PhD project: Basic exhibitions
PhD project: Basic exhibitions – in a squeeze between the authorities’ museum policy guidelines, different user groups and the growth of research.
Popular science presentation: Basic exhibitions – in the squeeze between the authorities’ museum policy guidelines, different user groups and the growth of research
Basic exhibitions are most often staged in connection with the opening of a museum. They change little over time, often become outdated academically, no longer satisfy museum policy guidelines set by the authorities. The reason a basic exhibition stays for a long time is because it is expensive to replace it, and dissemination and collection managers take a long time to create new basic exhibitions.
In the project, I will investigate how we can change a basic exhibition according to three museum policy guidelines from the museum report 2021–2022.
- The museum should focus on a dissemination that is adapted to diversity. Here I would like to discuss universal design, which is one of the categories of diversity, and which is also an important priority area in the Government’s action plan for 2021–2025.
- Requirements for dissemination via digital platforms. Here I will look at the digital protype, cited simulations, which have been developed at the Lofoten Museum in Kabelvåg and the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo. I will discuss whether the digital solution may be suitable for disseminating recent research and satisfying the requirements for universally designed dissemination at the Lofotr Viking Museum.
- A dissemination that highlights coastal history. I have limited coastal history periodically and geographically to include Vestvågøy in the Early Iron Age/Early Middle Ages, respectively.
Lofotr Vikingmuseum at Borg in Lofoten has a basic exhibition that is 11 years old. In the project, I propose how we can change this basic exhibition by using the three museum policy guidelines, updating the academic content and examining the museum’s user group and their needs. Using the Lofotr Viking Museum as a case study in the project gives me the opportunity to discuss basic exhibitions at a research level. It’s not just the Lofotr Viking Museum that is struggling with this problem – outdated basic exhibitions. Here it is possible to make suggestions that can also be used at several other Norwegian museums.