Experimental museology: institutions, representations, users,

Worldwide, museums are striving to redefine their ‘art of relevance’ (Simon 2016). In public as well as professional debate, many of the challenges museums face are framed in terms of various dilemmas related to the tension between the traditional role of the museum as a beacon of public enlightenment and the urgency of attracting new audiences in an increasingly consumerist economy. In handling these dilemmas, museologists have recently called for ‘post-critical’ museologies (Dewdney, Dibosa & Walsh 2013) as well as proposed to strengthen critical positions (Shelton 2013; Bishop 2014). We contend that there is a need to take a constructive rather than just a critical or an analytical perspective to tackling current museum dilemmas. Hence, we call for an ‘experimental museology’ in which museum professionals’ actual practices and academic discourse are aligned so as to better handle the particular challenges, choices and solutions faced by museum professionals in balancing, for example, dimensions of enlightenment and experience. So, rather than asking disconnected questions about object representations or audience engagements across online and offline spaces, this volume addresses how museums experiment within wider design ecologies.

Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art where he used digital technologies to realise immersive experiences and manifest 'impossible objects' (to make the invisible visible). This desire to engage with the intangible dimensions of contemporary culture is shared by Kenderdine and also emerges in Jennifer Carter and Cristina Lleras's use of the temporary exhibition, Voices for the Transformation of Colombia, as a space to develop content for a planned Museum of Memory in Bogotá. The goal of this latter project was to develop a polyvocal interpretation of Colombia's 60 years of internal conflict: 'one that would escape the … victim-perpetrator binary and involve visitors in an introspective and self-reflexive engagement toward a peaceful future' (50). Assessing public reactions through ethnographic study, this future museum was imagined to be '"open", a place of quotidian activities and daily life, a space for life with trees and not cement, with water that cleanses and gives way to rebirth and as "festive"' (63). 'Columbians seemed to associate the museum less with an idea of the sacred … and more a space to inhabit' (64). These papers all sit within the 'Institutions' section of the book but they are predominantly about media and users.
For some authors, the practice is experimental because it is meant to test an idea or develop a proposal; for others experimental might be taken to mean novel, different or untried. Mieke Bal's contribution ticks both boxes. Drawing upon ideas from her book, Double Exposure (1996), it argues that acts of curatorial combination and juxtaposition are capable of shaking the public into active engagement. Like other contributors, and in common with much museological writing, Bal is keen to disrupt the art museum's conservative inclinations. The experiment she reports on here was undertaken as an artistic, scholarly and curatorial intervention at the Munch Museum in Oslo in 2017. If this was an experiment for the museum, it was equally so for Bal as this was the first opportunity she has had to combine these three activities in one project. She attempted to 'innovate from within, to produce a kind of shock effect through what might be perceived as inappropriate mixing' (102). These actions challenged the normalities of gallery-going and sought to slow the pace and increase observation and contemplation; 'art is performative but must be given the chance to perform' (105). Like other authors, Bal is interested in how the museum can affect the contemporary actor.
The book's subject matter ranges widely, from the tropical greenhouse to the planetarium. Some authors write in a form that mirrors the scientific account of an experiment. Others are more discursive and reflective. Some demonstrate the mastery of their field and considerable ambition, others are more contained. The editors have not sought to control writing style, structure or the titling of chapters; some of the latter are rather opaque and arcane. This is not a cover-to-cover read but rather a book to dip into in search of examples that might have utility for academics, professionals and students who want to consider experimental approaches. Finding the appropriate chapter is aided by short chapter abstracts published on the Taylor and Francis ebook page. These cannot be found in the book itself or on the Routledge homepage for the book. Happily, the book is fully available as an open access ebook.
Experimental Museology is a welcome addition to the museum studies literature. It fulfils its goal of advocating experimental approaches very well. I particularly like its commitment to providing detailed accounts of these practices. As a work concerned with contemporary museology, which seeks to push against hegemonic and conservative practices, many of these chapters have value beyond demonstrating the utility of experimentation.

Notes on contributor
Simon Knell is Professor of Contemporary Museology at the School of Museum Studies, at the University of Leicester, UK. His most recent monographs are The Museum's Borders: On the Challenge of Knowing and Remembering Well (Routledge, 2021) and National Galleries: The Art of Making Nations (Routledge, 2016).