Active Valuing in Art Museums

Children learn more easily with hands on experiences. Art Museums find it difficult to engage their interests and make visits worthwhile. Partly due to the amount of energy and shorter attention spans that children have, it also relates to their natural curiosity, often expressed in loud voices accompanied by the urge to touch. These behaviors can easily disrupt other patron’s visits. Without proper preparation before or supervision during the visit, children may feel unwelcome and uncomfortable in art galleries.

Children are more comfortable when they are aware of their boundaries. By beginning their visit to the art museum in the children’s gallery, families are introduced to key concepts that present boundaries including, appropriate museum behavior: using your indoor voice, not touching, and staying with your companions. Along with terminology explaining the museum’s collections, and skills developing different ways to look at objects. These work together to build the child’s confidence in visiting the museum.

Many of the skills museums want to teach are best modeled. What you find in the children’s gallery at the Phoenix Art Museum is a combination of art exhibits, games, parent prompts, and activities, which connect with and can be used in the main galleries of the museum. All artworks are displayed at a child’s height and the furnishing is built to a child’s scale.

Peer Teachers can be found at the entrance to the gallery, next to each exhibit, and in activity trays. These cartoon-like characters, prompt parents with questions and explain activities that can be done in the children’s gallery, in the main museum, and at home.

      Figure 1. Peer Teacher Activity Cards.

Aside from the exhibits and peer teachers you’ll also find paper and pencils, building blocks, stuffed toys that Velcro to a wall, and small cards containing images of outfits and places. These and the exhibits are the tools the curator uses to elicit certain behaviors, build skills, and give confidence. Lets examine one of the exhibits.

At the back of the gallery, separated from the rest of the space by tables and chairs, divided into grids is a painting. Paper and pencils are provided, as well as a Peer Teacher. The teacher displayed at adult height, defines the term landscape, invites guests to name objects in the painting; and encourages children to draw a section of the painting, actively involving them in the work, enabling them to use motor skills and eye-hand coordination. 

When finished, they can hang their drawing on a board next to the original painting, matching it to the grid they drew. They can compare their drawing to drawings by others. The Peer Teacher then invites them to visit the main galleries to view different landscapes and contrast it with the one they have just studied.

This exhibit defines landscape painting, focuses attention on details, elicits conversation and prompts discussion about the image. It encourages motor skills and eye-hand coordination. It empowers children to show off and discuss the drawing they did and to make connections between their work and that of others. It enables them to recognize what makes a landscape and shows them where to find examples in the main galleries.

These activities build respect, skill, and behavior in conjunction with the image. Now it is the representation of Landscape Painting. Its style and brushstroke, information more appropriate for adults, have been ignored in favor of talking about the contents of the image. Its context has changed to that of a teaching tool.

The displays in the main galleries of the museum, respect each piece as isolated moments and as connections between other works of art.  The displays in the children’s gallery do the same, but use interactive tools to prompt understanding on a visual and emotional level. This does not change or intrude upon the aura of the work; instead it makes the child aware of that aura for the first time.

Family Galleries introduce children to unique objects through exhibits, engage them with art through games, and teach them terminology through signage. Creating interpretations for the objects they see, and adding layers of value to the museum’s collections.  Ultimately instilling respect and confidence applicable to the main museum and the world beyond.