The Harn Museum of Art's collections and exhibitions focus on African, Asian, modern and contemporary art, and photography with many textiles and delicate sculptures and paintings within "touching range" of young visitors. As visitors enter the museum, they are greeted at the information desk with engaging signage that addresses the "No Touching" policy in a new way: "We Look With Our Eyes, and Not With Our Hands." This wording was originally intended for families, however we found that adult audiences responded to the softer language of this universal rule. Also, when families with younger children enter we encourage them to begin their visit with the Bishop Study Center (BSC), our interactive learning space.
The BSC is a great place for all visitors to enjoy our Hands-On-Collection. While exploring the selected artworks -- with gloves on -- we discuss the importance of caring for our art and proper handling techniques. This allows for our visitors to have a more memorable tactile experience with pieces that reflect our permanent collection and what is on view in the galleries.
In the last two years, we have also offered a program called "Access Art: Touch Tours." Although targeted for visually impaired audiences, all visitors can experience tactile art inspired by our collections and exhibitions presented by local and student artists. Beyond our original intention for this program, these artworks allow us to provide a new kind of tactile experience for participants while emphasizing the importance of not touching art in the galleries.
Apart from our programming and BSC resources, our visitor services and security teams receive group customer service training that in part focuses on identifying younger visitors that may be tempted to touch the art. To help with prevention, during training security is offered role-playing opportunities for interacting with our younger audiences. To offer a welcoming environment, the visitor services volunteers that roam the galleries are informed about the collection and provide personal experiences through conversation with our visitors, including families.
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Laura Moore
Visitor Services Manager
Karla Aguayo
Bishop Study Center Assistant
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art - University of Florida
Gainesville FL
Original Message:
Sent: 03-09-2016 01:24 PM
From: Jill Boyd
Subject: What do you do to help prevent young visitors from touching the art?
We are brainstorming some creative options to try to help reduce the instances of our visitors-children, in particular-touching works of art. I found an older forum post on the topic but was wondering if anyone else had any ideas or things you're doing that you'd like to share--particular types of signage that have proved effective, fun ways to share museum etiquette information when visitors buy their tickets, touch/don't touch icons installed throughout the museum, etc. Thanks very much for your input.
JILL BOYD
Director of Visitor Services
jboyd@denverartmuseum.org
Denver Art Museum
100 W. 14th Avenue Parkway
Denver, CO 80204
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