Museums and the Great War
Memory and esthetic : good practices to enhance tourism flows
p. 421-432
Texte intégral
1In the last decades, museums dedicated to the Great War were driven to adopt a series of strategies to cope with an increasingly challenging environment. In response to the evolving cultural policies, the lack of public funds, the need to answer the growing social demands, and to better relate to the territory and its communities, Great War museums are seeking new ways of working. These include the draft of touristic proposals related to the land and the design of more immersive visiting experiences that reach out to a broader catchment area.
2The paper focuses on the development opportunities and organizational impacts that take shape when a historical museum dedicated to the First World War increases its touristic potential by renovating its esthetic and curatorship – for example, working with contemporary artists and designers –, or by enhancing the emotional power of the landscape itself. An exploratory qualitative research was conducted through the in-depth case study of seventeen WWI museums from five different continents, which succeeded in improving their touristic appeal in the last few years.
3Some of the institutions involved in the research are closely related to the territory – among these, the Italian Marmolada Museum, the Vittorio Veneto Museum, and the Emotional World War 1 Museum in Giavera del Montello, the French Mémorial de Verdun, the Slovenian Museum of Caporetto, and the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ieper, Belgium. Another group is composed of museography institutions outside Europe, which experienced the Great War diversely, and are now focusing on different strategies – such as the National World War I Museum of the United States and the Australian War Memorial.
4During the research process, an original approach was used to analyze and interpret the strategies through which museums narrate the Great War, aiming to capture international audiences. To test the validity of the theoretical framework drafted, a comparison was also made with museums that deal with other twentieth-century conflicts – such as the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan, and the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center in Rwanda.
5The study relates to the ongoing discussions about « the new museology », as it is connected to the delicate topic of the memory and the representation of war experiences. Furthermore, it focuses on the development of good participatory practices, capable of increasing the touristic potential without minimizing, underselling, or flattening one of the most dramatic and complex episodes in human history.
Theoretical framework
New social responsibilities and narrative codes for Great War museums
6Over the last century, museums were urged to undertake innovative measures and strategies to respond to a constantly changing environment. To cope with the developing cultural policies1, the scarcity of public funds and to meet the needs of a wider audience used to a fast, fragmented and non-linear way of reading2 museums around the world are today exploring new ways, models and technological functions – facing, in doing so, international and culturally diverse audiences. For a Great War museum, the main challenge is now the search for narrative codes capable of generating experiences rather than transferring information.
7Still, the field in which they have operated over the decades has steadily been evolving, in particular during the last two years – a period that marks a crucial watershed and that has strongly influenced the current museological models linked to history exhibition. Indeed, with the centenary of the First World War, museums have urgently felt the need to revise their narrative tools, as well as the necessity to adapt their ethical and moral sense through which they handle the tragic episode.
8As institutions « at the service of society » (according to the latest update of ICOM Statutes in 2005), museums need to keep up with the evolution of the social structures they should represent. Meeting the needs and expectations of the audience – regarding both cultural and esthetic stimulation –, without losing their original educational function, is a matter of great importance for all museums examined.
9At the same time, from the perspective of new museology, museums have acquired an ever more « democratic » and pro-active role in the construction of collective identity and the co-creation of experiences and contents3. Moreover, they play a key role in the development, production, and transmission of knowledge through new forms, proving capable of adapting to a global context that is undergoing profound transformations.
10The general opinion is that the digital revolution of the 21st century gave rise to a particularly challenging time for museums. A wide range of new phenomena has developed itself, including rapidly changing cognitive structures – especially among young people –, changes in reading styles, and expectations of enjoyment that adhere to the dictates of the « société du spectacle » prophesied by Guy Debord in 19674.
11Still, phenomena such as the technological convergence and the process that, in the broadest sense of the term, may be called « globalization » are profoundly influencing the primary function of museums, as well as its goals, structures, rhetoric and representational practices. Institutional roles and communication strategies are clearly undergoing a process of re-standardisation : it is a change process with a substantial impact on the museums dedicated to the Great War, whose collections mainly consist of military objects, following a museological tradition that has its roots in the Risorgimental period.
12Museums are today more than ever a breeding ground for research : they keep on looking for new museological functions and means that produce signification, creating new arrangements to convey collective meanings. It is an immaterial structure increasingly committed to the challenge of contemporary representations, characterized by fluid narrative codes5. Therefore, exhibition designs must be adequate to audience’s demands.
