The palaeontological exhibition: A venue for dialogue

Abstract

Understanding the dialogue between museums and their visitors enables museums to subsist, undergo transformations and become consolidated as socially valued cultural venues. The Museo de La Plata (Argentina) was created in the late nineteenth century as a natural history museum, and this study shows that currently the museum is valued socially as a venue for family leisure and education, at which people make sense to the objects exhibited through characteristics conferred upon them by both the institution and the visitor. Nevertheless, such dialogue is somehow affected by the museographic proposal and the public interpretation of the institutional narrative, which could be analysed within the frame of contextual learning. As a consequence, the evolutionary idea that the museum aims to communicate is distorted by the public. This article highlights the importance of considering the visitors' interpretations when planning museum exhibitions, a perspective that has been rather absent in the Argentinian museums.

A Pilot Tool of the Virtual Scenario Initial Dementia Cognitive Screening (VSIDCS) with a Cultural Exhibition for Improving the Standard Traditional Test

“…In the results of the experiment, the average VSIDCS score was 60.4 (the maximum was 66, and the minimum was 54); the average MoCA score was 53 (the maximum was 57, and the minimum was 45); and the average MMSE score was 50.9 (the maximum was 57, and the minimum was 45). According to Murriello’s research (2015) [ 30 ], an exhibition promotes essential and relevant dialog through its collections and makes those objects meaningful to a variety of visitors. This concept was applied in the VSIDCS through introduction of VR of the exhibition, and participants’ emotions were improved through interactive dialogs.…”

“…However, there are few applications of VR and AR in dementia screening systems. Additionally, according to Murriello’s research (2015) [ 30 ], an exhibition with essential and relevant dialog could increase the interest of visitors. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to construct an initial dementia cognitive screening system within a virtual cultural exhibition.…”

“Perugia Upside-Down”: A Multimedia Exhibition in Umbria (Central Italy) for Improving Geoheritage and Geotourism in Urban Areas

“…The geomorphological evolution perhaps represents one of the most intriguing cases because, traveling through time, rewinds the morphological evolution and reveals the past, the present and the future landscape [41,42]. The paleontological heritage, if it was found in the urban area, could be an excellent topic for an exhibition [43,44]. Moreover, when characteristics concerning geology are combined with other fields, such as archaeology, the sites where these characteristics are present at the same time can be excellent targets for geotourism and thematic exhibitions [26,45].…”

Voices from other lands

“…But increasingly there have been calls for science museums to focus on more local issues, both in format and in content. Furthermore, researchers have been challenging the idea that visitors are the same around the world -an aspect discussed in this issue (see Murriello, 2015;Kamolpattana et al, 2015).…”