On Thursday, we didn't get any visitors until it was almost noon. While Dani went upstairs to research, I lurked around the exhibit, not wanting to miss any visitors. I thought a group of little kids might come in, but they seemed to visit every other exhibit in the show. There was a whole tour that entered, but they didn't make it past the circular room as they were only talking about the architecture of the building.
After visitors finally started showing up, I tracked about 6 or 7 people--there were a lot of people doing really fast exhibit visits all of a sudden. One visitor I wasn't tracking stopped me while I pretended to write things down about a pile cloth and asked me about what I was doing. It turned out that he was African and he thought he might be able to help me if I was studying African art and culture. He seemed really excited by the exhibit and said it was wonderful I was studying it. Another visitor later asked me about the power figures--she wanted to know what "power figures" meant.
At 2:30 (ish), we went over to the main building for a panel discussion on interpretation in the museum. I thought all of the things they shared were really interesting: the ways they were using technology to make art more accessible, their goal of making the museum a place that changes the way people think about the world, and their commitment (however confusingly worded) to providing visitors with the tools they needed to direct their own learning. I just didn't like their attitudes, and I also didn't like the emphasis they placed on money. After the talk, we took an excellent team selfie in front of a model of the museum.
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