What is the Framework for assessing excellence in exhibitions from a visitor-centered perspective?
As more museum exhibition developers focus on making visitor-centered experiences, they have a need to share and critique their work with colleagues to strive for best practices. The Framework is a tool for this process.
While the Framework is ultimately a process, its tangible manifestation is a document that’s meant to be copied, written on and discussed. It contains the directions for use--a guide through a carefully structured process (complete with meeting suggestions). Four criteria--Comfort, Engagement, Reinforcement, and Meaningfulness--frame both the discussions and the critical examination of an exhibition by museum practitioners.
For a step-by-step guide to carrying out the process as well as a thorough definition of the criteria and their aspects, their theoretical underpinnings, and a history and rationale for the Framework, buy a copy of our new book at Left Coast Press at http://www.lcoastpress.com or on line at the
AAM
Bookstore. Or you can just download a copy of the Framework as a pdf here--but you’ll be missing a lot of cool information in the book that comes with a CD with lots of photographs and a video of the process.
Museum professionals have been using the Framework, in workshops and in ad hoc groups of staff and colleagues. We’ve heard some good feedback about what it does for them.
Taking part in the Excellent Judges process has been the most effective, least expensive (in time or money) professional development I have ever done. It provides the framework for me to visit other shows I would probably miss, critique them in a predictable and repeatable way so that I can develop criteria for excellence, and generate conversation with colleagues from whom I learn different perspectives.
Kitty Connelly, The Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens
Serrell & Associates gives workshops and talks about the Framework--how to use it as an assessment tool before and after exhibitions have been developed.
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