The Frightening Invitation of a Guestbook

I was investigating the various blogs and journals on the list of sources for our Intro to Museums class summaries when I found an interesting article to share. It's in the July 2011 issue of Curator:

The Frightening Invitation of a Guestbook

The author, Bonnie J. Morris, goes around to museums and reads the comments left by visitors in the guest books. She pays special attention to controversial exhibits and memorial museums, which naturally tend to elicit strong responses, as "True immersion in a well-designed memorial museum is not supposed to be a comfortable experience."

Some of the comments are direct, emotional responses to the exhibits. Others are basically rants. They range from the political to the preachy to the poetic. Morris says:

"Some signatures have the literary quality of a drunken phone call, while others contain eloquence worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. These institutionally sanctioned rants--these drive-by shootings--these political haiku--are special exhibits themselves, testaments to the impact visual images can have on individuals."

Here are some examples:

6 million Jews died in the name of purification. 40 million babies have died in the name of choice. (left at the Holocaust Museum)

This was deep and made me sick to my stomache. (left by a child, also at the Holocaust Museum)

Peace is nothing but a pipe dream.(left at Hiroshima's memorial museum)

This is not just art--it is evidence of what human beings can do when our souls fall asleep. (left at the Smithsonian's display of art by Japanese-Americans in internment camps).


It would appear that no matter how well-designed your exhibit is, no matter how inclusive your narrative or thoughtful your interpretation, some people are just going to react a certain way no matter what:

"What struck me about these public writings was the authors' refusal to engage in the process designed by the museum."

The author even describes being asked to leave a museum by a security guard who insisted her perusal of guestbook comments was an invasion of people's private thoughts. It was interesting that, in this world of rampant internet commentary, the author's "genuine curiosity toward others' feedback struck a chord of violation." Morris also writes about how these comments, like other forms of paper communication, are becoming a lost art:

"As the nation drifts inexorably away from longhand, most public writing is now electronic. Citizens Tweet and text furiously with thumbs against glass--often while walking, even racing, toward the next urgent task of the day. Museum guestbooks are one of the last remaining formats for slowly handwritten sentiment. They are a low-tech cradle of free speech, a means of public dialogue capable of making us all into thoughtful arbiters of history.... I may flinch from the inappropriate or undiplomatic language inked onto public pages at the Smithsonian, yet I'm grateful there's a means to save our gut-level responses to displays of the unspeakable. The sound of a pen scratching will vanish all too soon."

The next time I go to a museum, you can bet I'll be investigating the guest book comments (and maybe I'll try to leave something more insightful than "kewl").