" I'd rather play than look at statues ": The Experiences of Children with Art Works and Interactive Devices at an Art Exhibition

Stéphane Debenedetti, Florence Caro and Anne Krebs
Additional contact information
Florence Caro: Musée du Louvre
Anne Krebs: Musée du Louvre

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Young children have been largely neglected in research dedicated to the art museum experience. The art exhibition "Tête à tête" ("Face-to-Face"), designed for 5-12 year olds, became an opportunity to bring an exploratory contribution to three research issues: the relationship that the young child has with works of art and interactive devices, the role the adult plays in this relationship and the benefits derived from the visit. Building on observation and interviews, the article shows that children's attention is clearly drawn more towards interactive devices than art works, yet at the same time, the hypothesis that interactive devices are directly detrimental to children's reception of art works could not be confirmed. The results also emphasize the limited role that adults play in guiding the children towards the art. In the end, both adults and children appear to be satisfied overall with the playful and interactive dimension of their experience. Following this, art museums should questions themselves on how to specifically help families to better guide the young child's perspective towards the art works themselves, and also rely on the adult to encourage, in the child, a more active approach to the art work.

Keywords: Art exhibitions; child; family; museum experience; interactive devices; learning; interpretation; interpretation aids (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00635790v1
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in International Journal of Arts Management, 2009, 11 (3), pp.46-58

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00635790v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00635790

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().