Visitor voices in the museum space: sharing art experiences as a dialogic mode in museum communication

Abstract

Abstract The article takes its point of departure in an experiment conducted at Randers Art Museum, Denmark, in which museum visitors were asked to comment on their experiences with artworks from the museum’s collection. Their comments that were subsequently shared by the museum in the exhibition space. By examining dialogue as a form of participation, the author analyses and discusses how this particular participatory experiment created a dialogical and polyphonic museum experience in which the institutional voice was complemented and even challenged. The article contributes to the field of research on participation by connecting theoretical and practical levels through an experimental methodological approach. It presents concrete recommendations for enhancing visitor-oriented and dialogical strategies in museum communication. Moreover, it demonstrates that the experimental approach can be very useful for both researchers and museum professionals, as long as they reflect on both the limitations and the possibilities of specific experiments like this one.