UCL Discovery

Abstract

Museums and galleries are challenged today to demonstrate their social relevance, to become more socially inclusive and to provide evidence of their educational value. This demands a greater sensitivity towards actual and potential visitors and, in particular, a better understanding of the ways in which people engage with museums and galleries. Making Meaning in Art Museums 1 is the publication from research which aimed to explore the ways in which visitors to Wolverhampton Art Gallery talked about their experiences, both of the art works that they looked at and of the museum itself. We wanted to find out how visitors made their experiences meaningful to themselves and what interpretive strategies they used to do so. We also wanted to assess, in a preliminary way, whether these meaning-making strategies indicated that the gallery visitors might be considered as an 'interpretive community' and whether this might be similar or different to internal, art museum, interpretive communities. What sets of ideas, ranges of vocabulary, and personal associations did visitors have when discussing paintings? What are the implications for those involved in presenting visual art in museums and galleries? The research is an ethnographic study, using qualitative methods.

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