from David Phillips in Art Gallery and Museum Studies, History of Art,
University of Manchester

re:  Ceres Bainbridge's query about discovery rooms and arts.

Ceres, I guess most early experiments were with science-centre type
perceptual demonstrations related to purely visual qualities of woks of art.
The High Museum of art did that with their first 5 year childrens'
installation - Spectacles - I think it was called.  Similarly Montreal had a
colour perception show amongst their first experiments in their Educational
and Cultural Forum.  We've done a number of experiments on those lines,
trying to use colour and pattern demonstrations as a way into enjoying
visual experience and art.  Visual illusions and puzzle pictures also go
down well in that kind of context.  They engage visitors fine, but I'm not
now sure they really help with art much, (except when used didactically in
formal teaching sessions) and I worry that they pander to the trend towards
ever more transient stimulus, just in galleries where the problem is to
focus quiet attention.  I would certainly not mix up art objects and
interactives any more.  (I still love these visual effect interactives
myself, and I do think they help people just enjoy visual experience, so I'm
a bit split on the issue.)

Over at the Tate Gallery in Liverpool they have done a number of very
interesting short term hands-on Open Studios, in connecton with specific
contemporary shows, attempting to address more than the formalism of our
perceptual approach and raise issues as well.  Catherine Orbach would be a
person to contact there.  (fax (0)151-709 3122.

Where artists' materials can be provided for visitors to try out, they offer
maybe the most appropriate of all approaches to traditional fine and
decorative art properties.  The Tate in London had a grand scale facility,
in  tents in the grounds, of that kind in 1982, and Manchester City Art
Gallery had an excellent, elaborate, temporary Drawing Room in the early
nineties.  We have often left out drawing materials less formally and always
get a good response.

Ken Baines is an independent UK designer who has done a number of shows
which might be of interest, most recently - Design Matters -, which toured
to Birmingham and Newcastle on Tyne.  There are interesting experiments
currently in The Art Gallery and Museum at Kelvingrove, Glasgow (fax (0)141
305 2690) and the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle (fax (0)191 230 2823).

Let me have a mail address and I'll send some quite comprehensive details
and informal assessments we have printed up of one of our our visual effect
shows, Manchester City Art Gallery's Drawing Room, and one of the Liverpool
Tate Open Studios.

I'd be glad to get details of just where your rooms will be, and of the
concepts you end up with.