Design and Museum Interpretation: Contemporary Characterisitics and Practice.

In recent years there has been growing interest amongst artists, curators, designers, and educationalists in developing new multimedia artefacts and novel assemblies designed to enhance engagement with collections in museums. Initiatives in this field arise by virtue of a commitment to enhancing interpretation of collections and creating new opportunities for engagement, visitor participation and learning. They also afford occasions for practitioners to generate and address design problems in unique and idiosyncratic ways by examining collections and their situated environs as well as curatorial and visitor needs.

As a designer/researcher working in this field I aim to show through distinct examples, two prominent forms of interpretation, and identify a third having a particular resonance with my own practice.

Interpretive artistic
Interpretive responses to collections including: Phillip Eglin’s ceramic interrogation of medieval woodcarvings at the V&A (2001), and most recently, Grayson Perry’s Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at the British Museum (2011).

Interpretive didactic
Ranging from audio guides, labelling and more complex interventions These initiatives have a limited set of outcomes for the participant. Examples include: the X-Ray Exhibit and the Grid Exhibit for Tate Britain’s Constable the Great Landscapes (2006)

Interpretive situational
The conflation of artistic and didactic interpretation, the artist/designer in this case pays particular attention to the situational aesthetic sensitivities of the design employed, and to an educational/curatorial agenda. Examples include; The Virtual Cameo (2008) interactive at the Wedgwood Museum, Staffordshire, an elegant exercise in informal learning. Interactive Worktable and Escritoire, Dr. Johnson’s House, London (2009). And The Enlightened Eye, Liskeard & District Museum. (2014).