Redesign an Existing Exhibit

Prompt

Develop an interactive exhibit concept improving on an in-person exhibit you visited, focusing on improving at least THREE elements of the Experiential Framework (shared in the 2nd class). This can be as simple as a picture of the space with a markup of the new design, or taking the existing floorpan and redesigning, repositioning, and re-conceiving the exhibit altogether. Push yourself.

Answer these questions with your design, sticking with the major themes (narratives and artifacts) of the existing exhibit:

• Big Idea Statement - What concept do you want your exhibit to tackle? What narrative do you want to express? What story do you want to tell?

• Exhibit Goals - What do you want people to see, do, learn, or otherwise take away from your exhibit/museum? In what way do you want to inspire your audience? (think about the readings from earlier classes)

• Audience - Who will come to this exhibit? Age group? Locals or tourists? Is this for multiple people or an individual?

• Possible ways to achieve the experience goals through design and execution - Think about the way in which the narrative and experience will be expressed the best way for the audience. This is the HOW - to be considered once you've identified the WHAT and WHO. Think about multiple ways to execute the Big Idea, don't settle on just one tactic on the onset. Stay open to improving the design and execution.

• Does this exhibit support the museum’s mission? - This is your WHY, your rationale gives meaning and value to the museum's goals.

Reflections

Current Elements of the Experiential Framework

After visiting the Merchant House again, I identified the elements of the experiential framework that the museum demonstrated:

The elements I was interested in improving were:

• Static: the museum's presentation is mostly unchanged. Since there isn't any temporary gallery space, any special/temporary exhibitions are integrated into the content of the main displays and remain small in scope. The special exhibition I saw there was the Silk Taffeta Dress that was displayed in Eliza Tredwell's room on a mannequin.

• Contemplative: the self-guided tour experience itself centers around the visitor touring the rooms and then reading about them in the main guidebook; while are a few placards or descriptions posted around particular spaces, but most information is learned from the book.

• Not digital: information is obtained either through listening to the guide or reading from the main guidebook, and there is no other use of digital technology in the museum asides from a few security cameras.

• One-time visits: I felt that the static nature of this museum created an environment not conducive for multiple visits. Not only does the guidebook's content remain the same, but I learned after speaking with a docent, Bill, that the furniture in each room is rarely restaged.

• Ambient: As a historic site, a strong positive characteristic of this museum is that it offers a unique perspective into history since it is itself an artifact from the past.

Trip Reflections

After my visit, I ended up comparing my experience to that offered by the Tenement museum, another successful historic site in Manhattan. I reflected on what made the Tenement Museum so effective - on how interactive and alive history felt through the tour and the personal stories of its residents. The key differences that stuck out were:

• There were not as many personal stories about the Tredwells. Unlike Philip Hone, a former mayor and nearby neighbor of theirs who kept a very detailed diary, none of the families had extensive records; unfortunately, there is so there is not that much known about them their inner lives.

• Visitors are unable to fully explore the spaces and are limited to viewing the rooms at a distance at the Merchant's House Museum. In the Tenement museum, because visitors are supervised by the educator, they are able to get a closer more intimate view of the space and its objects.

Although I only experienced the self-guided tour, I could imagine that the docent-led ones were a bit more exciting since the educators would know what to highlight and how to present their content in an exciting way. I spoke briefly to docents Kathy and Bill during my own self-guided experience, and they really brought the history to life - far more than the guidebook did alone. From my conversations I had with them, I realized that one key thing the guidebook was missing was historical context and what was happening in America and New York during the time; there was a brief introduction to New York and the boom of the merchant class, but otherwise historical context was occasionally mentioned when describing furnishings or social trends.

One of the Merchant's House Museum's biggest strengths is that it is the only intact pre-civil war house in Manhattan and because of its status as such a historic landmark, it can offer the unique insight into life back then; the highlights of the guidebook were when it focused on the daily life and social rituals (such as Lady Eliza's social calls).

Re-Imagined Museum Experience

Initial Thoughts

This museum isn't organized into exhibitions; instead, each room serves as its original purposes, and the guidebook speaks about aspects of life in New York pertaining to the functions of the room. For example in Eliza's room, the book taught about the room's additional roles as a sick room, a birthing room, and a guest room.

