Turning up the nostalgia dial
I rounded off last week with a whistle-stop trip to York for the first of a series of exciting new workshops being run by the Science Museum and York's Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past. Their new Department for Research and Public History is running a research network considering how museums with scientific collections (encompassing science, technology, engineering and medicine) can better engage with the public. We heard a wide range of case studies considering how drama, storytelling, public reenactment and Smartphone technology can be used to draw in new audiences. Interesting, but too varied I felt.
What really grabbed me, in fact, was the short tour of the National Railway Museum (our host for the day), which we were given to kick off the event, with a particularly enthusiastic and engaging member of the NRM team. They are in the process of redeveloping their Station Hall, faced with the problem of making train technology draw in the punters. The problem, as for most science museums, is to bring to life complicated and, often, large machines which may not be particularly visually appealing. But, the NRM has the advantage that almost every visitor will have been on a train, and are therefore setting out to recreate the railway experience in Station Hall. Thus they are making the hall feel like an old station, with ranges of signage, trolleys and luggage, the sense of people just departed, and even a slight haze to help create raking light. This made me realise how many iconic stations have being restored to a markedly nostalgic age of glory recently, think of St. Pancras in London or Grand Central in NYC.
Our NRM tour guide used the phrase ‘turning up the nostalgia dial’ which I thought encapsulated this beautifully. Highlight what visitors know and love in an object, and they will respond to it. Simple really. I found myself getting soppy over an early 90s British Rail ticket machine in the warehouse (the ones with different green or yellow square buttons for each option). The challenge for many museums is to create ‘nostalgia’ for an object like an astrolabe or trepanning knife which the visitor has never seen. Let's see what the next workshop has to offer.