physical transport, but also mediation prior to and during the journey, as well as in the museum (to which local residents have free access). Over and above the scheme itself, the stakes in terms of outreach and communication are huge, and the museum teams, with the support of 3 young people on a civic service scheme, are in regular contact with associations, shopkeepers, social landlords, schools and colleges, and so on.
In the same spirit as “Destination Mucem”, similar projects have been implemented, which are particularly involving for museum teams. Cathelijne Denekamp, Accessibility/Inclusion Manager at the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), spoke at one of the show’s conferences: Getting involved with senior citizens. To break the isolation felt by the elderly, a 3-month program has been set up for them to take 3 2-hour tours of the famous museum. This outing is an opportunity to take part in creative and artistic activities, chat and enjoy a cup of coffee, all of which create a real sense of conviviality. This active public policy towards the elderly also manifested itself during the health crisis, when all employees were asked to write a letter every 15 days about a work of art in the museum that had made an impression on them. These letters were then sent to over 1,000 senior citizens in the Netherlands, helping to reduce their isolation during this period. The Rijksmuseum has decided to actively mobilize its teams to help reduce geographical remoteness and improve reception in a building that is complex to navigate, by promoting awareness, appropriation and even empathy towards the most disadvantaged members of the public when it comes to physically visiting a museum. Each year, the museum’s staff are invited to take part in a one-hour tour of the museum in a disabled situation (wheelchair, blurred vision, etc.). The museum is therefore implementing an ambitious HR policy to overcome the spatial and building constraints faced by many cultural venues, and the challenges facing these audiences are becoming ever more pressing: as a reminder, over 20% of the population of the European Union will be over 70 by 2045 (currently 13%)…
Faced with such barriers, it’s sometimes necessary to go beyond the walls to reach the most disadvantaged members of the public. This is the case of the experiment mentioned by Florence Brachet Champsaur at the same conference on seniors. Implemented in 2021 by SNCF’s heritage and patronage department, in close collaboration with the heritage incubator (Centre des monuments nationaux), virtual reality start-up, Lumeen, filmed the route of the yellow train near Perpignan in 360°. The immersive video of this century-old Occitan train was then broadcast to residents of EHPAD and nursing homes to take them on a journey. With the help of a mediator, 5 to 6 residents can collectively discover an 8 to 10-minute “immobile journey” video, adapted to their physical condition and providing an opportunity to share their memories or stimulate their memory faculties.
There are many ways in which heritage and museum sites can reduce such physical barriers, both within and beyond their walls. These responses can be infrastructural (with the introduction of transport solutions), human (through the implementation of an ambitious HR policy) or technological. In addition to physical borders, there are also psychological, social and even societal constraints. In response to these, many cultural venues are developing initiatives to reach out to their local audiences.
Social and educational barriers and possible levers.
Social and educational barriers are particularly numerous. Despite considerable efforts to offer free admission to the most vulnerable members of the public, museum entrance fees have risen by an average of 40% over the last ten years. In addition to price, there are many psychological and social barriers to entry, which heritage site teams strive to overcome with great ingenuity.
The opportunity to renovate a heritage site or a visitor trail is particularly crucial for promoting access to the widest possible audience. This was the subject of Sonia Solicari , Director of the Museum of the Home in London, at the last edition of Museum Connections. Between 2017 and 2021, the museum’s architecture has been thoroughly overhauled to revisit the role of this venue and make it more vibrant. Located in London’s Shoreditch district, torn between great diversity and gentrification, the museum has a role to play in addressing these tensions. New spaces have been created to open up the museum to the neighborhood and host festivals, events and rentals. A pub has been renovated and reopened with direct access to encourage sociability and exchange. The historic 17th-century gardens have also been restored to host numerous educational projects with local schools and families. Programming has been rethought, and the museum has launched a fund-raising campaign to finance a short-term shelter for homeless women in the area. In addition to the restructuring of the premises, a range of actions are carried out on a daily basis to engage the Museum of the home with a diversity of audiences.
Among the levers essential to the accessibility of a venue, reception is of prime importance, but so is support (the pricing policy for access is, consequently, fundamental). With this in mind, in the same conference as Cécile Dumoulin (Mucem), Cécile Rives, administrator of the Conciergerie, described how she supported a change in pricing policy at the heritage site she manages, to facilitate access to a digital mediation tool: the histopad. With 60% of visitors to the Conciergerie coming from outside France, the health crisis has particularly changed the sociology of the site’s visitors. With this in mind, and bearing in mind that the histopad was particularly popular with local visitors (with a take-up rate of 5-7%, it was twice as high for local visitors), CMN decided to change the operating model for this mediation tool, in order to universalize its distribution. The histopad is now offered as part of the admission ticket: free for 40% of the public (in particular, the under-26s) and with a slight increase for paying visitors (in order to offer it to everyone).