Thus when thinking about improving on the experience of the self-guided tour, I realized that a lot of the content the museum has was very strong and interesting, so the point of interest became in how content and information was transmitted. The thoughts driving my thinking were:

• How can I address this static nature of the museum? If its content was more dynamic, would the museum be more enticing for repeat visits?

  • How can technology be used to make the content more dynamic? What if visitors carried around their phones instead of a book?

• How could history be brought to life for the visitors? Since there aren't as many personal stories about the family, how can the information about what life is like in the 1830s be used to enhance the ambience and immersion of the space? Was there a possibility for more interaction?

Summary

Thus when thinking about the improving Merchant's House Museum, here were the changes I became interested in exploring:

• Re-arranging/re-staging the rooms for special exhibitions

• Replacing the physical guidebook with a mobile-friendly online guidebook instead

• Increasing special events

Special Exhibitions: Rearrangement of Rooms

I thought increasing the scope of the special exhibitions encompass the re-staging of some of the home's rooms would help increase the desire for repeat visits. They do this for the special ghost tour that occurs during Halloween, but otherwise their special exhibitions seem to be smaller in scope. Naturally, when the rooms would change, so would the material the visitors would learn about. Not all the rooms would change, so visitors could still see the permanent collection if they wanted. If concern about the objects' was a priority, the museum could limit access to these special exhibitions to a guided tour; that way, visitors would always be supervised.

Mobile-friendly online guidebook

In order to ease the logistics when updating content and reduce paper consumption, I propose a mobile-friendly website digital guidebook instead. While it may seem jarring to older visitors who are unfamiliar with technology, a more typical audio-guide alternative (where visitors just punch in numbers and hear audio descriptions) ideally should be offered instead. Furthermore this website could be accessible and have its content easily featured in different languages.

Special Exhibitions:

Since this guidebook would ultimately be a website, its content can be changed in accordance to a room's special exhibition. In the example of the Fashion in the 1830s Special Exhibition, I envisioned audio and video clips as well as text all corresponding to the different its narrative sections. Furthermore, the website could have additional content that expands on the material in the exhibition; in the previous example, it could be interesting to compare trends in New York in the 1830s to fashion trends in other places around the world and learn about how trends spread and influenced each other.

Permanent Collection

One big feature I'd like this website to have is the inclusion of historical events (both major events in American and world history). For example, I learned from docent Bill that when Seabury Tredwell died and divided his estate up equally for his 8 children, he added a provision that protected his daughters' inheritance from being solely controlled by their husbands upon their marriage. This was surprising to me since I assumed the husband would naturally gain control due to gender roles back then, but was even more surprised to relearn that this attitude was already changing back then; the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 with Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the first women's rights convention to discuss rights and condition of women. If I had never spoken to Bill, I would have never re-learned about the changing attitudes of the time (unfortunately I don't remember that much about American history since school). Including local, national, and global events helps give context to understanding life during this family's time. The appearance of these historical events could be as both an beginning screen during their welcome and introduction to the Merchant's House or as a point to mention during one of the objects or room's narratives.

Additional Content

I also hoped this mobile friendly website could host additional content that could cater to different age groups. For younger students, maybe there could be gamified experiences to entice more excitement. An example could be an I-Spy/Spot the Difference game with anachronistic objects in the rooms. When the Tredwells moved into the house in 1835, certain technologies like the telegram, the Daguerrotype, and the phone hadn't been invented yet. It would be fun to have them (along with other anachronistic objects like an electric-powered object and the American Flag) to be added to digital version of the rooms for users to find and point them out.

For older audiences, there could be a playlist of the previously existing video talks and lectures about certain topics to easily play if visitors wanted to learn more.

Access:

To access this mobile website, there could be two ways to do so: QR code or punch in a code to access the content. Both would require slightly more signage than previously exist in the museum, but hopefully it would be less work than updating the physical guidebook in order to feature dynamic content.

Special Events

A good amount of the content in the Merchant House Museum focuses on social rituals that existed in the 1830s-1860s. I thought it would be really fun to create opportunities for people to experience this, allowing for a more immersive experience. Although there isn't much space apart in the museum, they could run this event externally. It would be a really interest opportunity if they collaborated with the Museum of the City of New York or the N-YHS (who have bigger venues). Furthermore, if they needed performers, they could coordinate with nearby NYU Tisch students who hopefully also benefit from this opportunity. Hopefully these events could charge more than the $10 the other events cost too.