13Many institutions adopt widening and multilateral improvements of their communication strategies to communicate in a contemporary way, as well as to « communicate the contemporary ». Indeed, they employ non-linear narratives, with a mise en page that renovates the information comprehension – what McKenzie identified as the « anthropological turning point of reading from the computer ».
14Consequently, museums have to face several theoretical and practical problems, regarding both the selection of the materials on display and narrative and curatorial criteria, as well as the identification of linking objects, stimuli, and information that generate making-sense patterns. For many museums dedicated to the First World War, this need is reflected in the re-interpretation of museology and museological collections6, always more focused on the structural rewriting of the framework through which the temporal dimensions of past and present are depicted – an always more important aspect. Moreover, technologies with a « hypertextual » approach are always more employed, guaranteeing a certain amount of content personalization and subjectivization making full use of technological media, and creating immersive and experiential contexts7.
Tourism, development of the territory and reaching for new audiences
15The centenary has also brought to the attention of media and society the need for WWI Museums to put the audience at the center in the sense of the museography offer. In fact, today’s generations have no direct source of knowledge of the 1914-1918 war, as there are no more survivors alive. It becomes necessary for museums to realize strategies able to attract new visitors, reach new audiences, and approach them by using emotional means, facilitating identification when approaching a peculiar subject. Otherwise, passive philological narratives would increase the risk of alienating new users.
16The territory plays a key role in tourism development processes : local museums play an active role in attracting different levels of tourists. One successful example is the In Flanders Fields Museum located in Ieper, a city of 30 000 inhabitants, that guests each year half a million visitors, becoming the most important tourist attractor and opinion leader of the entire land. As a result, museums – among other institutions and organizations – are expected to develop policies and practices that meet multiple commitments. The necessity to be more active and embedded in the social and economic life of the communities has also led to a redefinition of roles and practices, enhancing openness and interaction with broader and more diversified audiences and stakeholders.
17Changes in policies have also affected the availability of public funds, requiring more efficiency and best performances in attracting visitors to contribute actively to tourism promotion. At the same time, the need to be more self-sustaining and less dependent on the decreasing state financial support has prompted museums to diversify funding and revenue sources. The impacts of economic factors associated with changes in public and private sources of funding, together with the opening of museums to the various pressures and effects of consumer markets, are decisive in the formation of a new professional discourse with its visitor-centred, consumer-oriented emphasis8.
18These trends have significantly affected the development of new museum theories and practices toward a greater accessibility, a wider public participation, and a deeper relationship with territories and local communities. However, the centenary increases the expectations of WWI Museums’ contribution to tourism : it has had the great power of focusing the interest on the topic, also involving public administrations of any entity.
Methods
19The subject to be discussed in the article is the result of qualitative research, whose data were collected in different ways. In particular, it was carried out through a cross-system of dyadic interviews and focus groups (for a total of 89,00 data collecting hours), which compared the same issues, problems and « mishaps » that curators and museum managers experienced with tourists.
20Subsequently, a specific action research has been developed to study curatorial and managing processes, confronting the strategies of different museum directors on the most important topics emerged. At first, interviews with museum directors were conducted with an « anecdotal » approach, supplemented by the second round of structured interviews. The anecdotal approach consists of free talks that let the cultural strategies adopted emerge : by using this technique, managers and curators are led to freely problematize around the theme of cultural and touristic strategies in connection to Great War contents. This allows the researcher to build an interpretative-descriptive language, starting directly from the experiences of the key actors involved.
21During the second phase of structured interviews, managers of different museums and firms were asked to analyze in detail the actions and activities linked to the strategical dimensions previously identified through the research framework. This led to reflect on the practical and theoretical issues, the innovations, and the tourism strategies employed, also considering the impacts and goals related to the territory, as well as the improvement of innovation processes and image enhancement.
22The research was conducted during two years of participant observation of various managerial, operational, curatorial and communicational processes of the museums considered. In fact, the interviews are followed by a detailed study of direct experiences of exhibitions, museum galleries, museography paths and cultural activities developed by the museums. The study consists of the observation of cultural event planning processes, the critical analysis of activities and events organization, and the critical study of proxemic, sensorial and experiential key aspects. Besides, many secondary sources were carefully examined, relating in particular to advertising and image.
Field and cases
23An exploratory qualitative research was conducted through the in-depth case study of seventeen museums dedicated to the First World War and belonging to five different continents, which succeeded in improving their touristic appeal in the last few years.
