By Andrea Ott

A new wave in the development and display of cultural projects is having your audience create and plan visitor experiences. It started in artistic production with examples such as artists including the audience in public performances or collectively contributing to a piece of art or public display. With the advent of social media, audiences have the opportunities to discuss their thoughts on exhibitions and other cultural experiences with each other thereby increasing the opportunity for a wider view of the content presented. The next new trend is to have the audience plan the experience!

Claudia Haas is working on just this with curator Dr. Werner Hanak Hs and Planet Architects on an open-source exhibition entitled 7 Questions Leading to a New Permanent Exhibition that stages the discourse around the development of a permanent exhibit for the Jewish Museum Vienna. The pop-up experiment opens the process to the public and translates the museum space into a “think tank” where visitors are invited to interact and contribute to critical issues related to the formation of the Jewish Museum Vienna’s permanent collection and in general, contemporary Jewish museums.

The 7 Questions are:

7 Questions