Pleasure, Connection and Purpose: Museums & Emotions Research
Emotions in Museums
How can museums leverage the public’s emotions in order to build sustained support for the museum sector?
When a museum is facing closure or another threat, public support can soar. But how might we sustain this emotionally driven support on a long-term basis, and how does this translate into short-term campaigns?
Our arts, culture and heritage team were commissioned by the Association of Independent Museums (AIM) and Art Fund to investigate which emotions drive public support for museums, why certain emotions are more powerful than others, and how museums might use these emotions to channel support amongst their communities as we emerge from the pandemic, but continue to face potentially challenging times.
We found that museums spark a range of emotions in their visitors, communities and the wider general public which we categoried under the ‘feelings’ of pleasure, purpose and connection. This report and the accompanying webinars provide insight and practical ways in which your museum might galvanise these emotions to connect with audiences on a deep emotional level.
The full report and webinars are available below, and the findings have also been presented at AIM’s Annual Conference in 2023 with a follow-up in 2024, as well as at the Knowledge Quarter conference in London, MuseumNext’s Social Impact conference and others.
You can also join AIM/Art Fund’s Community of Practice to work with colleagues from the wider sector and share learnings and experiences.
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Emotions in Museums: Outputs
The Report
We recommend starting with the written report. This contains a section on ‘Wayfinding’ (page 4) to help guide you through the most useful sections depending on what you are trying to do (though it is worth reading cover to cover, of course!).
AIM and Art Fund have setup a Community of Practice for those who wish to share progress and learnings from using the framework, share ideas about how it could be used and seek support from others. The group meets a couple of times a year remotely.
Meriel Royal provides an introduction to emotions and how other brands utilise them, the context for this research, what we did, the strucutre of the report, and how to start thinking about using the findings in your museum in the short and longer term.
The main presentation begins at 3:05.
Webinar 2
Elliot Simmonds briefly re-caps on the challenge and approach, before going on to discuss some practical elements in more detail – how do you understand where you are, how do you use the model in campaigns, and how might you use it in programming.
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