24The cases taken into account were identified, on the one hand, according to the capability of the museums to be storytellers of the war stories of their territories. On the other hand, they were selected by perceived needs to renovate and adapt narrative codes and ethical approaches toward the World War First history, by their orientation toward tourism markets, and by the ability of these museums to recognize themselves as a strategic tool for the development of the land.
25Some of the museums involved in the research are closely related to a territory – among these, the Italian Marmolada Museum, the Vittorio Veneto Museum and the Emotional World War 1 Museum in Giavera del Montello, the French Mémorial de Verdun, the Slovenian Museum of Caporetto, and the In Flanders Field Museum in Ieper, Belgium. Another group is composed of museography institutions outside Europe, which experienced the Great War diversely, and are now focusing on different strategies – such as the National World War I Museum of the United States and the Australian War Memorial.
Findings
26The research underlined the existence of six distinct polarities, through which the World War First Museums of five continents, facing the Centennial, express their need to evolve and naturally develop new strategies for the audience engagement and development.
27These polarities were analyzed, deepened and organized in an original framework. In the following section, the polarities identified are explained one by one. First of all, we will see opposition between managerial and organizational polarities : diversification vs. specialization ; museum as a structure vs. museum as a collector. Then, we will analyze curatorial and esthetic polarities : philological approach vs. sensorial approach ; emphasis on material collections vs. immaterial/digital experience. In the end, we will notice ethical and moral polarities : recreating realistic environments vs. admitting artificiality ; national memory vs. collective/individual memory.
Diversification vs. Specialization
28One of the first critical issues emerging from the interviews is related to the value proposition and global offer of the museums. All the interviewees – museums directors, managers, curators – wonder what formula will ensure a greater tourist attractiveness. Their answers appear to be polarized into two main tensions/solutions.
29On the one hand – greatly detected among outstanding national museums –, the need to diversify services, and to focus on the accessibility for customers with different types of needs, habits, and expectations. « The mission is to offer the broader service that we can. So, we have settled up many different activities : printed and digital archives, stable collections, temporary exhibitions, a library, up to singing rituals and performative elements », affirms Robyn Van Dyk, head of research of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. This was confirmed by Jonathan R. Casey, chief archivist of the World War First National Museum in Kansas City, USA : « The aim is to allow everybody, people from any generation and belonging, to find something interesting in our multiples services, activities and collections ». From this perspective, the service itself becomes the medium of the experience : this strategy aims to provide « different activities and means to offer different experiences », as stated by Édith Desrousseaux de Medrano, commissioner for the renewing of the Mémorial de Verdun in France. « An authentic experience is what the international tourist wants and deserves », she added.
30On the other hand, specialization strategies seem to enhance the smaller museums with less financial resources, which greatly benefited from facing tourism markets through a very focused value proposition. See for example the Emotional World War First Museum in Italy, completely centered on the lives of soldiers and civilians, excluding any political, geographical or national storytelling, or the Marmolada Museum, which leverages the fact of being the only museum in Europe at the height of 3 000 m, and fosters a closer connection with the people who fought and died in the mountains. « If you ask whether we can offer a complete range of services, I say no, we can’t. Still, tourists and citizens are very attracted by our promise : to have a particular emotion-centered experience, looking for familiar memories and connections », says Pierluigi Sanzovo, director of the Emotional Museum.
31This polarity concerns what is known as the « new museology », aimed at « introducing a new philosophy around how museums function and a changed relationship between museums and their societies and communities »9. In this sense, we can clearly see how the Great War museums that are facing a renewal are drawn into two main trends.
Museum as a structure vs. Museum as a collector
32On the one hand, the tendency to « agglomerate » and strengthen their identities as a structure, concentrating all efforts in communicating and promoting the materials stored and collected in the museums (see the example of the Imperial War Museum in London). On the other hand, however, there is also the tendency to consider themselves as natural « starting points » for the discovery of the land, i.e. as « collectors » of the assets and legacies of the territory concerning the events of the conflict, establishing a fluid and permeated relationship with the landscape.
33Once again, the Marmolada Museum and the Emotional Museum in Giavera del Montello adopt the latter strategy. The user experience of the Emotional Museum is designed to be completely merged with the territory : it is perhaps more accurate to say that it is a non-museum, where the contents coincide with the stories of people scattered throughout the area. Nevertheless, even the biggest museums (such as the Mémorial de Verdun) adopt this strategy. In the case of the French Museum, the renovation stressed the centrality of the local landscape through interventions such as the « breaking through » the walls, the creation of transparencies on them, and also the sublimation of the history of the same territory inside the museum. The soil of Verdun becomes the leitmotif of the whole visit, both inside and outside the building, without ever abandoning the user.
