The power of art galleries and museums lies in the interactions between the exhibitions, members of the public and the informal learning that result from these collaborations. Art galleries and museums service to the public is defined and realised by the provision of these experiences and provide an invaluable public service to our communities.
Art galleries and museums should be open spaces for everyone, encouraging many voices to interact with each other which provides informal learning opportunities. This is verified by numerous studies and reports. “Canadian museums and art galleries retain their popularity through the development of a variety of programmes, exhibitions, and services. As centres of lifelong learning, they are valuable resources in the research, preservation, and interpretation of Canada’s heritage “. The State of Museums in Canada-Brief-Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, June 2016.
Art galleries and museums can function as sites for informal learning and community building through the incorporation of a participatory and collaborative process that helps to give voice to those who have been marginalized and/or suppressed by dominant social and cultural narratives. Art galleries and museums can be spaces where dominant discourses can be critiqued by juxtaposing competing voices and diverse points of view. The conflicting voices and assimilation of the “words of others,” and the idea of meaning making can situate art galleries and museums as public spaces for informal learning and relational dialogue. This strategy provokes conversations, questions dominant narratives, and demonstrates how dialogue in artistic representations built on multiple, conflicting voices and contradictions.
Art galleries and museums can be public spaces where members of the community should drive the direction of institutions, share their way of knowing the world, and explore the potential of becoming informal spaces of learning. I propose that exhibitions are creative form of knowledge that facilitate dialogue multiple and diverse ways of knowing as creative forma of critical inquiry that examine contemporary society. The dialogic space in between art works, artists and exhibitions are essential elements in developing a broader understanding of how we acquire creative forms of knowledge through exhibitions. Exhibitions as forms of “knowledge creation” can help facilitate dialogue multiple and diverse ways of knowing that incorporate conflicting voices and meaning-making found in the “in-betweenness”- the artist’s voices and the viewers’ subjective and subconscious experience that situate exhibitions as forms of inquiry and art galleries as public spaces for informal learning.
Using dialogical learning like a methodology was intended to help viewers engage with the artworks in the exhibition. It also facilitated knowledge sharing between the artist and viewers. The concept of dialogical looking suggests that viewers can consciously articulate questions and utilizes a dialogical and collaborative approach and will help provoke the viewer into exploring other concepts such as theme and context. Pierroux (2006) asserts that understanding dialogical narrative allows for a concept of visitor agency in the processes of meaning making. It is within these dialogical interactions that we can begin to think about new ways of learning through exhibitions that explore innovative ideas, alternative voices, and new narratives.
Dialogical looking can create processes of looking that asks viewers to create meaning based on the visual art that is being looked at and make dialogical connections to the viewer’s own experience. By acknowledging the importance of multiple dialogues, dialogic looking creates rich learning experiences that do not solely rely on the mediating voice of the museum expert, didactic panels, or guided tours. The act of looking is dialogical and suggests how the perspectives of our consciousness can interact with visual art. The use of dialogical looking assists viewers in organizing and balancing way of becoming more fully engaged with the meaning in creating and understanding of artworks.