THEME 5:

MUSEUMS AND HERITAGE INTERPRETATION

What is a museum? A museum can be defined as:

a place or building in which objects of artistic, historical, and scientific value are cared
for and exhibited
The main functions of a museum can also help us to understand what a museum does.
Traditionally, museums have four functions:
To store to function as a depository where articles or artefacts of historical or
heritage value are stored to preserve it
To display to function as a venue where these articles are displayed to visitors
To educate to function as a centre where visitors can be educated about a specific
theme/themes by viewing exhibits
To research to function as an institution where scholars can do research on specific
themes by studying the articles or artefacts in the collection

Should a museum also entertain?

Not a museum s primary objective
But the visit must be as entertaining and interesting as possible, so the visitor does
not lose interest in the displays
Otherwise, the educational element is lost
The museum will also get a reputation for not being user-friendly and will lose visitors

Activity 1:

Museums are increasingly becoming more popular as tourist attractions. Refer back to the list
of top tourist attractions in Theme 1 (for your convenience, the list is available at the end of
this theme) how many of those top attractions are museums? And how many of them are
theme parks?
Museums = ________________
Theme parks = _____________

Many (very famous) tourist attractions are buckling under the pressure of increased, often
excessive, visitor numbers. To read about the impact of the recent tourism boom on
museums and what they are doing to preserve their artefacts, please visit the following
website:

The world's art treasures and natural wonders disappearing from view

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The typical museum experience:

Look at the picture below. It depicts the Ferrante Imperato Museum in Naples, Italy in the
seventeenth century. Does this look like a good museum to you? Think about what is being
displayed and how it is displayed? Where would visitors get information from? And would
you like to visit a museum like this?

© History of Science Museum, Oxford University

This presentation is quite overwhelming: just a lot of things to look at, and if you did not have
a guide to give you information, like in the picture, or wanted to use the books to do research,
it would be quite a boring visit and you would probably not learn much. After this, a common
trend for museums was to remove most of their artefacts to store rooms and to only display
a few important items with LOTS of information (think about a museum you may have visited
with lots of posters around the displays with lots of information on that you had to read).
Now, many museums are returning to the idea of displaying everything they have, but with a
difference. After all, why should the museum have beautiful, significant and meaningful
artefacts, but then hide them in storerooms, away from the public that have tasked the
museum with protecting our heritage?

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Many museums are now putting their
entire collections on display, allowing
visitors to explore the museum at their
own pace, but all the artefacts have tags
with numbers on them that visitors can
enter into a computer and learn as
much (or as little) as they want about
an artefact and its context (e.g. who
made it, where did they make it, why
did they make it, etc). We spoke
about a museum like this in Theme 3
the Museum of Anthropology at
the University of British Columbia in
Vancouver, Canada. On the right,
you can see a picture from this museum
do you notice that every figurine has a little tag with a
code? You type this code into any of the computers in the museum and it will
provide you with information about that specific artefact.

The presentation of heritage:

Heritage is a product subject to differences in validation and interpretation just like

history
Heritage changes over time the way it is presented and also in the ways in which the
public reacts to its presentation as a result of the creation of new realities , for
example the public s changing views on death and Egyptian mummies or the changing
of scientific facts through research

You can read an interesting discussion on the point of displaying mummies in this article:
To see or not to see

To make everything in heritage more real historical reality must increasingly be

violated historical reconstructions
We are familiar with this process because it is frequently used in movies
Heritage must then be presented as it would be in the movie, otherwise visitors would
feel the display is unreliable
The influence of the mass media in shaping the impressions of the past for visitors to
museums and heritage sites cannot be underestimated
Furthermore, we are working with a generation who use reading only a secondary
source of information gathering they rather watch TV
This means they are visually well-educated visually literate
This means museums must have a visual impact on them, and the heritage should be
performed for them

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 This new kind of visitor is also more critical and outspoken with their opinions

Most heritage interpretations are one-dimensional:

In most museums visitors use only one

sense - sight
This makes the heritage interpretation
one-dimensional
Looking is obviously the only activity you
are supposed to do in a museum
Objects are just like pictures in a book

© LA Times

Changes in the way heritage is presented:

Nowadays we have a different attitude towards how heritage should be presented

Today the keyword in heritage display is experience: the more exciting the better, and
if possible, involving all the senses
This development is not good or bad that is how the market developed and
museums must keep up to ensure their continued existence
Museums and heritage centres have a specific and special role cannot just be
replaced by theme parks
But museums and heritage centres must realise
they are moving in a competitive market (i.e.
tourism) and they must offer visitors value for
money
Museums and heritage centres do not need to
make up stories everything is already in
place for them and exhibits are based on
historical facts and artifacts that are
presented in an attractive manner
The re-enactment of historical events is
becoming increasingly popular like the famous
battles in the US

