Visitor Study- China before China

In the development of an exhibition concept and interactive interpretations for China before China, an exhibition at the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, Visitor Study Lab conducted the evaluation of the visitor: pupils between the ages of 10-12 years and focus group discussion with the museums educators and curators. In collaboration with Museum of Far Antiquities and The Stockholm Institute of Education.

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The purpose of this article is to discuss some theoretical tools in order to analyse data from visitors’ response to a museum exhibition using interactive technology. Visitors’ response as we argue contains aspects of an informal learning process, an individual competence as well as collective. The theoretical tools derive from both socio cultural theory and from a multimodal perspective and offer contributions for thinking about learning in informal settings. The socio cultural framework emphasizes the concept of intersubjectivity as an approach to learning. In a learning setting, intersubjectivity is the act of negotiating meaning in a dialogue.  In the light of a socio cultural perspective, the artifacts of the museum exhibition are seen as mediating tools of inner transformation, which responds to different levels of understanding such as mastery and appropriation.

We would also like to broaden our focus in order to pay equal attention to other communicative resources, which will have consequences for our understanding of learning. An exhibition, such as China before China, consists of a large number of modes; its meaning is made in different ways through artifacts  texts, photos, images, moving images, colour, light, sound, music and so on. We therefore adopt the notions of representation, interest and signs of learning from a multimodal social semiotic perspective.

We recognize that within both these domains, there are several concepts that can serve as analytical tools. Here we have chosen but a few; that we find useful when discussing museum learning.