The article references two main types of approaches to engagement between visitors and museum objects: discursive and immersive. Discursive engagement usually focuses on providing written explanations of a piece or its context to inform the visitor of the object’s meaning and relevance within the greater exhibition. A major pitfall of this approach is that it focuses on communication only in one direction - from the object and the museum to the visitor, but does not provide a mechanism for communication in the other direciton. As such, the museum-goer may understand the object and the narrative provided to the museum, without any sort of connection to their personal narrative. This can be exacerbated if not enough information is provided for visitors to make any connection between the art and their personal experiences.

Museums are often arranged to create physical distance between visitors and objects, with an emphasis on looking at objects rather than touching them, which limits the directness of the engagement that visitors can have with what is on display. Additionally, spaces are often designed to encourage a certain type of movement through museums which can discourage pausing to look at a piece and reflect deeply on its meaning or connection to ones own life.

Reading this chapter made me think a lot more about the constraints of the space and what that means for the depth of engagement a visitor can have with any one piece of artwork. It can take a lot of resources to create an engaging experience with any one object, and in doing so selectively can create a hierarchy of importance for different objects in the same space. While the author here highlights having objects that visitors can touch as a mode of connection between object and individual, there’s a clear trade-off there between interaction and preservation, which is also pointed to in this piece as a major function of museums. I’m not sure I totally agree with the emphasis this author placed on visitors being able to touch objects. I think that the importance of connection between the visitor and the artwork itself is less important than the connection between the visitor and the maker of the art, where the object acts a point of mediation. To me it seems it would be more beneficial to instead have visitors engage in the practices that go into creating the work, to understand the process and connect on a more intimate level with the choices that go into the piece.