Why I Don't Have a Credit Card: "Not Kid Friendly"

The museum I work for is currently exhibiting part of a newly acquired collection of contemporary Inuit Art from the Canadian Arctic. This large collection represents some of the most prolific and well known Inuit print-makers and sculptors from the last 60 years. Our museum is small, and Arctic…

The museum I interned at this summer opened a brand new exhibit, and I was charged with doing exit surveys. I had one woman, only one, tell me very firmly that the new exhibit was horribly unfriendly and that she and her family had come in hoping for the former exhibit, and were extremely disappointed it was gone.

I went in and talked with the staff person working in the exhibit. He said the mom had encouraged the kids to run through the exhibit, even to climb on parts of it, forcing him to step in and say something. It is all about perceptions, isn’t it? Maybe if mom had helped them slow down and look, she would have gotten a very different impression. One of my favorite days in that exhibit was watching a three year old little girl toddle between displays, demanding to be picked up because she wanted to look at everything.