A mission to explain
It was interesting to read Ralph Appelbaum’s ideas about museum design (MP25, pp30-33). But I slightly doubt if museums have a responsibility to explain whether people, in this case US presidents, were ‘good or not’. I believe museums have a responsibility to explain the circumstances that motivated a person’s actions and then to start a dialogue about whether their deeds were good or not. And when starting a dialogue in museums, we should bear in mind that visitors have varied cultural backgrounds and experiences. I’m certain that an exhibition about the Holocaust would be viewed differently by German, Hungarian, English and American visitors. I would have been interested to discover what changes Appelbaum would have made to a Holocaust exhibition for a museum in eastern Europe.
