McNeal, Madisonand Sophia Sheenan

Title:
Does the Physical Setting of an Exhibition Affect Audiences' Understanding of Narratives?

Abstract:
Museum exhibitions have to allow for contemplation of the exhibited archives or objects and have to communicate to audiences the exhibition’s educational purpose. Therefore, many scholars have researched museum exhibition design on how spatial layout aids in effective communication to audiences. However, there is a lack of research on human perceptions related to the interrelation between physical settings and narratives in an exhibition. Since audiences can freely move around in exhibition environments, they can be affected by the physical settings to become emotionally, intellectually, and physically implicated into the narrative. Therefore, physical factors must be considered in exhibition design as a part of the narrative environment. The study's purpose is to examine how physical factors of narrative environments affect human perception to facilitate communication-based on four spatial narrative theories.
Narrative environments are intentionally designed in a gallery at an urban mid-western university based on the narratives created by qualitative photovoice analysis from a project titled “Understanding HIV Risk and Resilience among Adolescents who have been Orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Hai Phong, Vietnam.” The gallery is designed to examine different physical factors (e.g., form, scale, and light). A defined group of 30 participants (total 6 groups) will experience the exhibition respectively to explore their perceptions on the effectiveness of interactions between physical settings and narratives. All participants will complete a Likert scale survey and have semi-structured interviews for data collection. Findings from this study will contribute to exhibition designs for curators and museum designers for effective communication of narratives.

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