Funworld September 2011

by Keith Miller

It’s in the DNA of museums and science centers to present the facts in their galleries as accurately and openly as possible. But sometimes doing so can mean including details some visitors might find grotesque, disturbing, or offensive—exhibits about the Holocaust or 9/11 come to mind. Finding the balance between truth and taste can be a big challenge.

Knowing what visitors may find appalling or deeply offensive is obviously important when museums develop exhibits, and it seems that visual displays—photographs, videos, figurines, etc.—often engender the strongest reactions. “People are most shocked or enthralled by pictures of things like piles of limbs,” says Lynn Smolizer, development and public relations coordinator for the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (www.nationalcivilwarmuseum.org). “We also have some POW images that people find shocking.”

But as revolting as things like photographs of bloody corpses may be, Smolizer says those images may not be the museum’s most upsetting element. “Slavery is a huge issue with visitors,” Smolizer reveals, “and we have a gallery on slavery named ‘The Peculiar Institution.’ There’s a diorama called ‘Slave Auction,’ with a mother and child being put up for auction. It’s definitely our most disturbing gallery.”

Certainly an exhibit does not have to be horrific or grotesque to be offensive. “We are doing an exhibit on breast cancer right now, and we have to show that part of the body,” says Michael Chay, assistant director of public relations and marketing at the Singapore Science Center (www.science.edu.sg). “How do you do that appropriately and not offend anyone? We have to determine how to do that.” Chay says the science center also faced this issue when it presented Gunther Von Hagens’ “Body Worlds,” which contains graphic displays of real human bodies preserved through a process called plastination. The specimens, called plastinates, show the inner workings of the body.

The Six Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas (www.jfk.org), is located on the sixth floor of the building formerly known as the Texas School Book Depository—the building from which President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The museum covers the assassination but makes a deliberate effort not to show graphic images, according to Nicola Longford, its executive director. However, visitors can still be quite distressed by other images and settings. “People are sometimes upset just because they are brought back to that time period, and just going into the setting and looking out the window [at Dealey Plaza],” says Longford.

To Each His Own Level of Tolerance: How’s a Museum to Know?
One quandary facing museums dealing with a horrific, tragic, or distressing exhibit subject is varying visitor perception. What one visitor regards as engrossing, another might find offensive. The Museum of London in England (www.museumoflondon.org.uk) faced this problem with a recent exhibit. “My main experience of people being offended was with the Jack the Ripper exhibition, particularly claims the exhibition was glorifying and focusing on violence against women,” says Alex Werner, the museum’s curator. “This was an issue when Jack the Ripper and the East End was being thought of as an exhibition, and during the installation of the exhibit.”

Even museums accustomed to presenting alarming exhibits, like the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! attractions (www.ripleys.com), must deal with variations among visitor tastes for the potentially offensive. “To one person, a shrunken head is a beautiful historic remembrance of a time gone by that has since been abolished,” says Tim O’Brien, vice president of communications for Ripley Entertainment. “To others, it’s horrific. We have a large collection of medieval torture and humiliation devices, including authentic iron maidens. These are real, historically significant artifacts that most mainstream museums or collections do not have. But they are a part of mankind’s history. Many are amazed by them; others are disgusted. And what is accepted as something really great in New York City may not be accepted as well in Branson or Wisconsin Dells.”

O’Brien adds that with operations in 11 different countries, Ripley must also contend with variations in culture, religion, and even family values.

Words Worth a Thousand Pictures
Remarkably, some museums say the written word can be as wrenching for visitors as exhibit images. “Text can be very contentious on topics like slavery,” notes Smolizer, “but sometimes, you can get the point across between the lines, without exact verbiage.”

Longford at the Sixth Floor Museum agrees: “If there are particular words, like ‘shot’ or ‘target,’ that are sensitive, we review it and look at the context in which that word or image will be presented.”

Indeed, in an age when almost everyone seems to have a camera phone, and literally billions of photos and videos of almost anything can be seen on the Internet, some museums say the power of text is still paramount. They will use text in lieu of revolting images—not to offend, but to make a connection with the visitor that may not be possible through photos and videos.

The Jewish Museum Berlin (www.jmberlin.de) must deal with one of the most dreadful and appalling events in human history: the Holocaust. Although the photos and videos from concentration camps can be sickening, the museum’s curator of permanent exhibitions, Maren Kruger, suggests text can be more powerful. “Drastic photographs are shocking, but they don’t make people understand what happened,” Kruger explains. “Text is much more personal, and we hope our visitors find it much more moving.

