Target Audience Research to Support American Art Galleries Reinstallation at the Brooklyn Museum
Client: Brooklyn Museum | Location: Brooklyn, NY
As a research partner, we supported the Brooklyn Museum in developing an inclusive narrative for its American art reinstallation through conversations with critical audiences.
OVERVIEW
From 2021-2022, we worked with the Brooklyn Museum as a research partner to gather feedback from multiple critical audiences as they are beginning to plan for the reinstallation of the American art collections.
APPROACH
We first worked with the Brooklyn Museum to identify four critical audiences from which to collect feedback. The museum reflected on their biases and invited a diverse group of voices that may not be represented in the museum’s current work.
We organized virtual focus groups to collect feedback about text, artworks, and photographs of the American art galleries that represented the museum’s current thinking about the reinstallation. Focus groups were not audio or video recorded to encourage candid feedback.
CLIENT TAKEAWAYS
The Brooklyn Museum recognized that this research was just one preliminary step in their work to collaborate with audiences in their work. They plan to continue engaging with the research contributors from this study as well as other audiences they were not able to include in this study.
The Brooklyn Museum also recognized the need to work on systemic issues within the museum preventing them from being as inclusive as they intend to be. Systemic issues include how they work as staff and how they present artworks in the permanent collection.