34Furthermore, the analysis reveals the existence of an evocative function, especially related to the landscape, which fosters the evocation of the surroundings in the artificial scenes of the museums – a sort of « breaking the fourth wall ». This expedient is often carried out through environmental audio recordings, interactive maps, and video mapping, promoting in some cases an ideal « total installation », which is pervasive, architectural and sensory at the same time.
Philological approach vs. Sensorial approach
35The third polarity focuses on the development opportunities and organizational impacts that take shape when a historical museum dedicated to the First World War decides to increase its touristic potential by renovating its esthetic and curatorship – for example, working with contemporary artists and designers –, or by enhancing the emotional power given by the sensoriality itself. In the logic of market-oriented strategies, it is essential for any museum to reinforce its ability to extensively produce creative content through impressive collections, innovative exhibitions, etc. Some museums adopt a philological approach, as the Caporetto Museum: « The idea is not to be technological or multisensorial. We want to tell the story of a singular battle, the multi-sensoriality must be reached while visiting the trenches and the battlefield, here, we need to collect and coordinate information : museum and territory play, in our case, specific and integrated roles », says Zelico Cimpric, chief curator. Moreover, the In Flanders Fields Museum works very hard on new languages, also promoting contemporary artistic residencies, and providing suggestive sound sensorial representations of the war through audio installations and new technologies. The need to renew the museological proposal to attract more tourists is a recurring issue that emerges from all the interviews with the museum directors.
36Consideration should also be given to the empathic function of sensoriality : the multisensorial stimulation is a form of approaching the human feeling of the past, even through the temperature (as in the Jüdisches Museum in Berlin), or the isolation of the historical « sound footprint ». It is a subtextual function, thanks to which the different sensory stimulations generate diversified under-reading texts starting from the narrative crux of the museums, which tends to be visual.
37It can easily be inferred that, in addition to the tendency to enlarge the exhibition area, there is also a trend toward enhancing the war objects and their expressive potential through synesthetic rendering and technology. An approach that is synonymous with the renewal of the role of the objects in the collections, understanding the artifact as a « bearer of meaning » of the narrative, or as a canvas on which to build multi-sensory stimuli through technological devices. The multi-sensory approach also aims to strengthen the function of memory, which leads to the creation a « mnemonic marker » gifted of an « ancestral power », able to make the memory of a particular museum experience more permanent.
Emphasis on material collections vs. Immaterial/digital experience
38The resemantization of museum collections and the media used to tell the new ones respond to the need to attract new audiences and international crowds, which may benefit from a new kind of narrative : not a « for-captions-narrative », but a « for-images-and-senses-narrative », rich in emotional and digital elements. Some museums are still working on the collection proposal, adopting a broad range of digital solutions, and dematerializing the objects of the collections. Other museums decided to renovate the way of presenting war objects, without compromising their centrality – this is the case of the Battlefield Museum in Vittorio Veneto. The theories about new museology provide a reference horizon for exhibition design practices based on experience and immateriality, also outlining the objectives of these activities through the tension between two poles10. On the one hand, the increase in audience engagement, the need to plan the visits in an even more immersive way by delivering even more intense experiences – which aims to capture the interest of a larger number of visitors, while being able to deepen the contents in a personalized way. On the other hand, the cultural integrity of the proposal, the need to conceive museum exhibitions as physical frameworks that make it possible to represent and interpret both the tangible and intangible heritage, avoiding flattening its richness.
39The use of technology, multimedia, and digital media involves multiple functions within the museums examined. We can start underlining the interactive function, which sees an increase in virtuality, understood as the ability to generate technological interactions between the content and the user – moments in which the visitor becomes the activator of the contents themselves. In response to the increase in daily exposure to virtual mechanisms, there appears to be a tendency toward preselecting information : a function that sees technology as an option for the viewer to preselect information, immediately bringing to his attention what is more interesting to him. See the example of the In Flanders Fields Museum, where the bracelet around the visitor’s wrist interacts with multimedia archives : as he passes, these pick and project in the space the visual and audio contents that reflect the demographic profile and interests of the user.
40There is also a simplifying function, which considers technology as an element capable of providing the key for an immediate experience, offering a non-linear reading in the era of the « convergent culture »11. In addition to this, we can detect a specific function that relates to the representation of intangible processes and historical reconstructions : a reconstructive and contextualizing function that rebuilds the context in a perceptual way.
