At a time when many museums don’t have the staff or budget for ongoing development and fabrication of in-house exhibitions, touring exhibitions have become the order of the day. The industry has seen explosive growth, and the general benefits of touring exhibitions for museums are numerous:
- Bringing in new exhibitions helps diversify your programming and develop your audience — the novelty of the offerings encourages both new and returning visitors alike.
- Having new exhibitions increases your institution’s profile, keeps your name in the community, and offers avenues for engagement with donors and potential new members.
- Hosting touring exhibitions allows you to use your resources more efficiently. Rather than spending the considerable funds required to develop new permanent exhibitions, you can outsource, so to speak. Relatedly, revenue generated from touring exhibitions can then be used to offset the cost of in-house exhibition development.
- If your museum has the means, lending out an exhibition is yet another potential avenue for income and exposure for your institution.
But where is it all going? Is the traveling exhibition industry the new frontier? What can we expect going forward?
Digital and Hybrid Experiences
Immersive experiences have permeated the sector, and not without controversy. Love them, hate them, or tolerate them, they’re here to stay … for now at least. Demand for immersive exhibition experiences is up, and object-led exhibitions or spotlight exhibitions focusing on one major object are not as popular.
In the not-so-distant past, an exhibition without original works of art or objects might not have been considered a “real” cultural offering, but the rise in popularity of immersive exhibitions, presenting an experience through digital tools, soundscapes, installations, and other forms of mixed reality, has proved that to be wrong. Visitors around the world, particularly younger generations who are actively seeking a memorable, shareable experience, are making traditional exhibition-makers rethink our trade. But is this a current trend or something for the long-term? (Source: In Real Life: Immersive Experience and the Future of Traveling Exhibitions)
We’ve written about drawbacks of AR and VR for museums, and interestingly, several of those drawbacks can be bypassed by opting for a touring immersive/digital exhibition versus an in-house one.
Related resources:
The Power of Technology in Traveling Exhibitions
Ask an Expert: How Can Traveling Exhibitions Go the Distance
Eco-Conscious Practices
In terms of sustainability and touring exhibitions, the onus mostly falls on the creator and producer of the exhibition as opposed to the host institution, although all parties should be mindful. There has been a push toward more sustainable practices in the design, transportation, and installation of traveling exhibitions, but what that means can look different depending on the exhibition:
There are many ways that touring exhibitions can be produced and managed, from the loan of collections where exhibition setworks are constructed locally by the host, to fully built exhibitions that incorporate all the components that a host would need to open the doors to the public, and many variants in between. It may seem that touring the minimum amount of setwork is the better option for the planet, but this may not be the case, as setwork built locally for temporary installations are more likely to involve large amounts of landfill waste. Conversely, a touring exhibition can be designed to be reused again and again. (Source: How Can the Environmental Impacts of Touring Be Reduced?)
Transportation of traveling exhibits comes with a large carbon footprint, so to reduce environmental impact, we may see more museums partnering with local institutions to create region-specific versions of exhibitions that are reusable and minimize the need for long-distance transportation.
Even further down the line, you can expect to see interesting developments in useable materials. Think lab-grown dyes, synthetic biology, “co-designing with nature to substitute materials with a detrimental impact to the planet” and “pushing the boundaries of what our material world has to offer.” (Source: Material Tales: Research in Action)
Related resources:
The Design Museum’s Toolkit to Reduce the Environmental Impact of Exhibitions
Sustainable Traveling Exhibitions
Note: Teo (Touring Exhibitions Organization) is a goldmine of resources, especially for current information on the ins and outs of traveling exhibitions. The pandemic changed so much, and what worked in 2010 may not be as relevant now.
Collaborations
For museums looking to boost visitor numbers, the type of exhibition matters. Museums see bumps when the exhibitions have entertainment tie-ins (examples of this are Titanic: The Exhibition or The Science Behind Pixar). Exhibitions that are child-friendly and/or have interactive elements also tend to be a draw. In efforts to appeal to multiple demographics, we may see a rise in interdisciplinary themes in exhibits, combining art, science, history, to create multi-faceted experiences. Increased collaborations between museums, universities, tech companies, and promoters are also on the horizon. Expect more and more of that key mix of innovation, entertainment, and education.
Related resource: Exhibition Hosting Partnership Models: Venue and Promoter Collaborations
Museums are already forming global networks to share resources, expertise, and exhibitions. This type of collaboration aids in the creation of diverse and dynamic exhibitions that reflect a broader range of cultures and perspectives. You can anticipate more spots where museums can advertise available traveling exhibitions. (Current examples of this include CAJM and AAMG listings on their respective sites).
ICEE is a branch of ICOM devoted to exhibition exchange. If an international conference is in your budget, the fall 2024 conference Momentum: Exhibitions and Memory is one way to stay abreast of developments in this area. It will feature the ever-popular Traveling Exhibition Marketplace along with a series of traveling exhibition workshops and sessions.
Collaborations will also impact sustainability for the better. Circular material cycles means partnering up to use materials discarded from other industries before they end up in a landfill. Circular economy goals like this are much broader than the museum sector, but museums can certainly play a role here.
Enhanced Accessibility
As with permanent collections, there is a growing emphasis on making traveling exhibitions accessible to all visitors. We’re talking about physical accessibility as well as the creation of content that’s accessible to people with visual, auditory, or cognitive impairments. We will see more traveling exhibitions that can provide content in multiple languages and that tweak narratives to resonate with different cultural contexts to broaden their appeal and inclusivity. A current example of this is the touring Notre-Dame de Paris: The Augmented Exhibition, which has content available in 13 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Czech, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Pain Points
The pandemic highlighted the need for museums to be adaptable. To err on the safe side, future traveling exhibitions should be designed with flexibility in mind, allowing for quick pivots to digital formats or the ability adapt to changing health guidelines.
Cost is always an issue, and museums will need to explore new financial models to support traveling exhibitions — membership tiers, subscription-based access to digital content, crowdfunding for specific exhibits, corporate sponsors, and sharing resources between institutions to reduce the cost of lending and touring. Expect to see a lot more exploration in the realm of partnerships and cross-promotions.
Maintaining an audience for your permanent collection and not relying on the short-term boost cycle of temporary exhibitions will be a key factor in behind-the-scenes museum strategy.
Strategically implemented special exhibits and programs can provide effective opportunities to tell new stories, demonstrate expertise, and reach new audiences. They can be excellent tools to successfully reach desired goals. But there IS something wrong with how our industry has trained people to respond to these special exhibits and programs at the expense of permanent experiences. (Source: “There’s Nothing New to See”: How Major Exhibits Really Impact Long-Term Attendance)
Overall, you can count on the future of traveling museum exhibitions to be characterized by innovation, sustainability, and a commitment to making art, culture, science, and history accessible to a global and diverse audience. I’ll leave you with a line from Teo’s 2023 report on The Future of Touring Exhibitions, which includes data from responding institutions across all continents: “Touring exhibitions seem indeed here to stay and to provide an important channel through which cultural exchanges and circulation of ideas across the world can effectively happen regardless of the obstacles.”
