Gallery Games and Mash-ups: The Lessons of History for Activity-based Teaching

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe recent popularity of museum mash-ups exemplifies fatigue, if not dissatisfaction with “traditional” conversation, discussion, and dialogue-based interpretation that has become standard for many art museum educators. This article looks back at the late 1960s and early 1970s when a similar dissatisfaction with standard approaches resulted in a number of experimental programs using approaches emphasizing movement, the senses, and feeling. Such programs as Arts Awareness at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Susan Sollins’ gallery games at the National Collection of Fine Arts in Washington, DC, left to the field a legacy of experiential, activity-based teaching. Probably every contemporary museum educator has created gallery activities as part of their own practice, variously labeled as games, activities, events, and experiences. But as the programs of the 70s taught us, good feeling is not enough. In order to build solid programs and pedagogy on the foundation of improvisation and experimentation we still need a theory of activities in the museum. What are museum education activities, what are they for, how are they generated, and how are they to be judged?