country
activities

Sofia

Seminar on the Museum and Its Visitors:
    Making Exhibits that Communicate
September 3-5, 2002

Krassimira Teneva and Elisa Phelps at the Roman ruins in Plovdiv

In cooperation with The Red House, Center for Culture and Debate, and the American Information Center, The Fund held a three-day seminar in Sofia on museum exhibitions featuring Bob Workman, Deputy Director of the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, and Elisa Phelps, Director of Collections at the Witte Museum, San Antonio, Texas. Because Bulgarian museums lack the resources to undertake major re-installations of their permanent collection exhibits, the seminar focused on methodology in audience engagement and assessment based on the current state of the literature, with practical, economical options to improve exhibit effectiveness.

The seminar covered three topics:

• Museum visitor and visitor assessment techniques;
• How people learn in museums and how learning techniques translate into elements for an effective exhibit,
• Techniques for strong visual and clear verbal communications in exhibits.

By the end of the seminar, it was clear that the thirty participants had acquired a strong understanding of most of the principles that guide museum visitor interaction and exhibit design. There was general acceptance of the importance of learning more about the interests of their visitors, and of using that information to improve programming. There was also evidence of a strong interest in

Bob Workman in front of the National Museum

Based on the success of the breakout groups, The Fund recommended that participants establish some form of collaborative project to foster a strengthening of working together as a group. This could be a simple web site where ideas and challenges are shared, to organizing an exhibition in conceptual format that might someday be realized. Plans for a further follow-up Fund seminar in 2003 are under discussion.