Shopping Center Museums

Greetings!

My name is Micki Weltzin, and I am currently directing exhibits that are traveling through shopping centers. As one might imagine, I have had several experiences that are not what would be considered typical in the normal museum setting. For instance, shopping hours of 10am to 9pm are not exactly museum hours and sidewalk sales make security very difficult.

What I am writing to you all is to ask if anyone else has had experiences with this shopping mall phenomenon and would care to share to dos and don'ts or perhaps whether you think this genre of exhibit has a future. I will admit that I have encountered an audiance much different than that of a typical museum!

Thank you all ahead of time.

Micki Iowa City Area Science Center

Try talking to the folks at the Idaho Museum of Natural History. during their gallery renovations they maintained a community presence in a local shopping mall. They might have some advice.

Hope this helps

Nancy Russell

I am also very interested in the dos and don't of design for traveling exhibits at malls.

Micki, what specific problems did you have when placing your exhibit at a shopping mall? We are in the process of designing and fabricating a traveling exhibit and any advice would be appreciated.

Betty Brennan Taylor Studios, Inc.

Interesting conversation- I haven't been following this thread, but I think in some ways that having art or literature accessible makes it more real for the non-museum going public. At one time, the malls in Cincinnati and the Public Library installed library branches that were open regular mall hours; whether they are still operating I don't know. I do know that they were very popular for the two or three years I was still living in Cincinnati during my undergraduate schooling. Also, the Commons Mall in Columbus Indiana has a branch of the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The fiber group I belong to went down there to see the travelling exhibition of Quilt National this past weekend. The space is secured, separated from the food court, and not counting the ten of us, had about thirty visitors in two hours (on a Sunday afternoon). Columbus Indiana is not a large city by any means, and yet people were coming to see the show.

At 09:58 PM 4/14/97 -0700, you wrote:

Several years ago I did a security survey for a museum located on the top floor of a department store in Japan. Japan seems to have quite a few shopping center museums. They do, indeed, complicate security. In Japan, the store security people monitor the museum's alarms. The control room was not 'museum quality', that is, it was more suitable for a retail store than a museum. Phone lines were not fully supervised to the level we might expect. Everyone and his brother had a key to the museum space

Yes, Micki, the masses of those folks are different from our usual visitors, but they are also the ones we are trying to court into entering our facilities. Here in Manitoba we've circulated interactive science exhibits in malls for several years. You didn't mention if your exhibits were interactive or not, but ours certainly endured much more wear and tear than would have experienced from being on our exhibit floor. Partly to do with less security, less control, huge numbers of users, and frequent setup and takedowns.

Do's and Don'ts: where do I start!! Design exhibits for this use, rather than use the museum gallery design mentality. Design for ease of setup, packing, maintenance. Eliminate most text. Deal with topics that are an obvious concern to the mall visitor (our skeleton, with hip replacement info was a great hit to seniors). Staffing, staffing, staffing. Staff working these centres are quickly exhausted. Ever gone shopping all day? tiring, right? try it day after day - that's what its like.

Is there a future? absolutely. Now, if only we could cover our costs...

George Wurtak Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature