Narrative apparatus in archaeological museums and communication for all

Abstract: This paper focuses on the communication in museums, intended as solutions, both verbal and perceptive, to involve visitors and convey messages.Captions and panels are the first and most evident components of museum communication, and can entail difficulties of different nature: from the language for insiders to the inadequate font dimensions. Nevertheless, space can create atmospheres and communicative environments even without words or explicit references. Involving other senses than the sight, we are more exposed to them and less vigilant in recognising and critically evaluating them. This matter involves all audiences, but it can create considerable differences between audiences that are more or less culturally equipped to recognise implicit messages. From the other sides, the communicative power of spatial signals can be exploited to reach people who do not feel like reading, and are suspicious of long speeches and an abundance of information.Finally, if verbal communication and spatial environment create a consistent system, they can be much more effective. This paper examines in particular the archaeological heritage and its difficulties to reach a very heterogeneous audience. The inclusive solutions should tend to overlap different tools, avoiding to explicitly “target” them. The Authors question how to decline design for all, if by fruition we do not only mean making contact but understanding the message (above all the values, not only the information content); they question how to adapt the modes of narration to the perceptive but above all cognitive capacities: a profound rethinking is needed since the translation from one medium to another one is not enough. Lastly, they wonder what role space and its perception play and how exhibition design can influence/help, given that the mediation of content for archaeological heritage encounters "ideological and cultural rather than practical or economic" limits and difficulties.In particular, this paper is based on the outcomes of two surveys carried out in Musei Reali Torino and Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia (Rome), revealing the difficulties in transmitting contents and enabling visitors reflect on them.

Keywords: interpretation, spatial communication, cultural heritage

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1004785

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