Perpustakaan Digital ITB

This chapter is about participatory visual practices and public museums, including public art galleries. This may sound somewhat paradoxical, as the image that comes most frequently to mind when one says “museum” is a pas- sive audience, standing motionless in hushed contemplation of artworks by long-dead “masters,” or installations and artifacts distanced from the messiness and contradictions of the world. Within this shrine-like atmosphere, adults are expected to accept the wisdom of the curators and educators, and neither question, interrupt, disobey, relate, nor reimagine. These images of the mu- seum, formed through actual experience as well as simply pervasive stereo- types, stand in marked contrast to what adult educators commonly think of as participatory visual practices, characterized as active, engaging, and empow- ering. To participate is to take part, to be involved, to collaborate, to create, or to have agency.