The document discusses co-production in museums, highlighting its impact on visitor engagement and the representation of local culture. It emphasizes the different forms of knowing—experiential, presentational, propositional, and practical—and examines the balance of control between museums and participants in content creation. Concerns about the effectiveness of co-produced media and the challenges of integrating user-generated content are also raised, offering insights into the evolving role of museums in the 21st century.

1. Co-production:
Visitors, Knowledge
and Politics
Helen Graham
Workshop for the CETAID
project, Portugal, 20th
February 2013
https://www.facebook.com
/CETforAID

2. Q1.
What are the key words you
have been using in your
workshops so far?

3. Q2.
Are there examples of co-produced and user-
generated content you’ve been involved in at
your museums?
Why do museums do co-
production? What do we hope co-
production will achieve?

4. It is probably not excessive to
suggest that the profound feeling of
unworthiness (and of incompetence)
which haunts the least cultivated
visitors as if they were overcome
with respect when confronted with
the sacred universe of legitimate
culture, contributes in no small way
to keeping them away from
museums. (p. 53)
It’s not really news that art galleries might be exclusive!

5. Northern Spirit:
300 Years of Art in the North East,
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle
Images: Nicola Maxwell

7. http://vimeo.com/33648485

12. Artists have seen the North East in
lots of different ways. How does
the North East look to you today?

13. Level playing field?

14. Visitor research:
Success in one way (…but did the co-
produced content help?)
• 50% split on whether the gallery was about
‘art’ or about the ‘north east’
• Phase 1 visitor research: noticed was little use
of the AV
• Phase 2 visitor research: focus in on each AV
element

15. • Space matters – wall space counts!

16. But…
• Form matters – touchscreens = ‘information’

17. When asked to listen or look at the co-produced
media then visitors gave positive comments –
It’s interesting to see
It’s quite cool to see the changes (e.g.
the city from a Interesting mix.. (between Tyne, between then
local’s point of known photograph and and now)
view… unknown photography)
‘makes it a bit more
*Listening to people’s
personal to the people
stories+ ‘makes it a little bit
around here which is
more real, how it used to
good’
exist’
I think it adds to your experience
and understanding. You look at the
paintings and you have your own
perspective and then if you add *support idea that’
someone else’s perspective, you ‘anyone can take pictures
get a different idea of how it has and capture a nice
developed… moment’

18. • Not strong enough connection between
paintings and co-produced media (as a result
felt ‘too much’)

19. • Need for stronger explanation about why co-
produced content was there – give authored
and personal reasons (because this is what
gives it it’s value)
Maybe it would be nice
if you used people’s
comments to explain
the significance of the
place for them…
Doesn’t really say how
the content has been
generated…

20. Q3.
What are the issues with displaying
collections and co-produced and user-
generated content side-by-side? Is it
helpful to treat them differently? And if
so, in what ways?

21. Experiential knowing is through direct face-to-face encounter
with person, place or thing; it is knowing through the immediacy of
perceiving, through empathy and resonance.
Presentational knowing emerges from experiential
knowing, and provides the first form of expressing meaning and
significance through drawing on expressive forms of imagery through
movement, dance, sound, music, drawing, painting, sculpture, poetry,
story, drama and so on.
Propositional knowing ‘about’ something, is knowing
through ideas and theories, expressed in informative statements.
Practical knowing is knowing ‘how to’ do something and is
expressed in a skill, knack or competence
(Heron, 1992, 1996a).

22. Museum/profes
sional mediating
role?
Individual/com
Visitors/Public
munities
v.?

23. Q4.
Do these different ‘ways of knowing’
reflect your experience of developing
exhibitions? Is anything left out?

24. Workshop
Visitor Experiences of Co-produced
Exhibits/Exhibitions:
Sharing research and exploring
approaches
18th December, St Mungo Museum of Art and
Religious life

25. Experiential knowing is through direct face-to-face encounter
with person, place or thing; it is knowing through the immediacy of
perceiving, through empathy and resonance.
Presentational knowing emerges from experiential
knowing, and provides the first form of expressing meaning and
significance through drawing on expressive forms of imagery through
movement, dance, sound, music, drawing, painting, sculpture, poetry,
story, drama and so on.
Propositional knowing ‘about’ something, is knowing
through ideas and theories, expressed in informative statements.
Practical knowing is knowing ‘how to’ do something and is
expressed in a skill, knack or competence
(Heron, 1992, 1996a).

26. Participant control
Museum control
D
TELL SELL CONSULT JOIN DELEGATE
Museum decides
Museum decides Museum invites Museum invites Museum turns
then sells
and then informs input before others to make decision over to
positive aspects
others deciding decisions with others.
of the decision.
them.
Courtesy of Kinharvie Institute and Curious Conference,
St Mungo Museum of Art and Religious Life.
5th and 6th December 2012.

27. Think about the projects you are
working on – Can you think (or
not!)of an example where you think
the museum can legitimately: Tell,
Sell, Consult, Join, Delegate
Participant control
Museum control
D
TELL SELL CONSULT JOIN DELEGATE
Museum decides
Museum decides Museum invites Museum invites Museum turns
then sells
and then informs input before others to make decision over to
positive aspects
others deciding decisions with others.
of the decision.
them.
Courtesy of Kinharvie Institute and Curious Conference,
St Mungo Museum of Art and Religious Life.
5th and 6th December 2012.

28. Sherry R. Arnstien’s
Ladder of Participation (1969)

29. Austerity and co-production
What is core to the
museum?

30. Q5.
Does content produced by visitors
present a different challenge and
possibilities to co-produced
material by a group working with
the museum?

31. Q6.
Return to our motivations for doing
co-production…
How might co-production and
visitor-generated content renew
museums for 21st century and in
the context of cuts?

32. More on Northern Spirit and the co-produced content see:
artontyneside.wordpress.com
Helen Graham: helengraham@wordpress.com