“As an example, about three years ago we considered installing a piece of art about a deportation [to a concentration camp] during the Holocaust. In the end, we decided to present only the text written by the victim in the concentration camp. This tells much more about what happened and informs people about the details.”

Crucial Review Methods
When the Jewish Museum Berlin made that decision, it did so after collective contemplation by its staff. Museums stress that peer review is vital when making decisions about exhibits that depict horrific, tragic, or offensive subjects.

“[Our] Exhibition Team would meet to discuss it,” says Warner at the Museum of London. “We sit down and go through things as a team. Those who have done lots of exhibitions realize there are sometimes issues that can cause disagreements. You need to hear everyone’s point of view, then come to a decision as a group.”

Some museums find it helpful to secure external input. “We discuss exhibits with our history committee, which is made up of professors, historians, and members of the public,” says Smolizer. “It’s good to get input from all sides.”

Chay says this external input is critical to the Singapore Science Center when dealing with potentially offensive exhibitions: “We have a design team, and they must reach a consensus on what to show. But we also have an external advisory panel from a university or a research organization or health organization we consult, like for the breast cancer exhibit, and they advise us on what to show. We’ll also have a preview to schoolteachers, to the public, and let them give us feedback.”

Of course, exhibits that engender strong reactions from visitors often also touch the passions of museum staffs. “Certainly, there are lots of disagreements from the different people working on exhibits and programs, and there are lots of discussions about them,” says Kruger. “The final decision is the director’s.”

Smolizer recounts one potential exhibit at the National Civil War Museum that stimulated much debate among personnel: “We’d done a story about illness and disease in 2009 and 2010, and there were pictures of a gangrene leg. We considered borrowing an exhibit on medical photographs. I was in favor of the exhibit because it shows the horror of war, and we had a good discussion, but some thought it just took it too far. So we decided to pass on that one.”

Consideration for Younger Visitors
One of the trickiest dilemmas for museums with potentially offensive exhibits is coping with kids; their sensitivities, and their abilities to cognitively analyze and process disturbing subjects are usually far less developed than adults’. So how does a museum present intense subject matter to adult visitors without distressing the facilities’ youngest guests?

Many museums use warning signs to alert visitors to the potentially disturbing or offensive nature of exhibits. “We enclosed the whole area and we have a big sign at the entrance, and we request that young children be accompanied by a parent,” says Chay of the breast cancer exhibit at the Singapore Science Center. “We also put the videos above the eye level of children.”

Kruger recalls one time when the Jewish Museum Berlin had to decide how far to go when describing the effect of the Holocaust on children. “We have many school groups come in and we try to be family friendly,” she says. “We wanted to integrate an interactive element, and we decided it should be about children who immigrated in exile to other countries. Many of the parents were killed while the children were in exile, but in the text the school groups read, it talks about things like the toys the children took with them into exile. We decided not to tell them that the parents were killed.”

Visitor Feedback
Many of the museums say they do weigh visitor feedback into their decisions about what to include in exhibits, especially those dealing with tragic or offensive subjects, and some even solicit such commentary.

In the case of the National Civil War Museum, some of the visitor feedback concerned a lack of explicit displays in one area. “In our POW section, we show the terrible conditions of the Confederate POW camps, but we’ve had comments about how bad some of the northern POW camps were,” Smolizer says. “We do want to include a panel on northern POW camps because conditions were bad there, as well, and we’re going to address it.”

At the Singapore Science Center, Chay says, “On the breast cancer exhibit, a visitor wrote in that the exhibition was very graphic in some of the pictures, and we responded that as a science center, we try to present the facts—that’s our role. So we don’t see it as an affront.”

In fact, most of these museums say they have a duty to present the facts and to present historical or scientific truths, and they to try to explain this to visitors who are critical. “The best way is to listen to their views and then respond in a clear way, setting out the reasoning behind an exhibition,” says Werner. “It is unlikely a museum exhibit would set out to be offensive, but no exhibition pleases everyone.”

O’Brien contends that most Ripley visitors are not shocked by its exhibits: “With our brand standing for the same thing for more than 90 years and with the TV and radio shows over the years, along with our millions of books, people pretty much know what to expect when they come inside of one of our museums.”

Indeed, perhaps there is some responsibility on the part of visitors to anticipate what they may see when they enter certain museums. Says Smolizer, “When you’re going to see a Civil War exhibit, for example, there has to be an expectation that you’re going to see some terrible things.”

Contact News Editor Keith Miller at kmiller@IAAPA.org.