What are the concepts and types of revelation?

Nowadays, punching cards in various museums has become a "craze". With the deployment of the key task of "building a child-friendly city" in the outline of the Tenth Five-Year Plan and the long-term goal of 2035, as a valuable cultural space in the city, how can museums find a way out in creating a "child-friendly" atmosphere? From the first children's museum in the world, which was born more than 0/00 years ago, to various children's museums today, what experiences and values can be used for reference?

Author | Liu (Research Group of Cultural Industry Criticism, Researcher of Sanchuan Huiwen Tourism Research Institute)

Edit | Time

Edit | Peninsula

Source | Cultural Industry Review

The theme of this year's International Museum Day is "The Power of Museums", which is interpreted as "Museums have the power to change the world around us". The power of the museum is exploding with unprecedented vitality.

According to the latest data released by National Cultural Heritage Administration, there were 395 newly registered museums in 20021year, and the total number of registered museums reached 6 183. Among them, 5,605 museums are open for free, accounting for more than 90%. The National Museum held 36,000 exhibitions and 323,000 educational activities. According to the latest data, in 2002 1 year, Chinese museums received 779 million visitors, and more than 3,000 online exhibitions were planned, with online educational activities1,and the total number of online visitors exceeded 4 1 billion.

In the expanding audience, children are attractive. With the deployment of the key task of "Building a Child-friendly City" in the "Tenth Five-Year Plan" and "Vision 2035", it is a more effective strategy to plan urban transformation and long-term development by giving priority to the needs of vulnerable groups such as children.

In fact, in the process of urbanization, children can enjoy very limited activity space. In addition to the natural environment, the urban environment is more in the man-made spatial environment. From the classification, it can be roughly divided into outdoor public spaces (such as streets, squares and parks), amusement spaces (such as amusement parks and theme parks), exclusive spaces for learning and education (such as schools and kindergartens) and educational experience spaces (such as museums, cultural centers and science and technology museums).

Someone once said, "The museum is a temple of culture and a new classroom." Nowadays, many museums really take care of children's needs, and some professional children's museums have educational and service functions such as children's education, cultural and artistic communication, science and technology education, civic education, 9th grade, cross-cultural education and parent-child relationship promotion. This issue of Cultural Industry Review (ID: WHCYPL) focuses on special children's museums and children's areas set up by some comprehensive museums, and explores the path and value of sustainable development of modern museums in the children's world by taking stock of outstanding cases at home and abroad.

Taking "children" as the starting point,

How do museums today show their magical power?

Nowadays, in many comprehensive museums in China, children's areas are not uncommon. They attract children's audience with their advantages and characteristics in history, art, science and technology, nature and other fields. By taking stock, let's look at a few examples according to size-

Guangdong Provincial Museum Youth Activity Center:

△ The total area is 1.38 square meters, with the "arcade" with Lingnan characteristics as the main design element, and it is divided into three parts: multimedia playing area, youth activity area and works exhibition area.

Palace Museum Palace Museum Wenchuang Children Experience Store:

△ The total area is about 200 square meters, showing nearly 100 pieces of all kinds of Forbidden City cultural and creative products specially designed for children. According to the function, the store has three areas: study room, interactive teaching area and parents' waiting area, which can accommodate about 20 children.

Social Education Experience Hall of Henan Museum:

△ The total area is about 1.400 square meters, which can accommodate 500 people at the same time, including the ancient science and technology experience area, the field archaeological experience area, the cultural relics restoration and protection observation area, the audience's independent learning area, the research and education practice area, the three-dimensional national treasure magic wall experience area, and the 5G+360° real-time panoramic experience area. In terms of children's education, the museum has focused on creating "special lectures" and other projects, developing special courses, and optimizing popular science education courses such as the treasure series courses, archaeological knowledge, national treasure guardians, idioms and allusions in nine major towns and universities.

Suzhou Museum West Hall Exploration Experience Hall;

△ Covering an area of 4,500 square meters, it is a space designed for children aged 3- 12. It consists of exhibitions and activities such as folding time and space, floating city, small archaeologists, grandma's family learning Suzhou dialect, adult's childhood memories, and a wonderful spectacle world.

We can see that these museums have made many attempts and achievements in space design, special exhibitions and educational activities in order to build a second classroom outside the campus. However, due to the limitation of space, not every museum can give full play to its value to children. Compared with special children's museums, some comprehensive museums are still in the stage of skimming the surface, and there are still many places to play.

So, what is a professional children's museum like?

The rise of children's museums has a long history?

As an informal educational institution model, children's museum was first born in America.

