For this week’s assignment, I toured the ‘Votes for Women’ online exhibit of the Museum of London and the Smithsonian Museum’s ‘A Journey of Taste: Freer and Japanese Scroll Mounting’ exhibition. Both online museum exhibits were excellent in their design of presenting collections within each exhibit.
The ‘Votes for Women’ online exhibit showcases an interactive vertical scrolling guide wherein virtual visitors are able to gain in-depth information on the historical movements of women gaining access to voting rights and representation within parliament. The exhibit also contained collections from the museum’s Suffragette collection. Visitors are given the opportunity to click on sic Suffragette stories to learn more about individuals from the Suffragette collection. Images are also provided to showcase each Suffragette and the historical movement for women’s rights to vote. At the end of the exhibit, visitors are also given alternative resources they can use to learn more about the events covered within the exhibit.
The Smithsonian’s ‘A Journey of Taste: Freer and Japanese Scroll Mounting’ illustrates the collaborative effort between Charles Lang Freer and two brothers from a family of mounters in Kyoto, Japan. Although controversial in that names of the two brothers from Kyoto, Japan was not appropriately recorded, the collections of objects for this online exhibit were well mounted. Each collection of objects is clickable to reveal a different webpage consisting of information about their origins, previous owners, references, and usage conditions of images provided.
Each exhibit’s designs were effective in representing the collections associated with each exhibit. The Smithsonian’s exhibit provided images of collections but provided less information on each collection. There is also a lagging effect created by Google Cultural Institute when attempting to view images of the collections. Contrary, the Museum of London’s virtual exhibit provided more information and had a much smoother interface for online viewing.
Question: How have online museum exhibits impacted your visits to museums?
I personally am not much of a museum goer, but for me personally I feel like online museums make the experience of a physically distant museum more accessible, and remind you of the experiences you’ve had with local museums. There are many museums I’m never going to be able to physically visit, but online elements can give me a taste of the experience of those museums, while the online experience with the Museum of the North just reminds me of previous visits, and makes me want to go back and look for some of the things you see online.
I usually try not to visit the virtual museums before visiting in person, I like the element of surprise and being fully immersed into the exhibits. If I do not plan on visiting them, I definitely enjoy being able to explore online though. I also like to see what exhibits are new and upcoming as well.