What will the museum reopening sound like?

Empty halls, quiet spaces, lights off, echoes… that is the vision we have of the “closed” museum during the recent lockdown. This was confirmed by museum guards in April, who explained that looking after closed museums was strangely “eerie”. Over the past few weeks, museums are ecstatic to share that they will be reopening, with a great “hurrah” and celebration. It is indeed wonderful, and according to a recent Vastari survey, nearly 65% of museums are planning to be open again in the coming month.

But for many, the lockdown was not silent and empty. Lockdown was actually a time to discover what the museum “sounds” like when it’s not a silent space where your footsteps echo through the halls. Museum social media pages crowdsourced soundtracks from their audiences, and uncovered a new dimension to their museum experience - take a look at this list from the Musee des Beaux Arts in Lyon. With the doors closed, museums were forced to be inventive to bring their objects alive to audiences.

Popular culture has infiltrated the way museums can sound in fresh and unique ways. The Uffizi Gallery let its marketing team be inventive with the collection using the app “TikTok” and created quite a sensation over the lockdown period. Having a Drake "In my Feelings" serenade a 19th-century sculpture is probably quite a stretch for some, but can awaken the senses and has the potential to relay the sculpture’s sentiments to a new generation of viewers.

Museum shutdowns have led to the discovery of the underutilized sense of sound and its role in experience creating. As tactile displays may need to be rethought in terms of health and safety once museums reopen; music and sound have the potential to take center stage in a museum looking to create well rounded interactive and immersive experiences for their new visitors.

Read the rest of this article on the Vastari blog