The reason why AAM was accepted as a member unit and became a member of the museum family is based on its purpose: to serve children's needs and interests, and its establishment form: to provide exhibitions and activities that encourage learning and stimulate curiosity.

As the first children's museum in the world-Brooklyn Children's Museum, founded in 1899, is recognized as a pioneer of children's museums.

The New York Times once commented that "before the Brooklyn Children's Museum, children went to school to study, played on the playground and were bored in the museum". Its appearance not only completely subverts children's experience in the museum, but also makes many children no longer resist entering the museum.

△ Brooklyn Children's Museum Appearance (Image from the Internet)

After the successful sailing of Brooklyn Children's Museum, children's museums have been built all over the United States, including Boston Children's Museum 19 13, Detroit Children's Museum 19 17 and Indianapolis Children's Museum 1925. So far, there are more than 300 children's museums in the United States, which has become one of the fastest-growing cultural institutions in the United States, and more than 20 children's museums with their own characteristics have been born around the world.

△ Boston Children's Museum was established in 19 13.

(Image from the Internet)

△ Philadelphia "Touch It" Children's Museum was established in 1976.

(Image from the Internet)

△ Mississippi Children's Museum was established in 1994.

(Image from the Internet)

In China, among the state-owned museums registered in National Cultural Heritage Administration, only Shanghai Children's Museum, China Women's and Children's Museum and An * * * Qujiang No.2 Children's Museum (excluding the Children's Museum with the suffix "Children's Discovery Museum"), although some commercial brands named "Children's Museum" have settled in in recent years, on the whole, "Children's Museum" is still a new concept that has not been popularized in China. Traditional museums that value adults over children are still in the majority, and their exhibition function is greater than educational function.

△ Image from official website, National Cultural Heritage Administration

What are the highlights of the American Children's Museum?

How to "localize" in China?

As mentioned earlier, the model of Brooklyn Children's Museum has been copied in the United States, and its influence has gradually spread to other countries in the world in the past 100 years. During this 100 year, the children's museum has experienced four stages, from experiment, exploration and development to the new growth period since the 1990s. The American version of Children's Museum, represented by Brooklyn Children's Museum, is becoming more and more mature. At present, most children's museums in the world have borrowed and used this model. China also established the first children's museum in Shanghai on 1996.

So, what is the charm of this children's museum? What is remarkable about its practical path? In fact, the Brooklyn Children's Museum has become a model for other families. In addition to the longest history, there are also very important reasons: on the one hand, it is based on the "children's perspective" and respects the law of children's development; On the other hand, it builds a bridge between children and society. After the author's inventory, it is generally found that the American version of the children's museum model has made great efforts in the following aspects.

First, attach importance to "children's perspective".

In terms of exhibitions, Brooklyn Children's Museum has always followed and respected the law of children's development and divided children's cognitive development stages in a targeted manner.

For example, for children before the age of 6, the museum has set up a recreation area to provide water, sand, building blocks, percussion materials, children's climbing frames and other materials to stimulate and promote children's sensory development.

△ Brooklyn Children's Museum Recreation Area (Image from the Internet)

When children grow up, they begin to master some conceptual thinking to think and understand the world. In view of this stage, the Children's Museum creates a corresponding "peer space" by dividing the theme exhibition area, and conveys the abstract theme clearly and concisely by enriching the specific exhibits.

For example, the theme of "Brooklyn in the World" exhibition area is that Brooklyn is everyone's home, creating a children's size Brooklyn, which incorporates all the diverse elements of Brooklyn community: new york subway, grocery store, Italian pizza shop, African market, China bookstore and so on. When children of similar age consciously play a role in the real world, they can create meaningful relationships in a community through mutual cooperation.

△ Brooklyn Children's Museum Theme Exhibition Area (Image from the Internet)

Shanghai Children's Museum has made similar efforts to attach importance to "children's perspective" on the basis of setting up an exhibition area according to children's age and creating a "peer space" to understand abstract topics, combined with its own regional characteristics and urban culture.

At present, the permanent exhibition of Shanghai Children's Expo Hall mainly shows the ocean, space, city, nature and other scenes to children aged 3 ~ 10. Among them, the "Travel @ Home" exhibition area takes twin cities as the theme, permeates the concepts of communication, multiculturalism, science around us and community awareness, and encourages children to experience different regional cultures by participating in various small games and playing various social roles. Moreover, there is a parent-child reading area and a literature memorial exhibition area in the museum, so that audiences of different ages can enjoy the fun.

△ Shanghai Children's Museum Exhibition Area (Image from the Internet)

In addition, the "children's perspective" can also be cut from the space design of the museum.

