New Model for Access & Complete Engagement - Response

A New Model for Access in the Museum by Carmen Papalia

Complete Engagement: Embodied Response in Art Museum Education by Olga M. Hubard

- Response -

In the readings listed above, I found that as I read, I was reflecting on and thinking about my experiences with museums and galleries.  For the most part, I would have to agree with Carmen Papalia on her words about the lack of accessibility museums have.  Much like Papalia, I should confide that there are some museums and galleries that tackle accessibility and promote a positive experience for patrons of the museum.  I must say, that I believe the “successfulness” of a museum is vested in the experience given to visitors of the museum.  If a museum has socially engaging and thought provoking material, coupled with a looser atmosphere where people can be more interactive with the work, (responding viscerally to it, and any way they choose to do so, within reason) then those people will leave with new perceptions and understand things differently from what they “see”.  I think Papalia’s “blind tours” are exceptionally interesting in that they change the mentality of people participating and show their reliance on visual cues; I think that everyone should have an experience like this.  

Could museums be more accessible in this aspect and others to all individuals?  Yes.  Just how to do that is up to the discretion of individual museum coordinators.  

Much like Papalia’s words, Olga Hubard’s writing on the wholeness of a body and it’s experiences in learning go along with the notion of learning more from bodily experiences than just visual cues and sources.  As Descartes said, “Learners are whole beings, creatures that make sense of the world through bodily sensations and feelings as well as through rational processes” (Hubard 47).  I think that the definition of the human experience is to learn with entirety and wholeheartedness.  If we are entirely present and active in our education and life experiences, we will change and adapt in positive ways for sure. Again, as Hubard said, “When students use their bodies to ‘become’ a building they gain an intimate sense of the makeup of a structure” (Hubard 50).  We learn best through doing.  We get excited about new experiences, and those are the things we remember most.  If that can be implemented into the criteria for more museums and galleries, more people will leave feeling satisfied with their visit.