Museums are unfinished, ever-changing. We continue to learn along with our visitors, our communities and society. Museums are a grand and continuous experiment in educating, engaging and inspiring people of every age and background. The American Association of Museums conference 2009 stated this as its premise. Cultural Innovations Consultant, Emma Freeman, attended and discovered how some museums are taking innovative approaches to involving visitors in the development of their exhibits.

The need for constant evolution and innovation is no truer for American Museums than it is for many of our clients who are developing and re-invigorating museums and cultural heritage projects across the world. This year’s AAM conference in Philadelphia focused on innovative initiatives in museums that are increasing their relevance for diverse local communities, helping them respond to our publics’ changing needs and promoting more meaningful engagement with museums’ greatest assets – real objects. Sessions covered all areas of museum development and operations from governance and partnerships to programming, revenue generation and collections.

Several conference sessions discussed how museums are drawing on the increasing 21st century appetite of content consumers to become content creators. This is currently happening primarily through online means whether through blogs, Wikipedia or social networking sites across a spectrum of industries and in all parts of the world, to a greater or lesser extent. When employed in the context of physical museum settings, involving visitors in the creation of exhibits offers new opportunities to deepen our relationships with visitors while providing content that reflects their personal interests and experiences.

In a session on Co-created exhibits, we heard from the Brooklyn Museum and Minnesota History Centre who have recently hosted public exhibitions comprised entirely of stories, objects and photos that were submitted by members of the public. Similarly, in creating an exhibition on the Lodz Ghetto, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington invited the public to carry out their own research in order to generate new knowledge and contribute it to the exhibition. The Tech Museum of Innovation has gone a step further by inviting visitors to design their own exhibits and then work with the museum to modify them before they are built and installed in the museum.