A Study On The Meaning And Application Of Dialogue In Museum Exhibitions

Museum exhibitions are closely associated with sociocultural background and epistemology for they show how people understand the world.In contemporary society,pluralism,cultural contradiction and difference are increasingly valued whereas epistemology is changing from believing eternal truth to concentrating more on the openness and uncertainty of knowledge.Under the circumstance,museums are inevitably influenced.Exhibitions,as the main media communicates with the public in museums,are facing new challenges:How to deal with contradictions between museums' status of the hall of truth and the public's desire to express freely?How to balance authority and pluralism?The concept of dialogue which advocates meaning co-construction might be one of the solutions.What's the role of dialogue in museum exhibitions?How to construct dialogue in museum exhibitions?These are two key and yet to be answered questions.To find the answer of question 1 'What's the role of dialogue in museum exhibitions?',the study traces the history of museum exhibitions and social thought in China and the West,take the concept of dialogue in philosophy and the context of museum exhibitions into consideration to get the conclusion:dialogue has dual roles in museum exhibitions,a kind of methodology and a kind of communicate method.Dialogue as a kind of methodology is a macro guiding ideology which could help to build an equal and coexistence relationship between museums and visitors,transfer the aim of exhibitions from 'inculcating knowledge' to 'motivating creative thinking and interaction'.The meaning in exhibitions is hence continually being remade and it makes showing diversity of the world in exhibitions possible.Dialogue as a kind of communicate method put the guiding ideology into practice,facilitating meaning co-construction.To find the answer of question 2 'How to construct dialogue in museum exhibitions?',the study combines fieldwork and archival research,chooses three typical cases:Liverpool Museum,Imperial War Museum North and Exploratorium from which to generalize three principles to advocate dialogue in exhibitions:1.building relevance 2.showing difference 3.constructing platforms for participation.The raising of the principles shows acceptance of differences and pluralism in practice,providing practical advice for the development of museum exhibitions in China.