The sharp distinction between museums and heritage sites on the one hand and
theme parks on the other is gradually evaporating they are already borrowing ideas
and concepts from each other:
Museums are using story-lines for exhibitions and theme parks are moving towards
more authenticity a green approach and research-based presentations

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 These developments can be criticized as an intolerable vulgarization
Disneyfication
The success of many theme parks suggests that the public does not share these critical
views think about how many theme parks you counted in the Top attractions in
the world list
Museums have become more interesting and entertaining places to visit, while still
maintaining their role of teaching visitors about the past
Living museums Jorvik in York

What does the tourist want?

Museums are anticipating a new kind of visitor in the near future, a `thoughtful consumer'
looking for authenticity in different forms. The visitor profile will also look different in future:
Visitors will be older, most likely middle-aged
They will have more money to spend
They will be more demanding in terms of the quality of the places visited and the
services and experiences provided
They will be looking for physical and mental challenges they want the museum to
challenge and engage with them on different levels, by for example, challenging their
viewpoints with alternative perspectives
They will be looking for the opportunity to participate, to learn, to have fun and be
entertained

The heritage interpreter:

Heritage as a historical reality can only exist by virtue of interpretation

Interpretation is the art that makes history real
But this interpretation is subject to fashion, taste, ideology, and personal preferences
A balance must be found between historical truths and evidence, and attractiveness
There is at least some consolation a professional interpreter s story will always be
better than the one an uninformed visitor comes up with

Different types of museum:

We get many different kinds of museums. Below is a list of some of the main types. Can you
think of a museum for each category that you would like to visit?

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 Type Example What does it look like?
General museums British Museum, London
(they have a general (The British Museum has several permanent
collection that may exhibitions, covering anything from nature to
include many culture, but to keep things interesting for
miscellaneous repeat visitors, they also include temporary
categories) exhibits that change a few times a year. For
example, in 2016, they had an exhibit on South
African Art that included the Mapungubwe
hin and D E he Mahlang fam
Ndebele art)

Art museums Louvre, Paris

The m e m c llec i n i la ge ha if
you spent 60 seconds looking at every object,
it would take you almost three months to see
everything!)

Science, technology Smithsonian Air and Space Museum,

and transport Washington D.C.
museums

Cultural history Cairo Museum now the Grand Egyptian

museums Museum
(Egypt has spent the last few years building an
absolutely spectacular museum on the Giza
plateau, close to the Pyramids, to become a
one-stop-shop for all things Ancient Egypt.

Military museums National Museum of Military History,

Johannesburg

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Wax museums Madame Tussaud s San Francisco

Open air museums American Civil War museum, Gettysburg

(These museums will typically include lots of
historical reconstructions and re-enactments).

Literary museums Sherlock Holmes Museum, London

House museums Versailles, France

Thi h e m e m a he al e idence
constructed by King Louis XIV from 1682. The
palace, its gardens and associated buildings
stretch over an area of 1070 hectares. The
palace contains some 2300 rooms!)

Presidential Mandela Museum, Umtata

museums

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 *Egypt is busy doing incredible things on the tourism front,
from new museums to new discoveries and it is definitely
worth your time to read up a bit on what Egypt is doing to
rejuvenate its tourism image after the decline caused by the
2011 Arab Spring uprising. Recently, Egypt opened the
National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation, detailing all the
civilisations that have called Egypt home over millennia, and
with it, moved 22 royal mummies from the old Egyptian
Museum on Tahrir Square to the new museum in Fustat. The
parade was absolutely spectacular a breathtaking
celebration of culture and heritage and a fitting tribute to the
© BBC
kings and queens of old. You can read about the parade here:

Pharaohs' Golden Parade article

And watch some the recorded livestream here (please bear

in mind it is 2 hours long. The parade presentation starts at
1:11.11):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnlXW7KZl0c

One of the better things to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic was that many museums
created virtual tours, allowing us to travel the world while locked down in our homes. This
also meant that they became more accessible to a wider audience than ever before and you
can still see these virtual tours:
Museum virtual tours
Travel and Leisure virtual museum tours
Getaway virtual museums tours (including South African museums)

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Addendum A – The 50 Top Tourist Attractions in the World

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Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-most-visited-tourist-attractions-in-the-world-2014-3?IR=T.