Green Cheese Encountering Moon Rocks in the Museum

Hermeneutics Visualized, by Lesley Barker c. 2017

Hermeneutics is a theoretical approach to interpretation, understanding and meaning. The word, hermeneutics, is most commonly used in theology, which is where the discipline originated before it was adopted by jurisprudence. In another blog post, I will share a timeline who's who in hermeneutics, a field that has gained a wider application over time. My goal for this blog is to provide a way to think about hermeneutics so that it can be useful as a tool to rethink interpretation in the museum.

Interpretation, as viewed in hermeneutics, begins with what is already understood. Gadamer calls this "prejudice". Educators term this "prior knowledge". Suppose the museum has an exhibit of moon rocks but that a visitor's prior knowledge, or prejudice, is that the moon is made of green cheese. When this visitor enters the exhibit, his prior knowledge is addressed, questioned and disrupted by the moon rocks on display and by the images and quotations of the astronauts depicting and describing the surface of the moon. The oval, above, represents the exhibit space where the visitor has to make conceptual adjustments within his own internal, mental space. The oval, simultaneously, represents this personal, mental space. How long the hermeneutic interpretive pause and process lasts is neither standardized nor predictable but, when it happens, it is always transformative. The end of the process is a new utterance, statement, display, artistic or performative expression. 

Alternatively, the museum's exhibit functions as its "prior knowledge". When a visitor brings new information to the museum's attention that challenges the ideas and conclusions "uttered" in the exhibit, the museum, itself, should be "addressed" and disrupted. As long as the museum considers itself to be the expert, it may not be open to experience its own hermeneutic interpretive pause. With this museum-as-expert-and-knowledge-broker identity, the museum may not be humble enough to produce a different "utterance" as evidenced in a new exhibit. However, should the museum rethink its role and identity so that it shifts, intentionally and incrementally, to become the oval, the space where hermeneutic interpretation happens, individually and institutionally, a new kind of museum space could emerge that would be characterized by an iterative exchange of knowledge, filtered by wisdom to produce more just, inclusive utterances. As will become clear in later blog posts, this approach to museum interpretation would epitomize what Dr. Viv Golding describes as a "hermeneutic circle of understanding" at work. 

Works Cited
Gadamer, H., 2013. Truth and Method. Kindle edition. London, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury.

Golding, V., 2009. Learning at the Museum Frontiers: Identity Race and Power. Abingdon, Oxon, GBR: Ashgate Publishing Group.

By Lesley Barker c. 2017

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