41However, also a kind of inductive function seems to emerge, which separates the frameworks and often results in the creation of macro-spatial contexts reserved to the « cleansing » of the visitor. For instance, the National World War I Museum in Kansas City created a sort of « Reflection Area », completely dark and provided with multivocal sound stimulations. Still, the study seems to suggest the existence of another empirical reality to be explored : it is a parenthetical function, created to give to visitors the impression of being able to withdraw within a narrative/representative construct, independent from the rest of the show.
Recreating realistic environments vs. Admitting artificiality
42Among the strategies used by the museums interviewed, some seem to focus directly on the production of dramatized historical contents, recreating exhibition environments that are pathetic, emotional and exciting with the promise of being didactic and realistic for the users.
43In contrast, one of the registered trends (as in the case of the Kobarid Museum) is to admit the artificiality in the structure of the museum, seen as a place where the contents are processed, condensed and organized into a narrative that is, by its nature, artificial.
National memory vs. Collective/individual memory
44One of the objectives that all the bigger museums declare as obvious and clear is to put the emphasis on the human dimension of the conflict. However, on a closer inspection, the results are strategically different : in many large museums, the struggle to strengthen the « national memory » still has the upper hand, creating problems for the enhancement of collective and individual memories (for example, the War Memorial in Canberra, where more than 20 000 personal experiences are collected, but still perceived by tourists as part of a uniform national memory).
45On the other hand, smaller museums adopt a deliberate strategy that pushes them to go beyond the narrative of national achievements, focusing instead on the human experience – with excellent results –, thus producing a marker of perceived identity.
46A historical event of worldwide importance such as the Great War inevitably allows different museological and strategic visions, whereas museum design is one of the most critical processes of representation and preservation of the historical memory, able to influence it in many direct and indirect ways.
47In conjunction with the Centennial, museums from all around the world are rethinking their display solutions, collections, and strategies. Despite the different outcomes, their goals have proved to be the same : attracting new audiences, increasing the number of museum offers for users with diverse backgrounds, but without flattening or trivializing the importance of the event. Therefore, the tension between preserving memory and enhancing tourism, which has created great difficulties over the last few decades, seems to be finally taken into consideration and managed through a more balanced approach.
48Regarding the limits of the research, it will be important for future investigations to increase both the size and the richness of the data. Methodologically, it will be valuable to interview a larger number of museum managers and coordinators to collect more nuanced interpretations of the same phenomena and polarities.
Notes de bas de page
1 HESMONDHALGH, David, « Cultural Industries and Cultural Policies », International Journal of cultural policies, January 2005, p. 1-13.
2 VAN MENSCH, Peter, History and culture of museums, Reinwardt Academie press, Amsterdam, 2003.
3 TAMMA, Michele, « Diritti culturali, patrimonializzazione, sostenibilità » in VECCO, Marilena, and ZAGATO, Lauso, Citizens of Europe. Culture e Diritti, Venezia, Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, vol. 3, p. 479-495.
4 DEBORD, Guy, La Société du Spectacle, Paris, Buchet/Chastel, 1967.
5 NIELSEN, Jane K., « Transformations in the Postmodern Museum », Museological Review, Issue 19, 2014.
6 SCHULZE, Mario, « Things are Changing: Museums and the Material Turn », Museological Review, Issue 18, 2013.
7 GADSBY, Jennifer, « The Effect of Encouraging Emotional Value in Museum Experiences », Museological Review, Issue 15, 2012.
8 ROSS, Max, « Interpreting the new museology », Museum and society, 2004, p. 86.
9 MCCALL, Vikky, and GRAY, Clive, « Museums and the “new museology” : theory, practice and organisational change », Museum Management and Curatorship, 29-1, 2014, p. 19.
10 MORENO, Yasmin Jalil, SANTAGATA, Walter and TABASSUM, Arif, Material Cultural Heritage, Cultural Diversity, and Sustainable Development, ACEI, 13th International Conference on Cultural Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Economics, Chicago, Illinois USA, June 3, 4 & 5, 2004.
11 JENKINS, Henry, Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide, New York and London, New York University Press, 2006.
Auteur
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Chiara Isadora Artico
Experte en arts corporatifs et industriels et ancienne chercheuse à l’Université Ca’ Foscari de Venise. Diplômée en économie et en gestion des arts et de la culture, elle a fondé la Current Corporate dont elle est aujourd’hui la directrice.
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