Since the children's museum entered a stable development period in 1970s and 1980s, the museum began to pay attention to architecture. Just last year, the Danish Fairy Tale Museum, designed by the famous Japanese contemporary architect Kengo Kuma and his cooperative team, was officially opened. Its design was inspired by many children who grew up watching Andersen's fairy tales. The architecture creates a childlike atmosphere in the whole and details, and stimulates children's curiosity with extraordinary visual experience.

△ Danish Fairy Tale Museum renderings (picture from the network)

It can be seen that the most important thing to attach importance to the "children's perspective" is to entertain and educate, and let children explore the outside world through play through the design of space, exhibition and educational activities.

Second, pay attention to the educational significance of the collection.

The research of museums and Smith Institution, the most senior institution of children's education, shows that compared with children's books, toys and animations, the information conveyed in kind is richer, not only three-dimensional, but also more sensory shocks such as vision and smell.

It is understood that the Brooklyn Children's Museum has more than 30,000 collections. It is unique for this museum to implant the collections into educational projects and provide experiential learning opportunities for children.

These collections include musical instruments, masks and dolls from all over the world, as well as specimens of rocks, minerals and animal bones. Brooklyn Children's Museum uses these collections for "teaching in kind".

For children's museums, "education" is undoubtedly the most important function besides "exhibition". For children, it is an effective exploration of history and culture different from the school. However, the educational function of Shanghai Children's Museum seems to be inferior to its exhibition function.

According to statistics, from the birth of 1996 to the end of 20 19, Shanghai Children's Museum has collected 279/kloc-0 pieces, covering furniture, calligraphy and painting, toys, navigation, aerospace and other categories. In addition, we also collect material and cultural collections related to children and creative and distinctive children's personal works all the year round. However, these collections, which highlight local history and folk customs, are currently limited to static display and are rarely seen in dynamic education projects.

△ Shanghai Children's Museum Tour Hall (Image from the Internet)

△ Shanghai Children's Museum Cultural Collection

(Image from Shanghai Children's Museum official website)

Even during the epidemic, the collection teaching of Brooklyn Children's Museum will be transferred to the Internet, and children at home can still easily establish contact with the collections in the museum.

However, in the official website of Shanghai Children's Museum, we found that apart from the self-controlled 360-degree panoramic exhibition area of "virtual roaming", there were no related real-time interactive video education courses for children who were also isolated at home in the past two months. On the other hand, at present, the domestic live broadcast industry is so developed that various "cloud tour" museum activities are in the ascendant. For children's museums, especially Shanghai Children's Museum, it is also worthy of attention to erase the physical distance and achieve more flexible contact with children.

△ Shanghai Children's Museum's online "virtual roaming" exhibition area (picture from official website, Shanghai Children's Museum)

Attach importance to the power of collections and objects, and the most important thing is to skillfully establish the connection between collections and children. There are objects from different times and different cultural backgrounds in the museum. Only in a more flexible and interesting way can we convey the history behind the objects and the cultural customs reflected to children, can we give full play to the maximum value of the collection.

Third, pay attention to interactivity.

At present, Brooklyn Children's Museum has an auditorium, a children's information library and studios for children's photography, art, music, science and geology. Children attend classes, practice and do experiments in the museum according to the projects formulated by the staff, and sometimes visit historical sites and conduct simulated archaeological excavations. These rich and interesting studies and practices have broadened children's knowledge horizons.

In fact, many museums in China have done a good job in enhancing interaction with children, mainly focusing on various types of experience activities.

For example, on the basis of permanent exhibitions, Shanghai Children's Museum has also planned and cultivated a variety of normal exhibition activities-hands-on classes, science lecture halls and excavation experience activities.

Another representative example is the Children's Glass Museum, a sub-museum of Shanghai Glass Museum. As the only museum in China that focuses on touch and interactive exploration, it not only allows parents and children to explore and touch each other in multiple units, but also allows children to learn glass-related knowledge after playing, such as keyboard ladder, glass maze, sunny beach, Vulcan Happy Theater, DreamWorks, etc.

△ (Image from official website, Shanghai Children's Glass Museum)

Combining with the domestic social trends, creating colorful interactive experience activities is also a magic weapon for children's glass museum.

It is reported that since 20 14, the series of activities of "Glass-Glass Chemistry Laboratory" has been held for more than 50 times, which has become a classic public education project of the museum. In addition to "Etiquette Workshop" and "Coloured Glass Traveling Around the World", there are script killings and AR mobile phone games in museums. ......

△ Glass-Glass Chemistry Laboratory Site (Image from Network)

At the same time, the online "Children's Weber Classroom" has also brought the distance between the museum and the parent-child family closer, and realized the innovation of the interactive activity space.

