Across the country, museum exhibits tell thousands of stories about America’s past. While large institutions such as the National Museum of American History, Colonial Williamsburg, and Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art garner the lion’s share of this audience, smaller entities like the Onondaga Historical Association and the California Afro-American Museum also present historically significant exhibitions. These organizations do not merely display objects from the past, but rather use these objects to connect with visitors and reveal the many ways that individuals and communities are shaped by their interactions with history.
The unique characteristics and challenges of museum exhibitions make them an important and valuable medium for communicating historical research. Exhibits combine scholarly research with a diverse range of interpretive techniques including text, dioramas, maps, and interactive devices to convey complex ideas in a compelling and accessible manner. The creation of exhibitions requires a wide variety of management and interpersonal skills, knowledge of material culture, a sense of visual literacy, and an understanding of the complexities of historical research.
While the intellectual foundations of an exhibition are driven by scholarly research, historians often overlook the importance of conveying their work effectively to museum audiences. Because exhibitions are so ephemeral, review is crucial for making sure that the intellectual underpinnings of an exhibition survive beyond its opening. Reviews help ensure that historical presentations continue to advance scholarship by promoting the work of museum curators and providing an opportunity for academic scholars to learn from and critique their peers.
Unlike books, exhibitions are designed to engage the eyes as well as the mind. They seek to tell human stories that contextualize dense research in a meaningful way, while also complicating and expanding the limits of knowledge. In the process, they can help museum audiences understand that history is not just a set of facts but a living and changing process of interpretation and reinterpretation.
While scholarly publications can contribute to this conversation, the medium of museum exhibitions enables new historical ideas to reach the public at a time when a broad spectrum of people is hungry for connection with the past. Museums are responding to this need by focusing on themes of diversity, inclusion, and empathy and embracing the fact that historical information is not just for experts but for all people. As a result, museums’ role as democratic spaces is more important than ever before. This column will explore the ways that exhibitions can support these goals. Each review will examine how an exhibition’s research and interpretation are integrated into its design. In addition, the review will assess how an exhibition’s presentation helps viewers to place themselves in a particular historical time and space. These aspects are essential to establishing a link between historical research and museum exhibitions for the benefit of all scholars and museum audiences. Each review will also address whether an exhibition’s interpretation and format are consistent with the organization’s mission.