Beyond the pricing approach, approaches in terms of mediation can be particularly varied. Lélia DECOURT, head of the cultural mediation department at Nice’s Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMAC), alongside Cécile Rives, is a case in point. In the wake of the health crisis, this municipal museum, which used to welcome some 140,000 visitors a year, 60% of whom were international, reoriented its policy towards more local audiences. A summer program (Mon été au MAMAC) has been developed, and a new offer for school groups has been proposed. A more inclusive policy, in partnership with local associations and municipal services, has been implemented for senior citizens and disabled visitors, as well as for students, who are largely absent from the museum (such as Arty Party, an artistic event linked to the works, or Remixe ta culture, a participative scheme in partnership with the Université Côte d’Azur). The participative dimension has become an integral part of the museum’s activities, and is increasingly deployed in more participative co-design logics, with the creation of user committees from September 2021 to accompany the museum’s renovation.
Museums use a wide variety of levers to enhance their appeal and accessibility to local audiences. A renovation of a museum space is an opportunity to rethink the museum’s reception policy, and programming can be redefined to cater for local audiences in all their uniqueness, while ensuring that the various activities are affordable for all. Scenography, cultural programming and pricing policies are all variables that can be modulated to appeal to a wider range of audiences. Reflecting on these different barriers and levers is also an opportunity to encourage more participative and engaging approaches, in order to better grasp the needs and expectations of these different audiences.
2. Get involved: involve certain audiences in this opening.
To achieve these ambitious opening policies, cultural venues sometimes need to call on their own audiences to better identify their needs, expectations or obstacles to visiting. Different strategies can be implemented, either as part of a specific mediation project, or, from a more institutional point of view, by integrating audience representatives into museum governance and decision-making.
Contribute to a project to experiment and adapt it to the uses and practices of the public.
Within the framework of a mediation project, co-design logics are almost induced by the often user-oriented methodological approaches that prevail in this field. Audiences can be mobilized to create dedicated tours, workshops, and on- or off-site mediation schemes. Audiences can be mobilized at all stages of a project, whether upstream to design the framework, during development as part of iterative experimentation, or downstream to evaluate a project.
Many museums and cultural venues have taken this approach. One example is the MACVAL, which has invited its allophone public (whose native language is not French) to participate in the design of a multilingual audio guide with audiovisual. Another example, mentioned in a previous article, is the Musée de Pont Aven, which organized an exhibition co-created with its visitors.
The Musée d’Ixelles is another example. The museum has implemented a particularly innovative program: Le musée comme chez soi. This program makes works from the museum available to private individuals for a weekend, so that they can provide mediation. After such initiatives, the museum naturally set up user committees to support its renovation campaign (the museum is due to reopen in 2024). At the end of September, we organized an online meet-up to review the various projects undertaken by the Musée d’Ixelles and the Musée Nationale de la Marine (see below). HERE.
These different types of participation nestle in a diversity of subjects that can even transform the governance of institutions to induce more collaboration with their publics.
Implement a participatory or co-governance policy
To remain firmly rooted in their local communities, some institutions are developing or even institutionalizing participatory approaches. This is the case of the Musée de Bretagne, whose scientific and cultural project includes a statutory commitment to more shared governance with the public.
Other institutions have set up bodies to facilitate the regular mobilization of the public at different points in the life of the establishment: as a prelude to the opening or as part of the renovation of a tour route or a building, to test a program, an exhibition or a mediation system. The Musée National de la Marine, for example, has set up user committees for the renovation of its Paris site. These committees, to be set up in 2021 and 2022, were made up of partners from the social, educational and disability fields: representatives of charitable and social integration associations, medical and social structures, educators and teachers, etc. These various user representatives were brought together to test and evaluate the digital and audiovisual devices, media (e.g. teachers’ files) or mediation activities made available to visitor groups. Their feedback was then prioritized and shared with the various service providers in charge of the museographic redesign. In the long term, these user committees will enrich a permanent public observatory, which will enable the museum to better monitor its accessibility, thanks to the establishment of such bodies, as well as a set of indicators.
The sources of inspiration for implementing a more inclusive and accessible public policy are particularly varied: the introduction of transport solutions, the commitment of teams to inclusion programs, the design of dedicated mediation systems, the modulation of pricing policies, etc. This societal openness can also lead to strong structural and institutional changes to better integrate the different voices of the public. This societal openness can also induce strong structural and institutional changes to better integrate the different voices of the public. Depending on the establishment’s strategic orientations, these changes may be envisaged on an opportunistic basis, or as part of an ambitious, coordinated repositioning. Whatever the case, in order to move from meritorious actions to strategies with real impact, the commitment of a cultural venue’s teams and audiences at all levels (human, organizational, financial, technological) seems particularly crucial to asserting the place of museums in society loud and clear.
Antoine ROLAND
