Visitor Voices Between the Discursive and the Immersive

In December 2015, the Stedelijk Museum and the Louisiana Museum of Art convened a conference entitled “Between the Discursive and the Immersive – Research in 21st Century Art Museums.” Taking the Design Museum, London, as a case study, my Pecha Kucha explored how the museum’s public programs might be understood to create a discursive mode of visitor engagement, constituted through the interplay of visitor and institutional voices. This discursive mode can be encapsulated by the notion of a museum doing its thinking in public. Thinking in public provides a propositional space for critical engagement and reflexivity, and positions the museum as a forum for public engagement with design and its wider contexts. However, as suggested by the conference title and by a variety of other papers given over the two days, the museum also invites visitors to engage immersively with content, in particular through the curatorial strategies in the exhibition environment.