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PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
THE HANDS-ON MUSEUM: TRANSITION PERIODS.
Team Members
Principal Investigator
Co-Researcher
In the early museums of the eighteenth century, visitors often handled the artefacts on
display. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, such tactile practices were no longer allowed
within public museums. Thus, in 1844 the art writer Anna Jameson observed that, while people
now behaved themselves within collection settings, everyone could remember the days when
gallery-goers strutted about "touching the ornaments - and even the pictures!" (Jameson, 1844:
34-35).
The first component of the present research program will examine the crucial period of
transition in the sensory life of the museum when exhibits went from being "hands-on" to
being "hands-off". This transition period encompassed the first half of the nineteenth century.
Key issues to be explored include the extent to which practical factors, such as increases in
visitor numbers, influenced this shift, and the extent to which it was affected by cultural factors,
such as a decline in the perceived value of touch as a means of appreciating collections, or the
use of museums as sites for instructing the public in new social norms of decorous and
disciplined behaviour. The institutions which provide the main research focus of this part of the
research program are the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the British Museum in London, the
Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, and the Louvre in Paris. All of these museums have early
origins, functioned during the critical period of transition, and remain open today.
The second part of the project consists of an anthropological investigation of the re-entry
of touch into the contemporary museum. In recent years a number of mainstream museums have
tried to engage the sense of touch through interactive events, touch screens and handling
sessions. This development provides a vital opportunity for first-hand observation of a
historically significant shift within museum practices in the present day. Issues to be considered
here include the nature of the tactile activities provided, the target groups, the factors influencing
the development of the new hands-on museum and visitor responses. The primary museums to
be studied are the British Museum and the Horniman Museum in London, the Hunterian
Museum in Glasgow, the Musée du quai Branly in Paris, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto
and the Musée de la Civilisation in Quebec. All of these museums combine historical and
ethnographic collections with interactive programs engaging the sense of touch.
This groundbreaking research program will both provide essential information about
crucial periods of transition in the social and sensory history of the museum and contribute to the
emergent fields of the History and the Anthropology of the Senses. The research will be of value
to historians and social scientists as well as to curators and educators working at museums, and
designers interested in modes of collection display and in the role of touch in design. More
generally, it can contribute to the enhancement of the public's experience of museum
environments by providing essential background information to display practices and by
encouraging the creation of exhibits which engage the senses in meaningful ways.
Acknowledgments
The Hands-On Museum project is funded by a generous grant from the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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