Museums adopt different methods for their ways of creating and communicating knowledge. Different visual displays influence the feeling a viewer may have, and different placards placed in a supplementary context help provide background information. However, there was a lack of descriptive information about my object in the Maxwell Museum as kept in mind when I wrote, “This singular, foot-tall piece of ceramic cannot summarize the rest of its culture, but with a proper description, could at least allude to the type of civilization they were.” Museums encourage viewers to do further research into the objects they display, however, Maxwell seemingly makes you have to do all of that since they only mention the object name and place of creation. While it’s not ideal, it’s still a way to communicate their knowledge about Casas Grandes and Mata Ortiz pottery. Additionally, purely informational placards help provide an unbiased viewpoint, but dotted around the museums were notices saying some exhibits may be missing objects because they are in the process of returning some artifacts to their rightful owners or remodeling their existing displays. Including this information is critical to the viewer’s understanding as they’re able to see the context of the object relative to the greater world and different opinions surrounding them on their existence within museums. Remodeling itself is also important as it signals to viewers that the museum knows the current display could be improved or made different and from either result, will provide a newer or enhanced perspective on their objects.
Knowledge is paramount to the betterment of society. Providing different means of learning about an object allows it to become more accessible to different swaths of people and thereby increasing collective human knowledge. Inherently museums work to achieve this goal and their actions are improved by feedback from the community — another important tool for the creation and communication of knowledge.