△ (Image from Shanghai Children's Museum official website)

These interactive experience-oriented activities lead the museum to make various new attempts. In other words, the implantation of interactive projects has gradually changed the exhibition content and mode of the museum from the early unilateral implantation visit mode to the later interactive experience exhibition mode. This interesting and educational experiential activity is favored by many children, and it is also a major trend for museums to seek diversified development and even transformation in the future.

Fourth, pay attention to the value of community construction.

The research shows that the intimate space for children is not only to provide material support for children, but also to provide a good environment for children's mental health and moral growth. In the construction of child-friendly communities, we should pay attention to cultural traditions such as neighborhood relations, filial piety ethics and mutual assistance, so that children can increase their interaction with the city with the company and leadership of adults.

Brooklyn Children's Museum attaches great importance to the "community attribute" of museums.

It is understood that many nearby children will go to the museum to participate in projects and listen to lectures on weekends. After entering high school, they can participate in museum activities as assistant librarians to accompany other children's growth. Children who grew up in Brooklyn Children's Museum have been exposed to different cultures and people from different cultures since childhood. For them, the difference may be different colors, unique exotic foods or fresh ways of thinking.

Based on this, Brooklyn Children's Museum strives to establish meaningful connections among children, and through community activities, community workshops and community festivals held in the museum, children can interact socially in a relaxed and interesting atmosphere and establish new self-identity.

At present, although Shanghai Children's Museum and other museums in China also have the concept of community building and have launched many community projects, it is not mature for such a long-term form of community building.

If the "children's perspective" gives priority to children's willingness to enter the museum, then the community built by the museum will really gather children in one space, which means paying attention to "children's rights and interests", paying attention to children's emotional needs and ideological expression, and building a public space where children can really speak. The enlightenment of this point to domestic children's museums is precious.

Replication mode is easy to lead to "acclimatization"?

Of course, although the American version of the children's museum model has a lot to learn from, due to the differences in national conditions, economic development, cultural concepts and social environment, if it is completely copied, it may cause "acclimatization."

From 20 18 to 12, the No.1 brand of China Children's Museum, the other shore Children's Museum, opened in Beijing Blue Harbor and received a positive response soon.

Referring to the model of American Children's Museum, the other side Children's Museum not only provides interactive experience projects, but also ensures the learning quality through self-designed teaching materials, so that children can understand knowledge through real experiences such as touch and perception. At the same time, it also actively develops an education system suitable for infants and young children in China, and employs foreign teachers as leading teachers.

To some extent, these practices make up for the shortcomings of the lack of professionalism and immature development of early childhood education in China.

△ Beijing Children's Museum on the other side (picture from the Internet)

However, it is different from the Shanghai Children's Museum, a state-owned museum, and the American Children's Museum, which mainly provides government purchase services and CSR donations from NGOs and enterprises. As a commercial brand, the other party should also consider the important issue of profitability.

It is understood that in addition to preschool education, the profit point on the other side also includes the annual card, and the annual card pricing is defined between1.2 ~ 50,000 yuan. But how many ordinary parent-child families in China can keep their children's space consumption frequency at two or three times a month, just like in the United States?

To sum up, pure foreign language education and low fees limit the audience on the other side to intellectual families or middle-class families pursuing high-quality children's education. However, if we can't keep innovating and maintaining high quality in exhibitions, this kind of children's museum with commercial brand nature may have temporary attraction, but it may not be able to stand on the China market for a long time.

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With the extension of the orientation and function of the museum, its social value is increasing day by day. We see that the way of serving children in the whole museum community is changing-planning special children's exhibitions, carrying out special children's education activities, providing exclusive children's services, equipping professional children educators and opening up independent children's education space.

Whether it is a special children's museum or a children's area built by a comprehensive museum, in order to attract loyal children and parents and realize sustainable development, the first thing is to take the children's perspective as the leading factor, and the "display function" and "educational function" go hand in hand. After all, education is an eternal topic; Secondly, we should make good use of new digital technology and create a good immersive interactive experience space for children with new context and logic; In addition, museums should pay more attention to children's rights and interests, attach importance to the value of community building, and build a bridge between children and society. In the future, I believe the Children's Museum will create more surprises.

References:

National Cultural Heritage Administration, Annual Report of the National Museum.

Lu Wei, exploration of children's activity space in urban cultural environment

Shanghai transformation release, "24 Chinese and foreign children's museums: let children increase their" knowledge "through" entertaining "

Qu, "Exploring the world's first children's museum, giving priority to children's perspectives was originally done."

Zhang Dandan, the integration of physical space and cultural space —— Thoughts on establishing a child-friendly community.

China Children's Museum Education Research Center, Case Focus | National Children's Museum Education District Map (Complex).

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