In The Participatory Museum and in her TED Talk, Nina Simon addresses several shortcomings of museums that were brought up during our class discussion in pretty creative/effective (in my opinion) ways. The traditional art museum tends to convey a dominant narrative through the pieces and corresponding explanation it displays, insinuating that the average museumgoer has to be “cultured” in a certain way to “understand” the piece’s intent. I remember visiting a local contemporary gallery and seeing a solid black canvas on display. What could this possibly mean: nighttime serenity? Earth collapsing into an inevitable heat death? Nah it was actually supposed to be a critique of the American Dream of home ownership. I’m not trying to devalue abstract contemporary art, but more so criticize how the interaction between myself and the artwork felt so one-sided.

Simon’s idea of the participatory museum changes the game completely — by encouraging the museumgoer to contribute to the exhibit, the museum encourages a two way exchange not only between the museumgoer and the exhibit, but also between the museumgoer and other museumgoers. Simon has shown that encouraging this participation isn’t always straightforward. However it might’ve been cool if the black canvas exhibit somehow validated my ideas of nighttime serenity/heat death not to replace the original artist’s intent, but perhaps as something in conjunction to it. I loved Simon’s idea of transforming the traditional museum into a community space, which makes me wonder about how adapting a more community centered model might benefit the classroom and education in general.