Our visit to the Albert Kahn museum made me question the future of museum exhibitions. I believe that the Kahn museum struck a perfect balance of didactic and entertaining, visually striking and well-organized, interactive and educational.

Upon entry, we were all so captivated by the back-lit autochrome wall that the entire 12 person group missed the upstairs exhibition. While the individual photos gave a sense of the subjects Kahn focused on (people in their native clothing, landscapes, street scenes), to me the main effect of the wall was to show just how extensive Kahn’s collection was. The wall ran the entire length of the exhibit and processed to run along the other wall perpendicular. The mirror underneath the autochrome wall extended the visual illusion for as far as the eye could see. Although this was only a small sampling of their work, it is an example of how not only the content but the way it is arranged can contribute to the narrative of the museum. 

Continuing on, I questioned how they would fit information with a scope as wide as the the literal world into one cohesive narrative that would allow audiences to make connections between the things in the museum instead of simply going “that’s cool”. The use of the personal touch screen explorations of photographs and the larger circle room where what you press on the table is shown on the larger screen for many to view was an excellent solution for having more information than space. To show all those photographs on the wall would have been impossible for the size of the building. Additionally, having them be explored virtually eliminates an issue of making a reproduction to hang on the wall if there is concern about light exposure.

The didactic animations to explain the more technical aspects was a big steps for accessibility of this subject that may be hard for some with no background in film development to understand. By giving the visitors a simple and easily understandable knowledge of how the photography worked, I believe they can then have a deeper conversation with the rest of the content of the show because they are not held back by a baseline level of background they didn’t know. I think this method could be implemented in other exhibitions to give an introduction background/context to any subject so that the visitors can get more out of the show than a surface level appreciation. 

I was surprised that there was little nuanced discussion of Albert Kahn himself. At the end of the permanent collection there was a section that briefly told about his life through the objects on the wall and the narrative was very, very, flattering to Kahn. I’m not sure how involved his grandchildren/estate were with the creation of this museum but it seemed to flattering it had to be false. I think if there was a discussion of the negative effects of ethnographic photography and how these archives were viewed at the time of their creation it would have given a fuller picture of what these archives actually did for the world outside of simply documenting it.