Kids in Museums

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

The Guardian are promoting the idea of making museums more child friendly. This is total nonsense. Keep them away. They're not interested, they get under your feet, they fart.

Museums are for adults not a bunch of twatty schoolkids high on crack.

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:11 (twenty-one years ago)

You fool. More kid-friendly museums = More buttons to press. WIN-WIN.

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Stuffed, obv, in display cases children can be as interesting as the next exhibit.

My experience as a child in museums was that they were a great day out. They did not need to be more child friendly, I liked feeling adult in them. (Best museum for kids = The Pitt Rivers, it doesn't try to explain ANYTHING!)

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Half my childhood was spend in museums, so obviously, classic. However, the dumbing down of museums to appeal to "kidz" is totally dud. Don't patronise a kid who is smart enough to be in a museum in the first place. However, interactive exhibits with buttons are obviously classic.

― Citizen Kate (kate), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Hackney Museum inspired this rant btw. I was trying to research the Salvation Army hsopital in Mothers' Square.

Then five billion of the little tossers turned up and started waving crayons about and talking shite. The museum woman looked at the noisy pricks and said "isn't it wonderful?"

No, it fucking wasn't wonderful.

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Sigh. You're worse than HSA's mum's fusty old museum curator types who believe that MUSEUMS SHOULD BE FOR ACADEMICS AND THE PEOPLE WHAT WORK IN THEM, NOT FOR THE NASTY PUBLIC RUNNING AROUND GETTING THINGS DIRTY AND BEING NOISY!!!

― Citizen Kate (kate), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:23 (twenty-one years ago)

The Launch Pad = best museum EVAH

― Enrique (Enrique), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't have a problem with other adults, although banning academics appeals too now I think about it.

Adults should be issued with web guns to capture kids in museums or you should be allowed to press a button and a glass tube whooshes down sealing the noisy child inside.

I'd rather see cattle roaming the galleries than children.

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:34 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, but who wouldn't?

― chris (chris), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:35 (twenty-one years ago)

When did child-hating become so de-rigeur?

I'd rather see children running around being noisy than boring jaded intellectual hipsters.

― Citizen Kate (kate), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:37 (twenty-one years ago)

after having three kids run under my feet in the time it took me to walk to Scoffs and back, I have to disagree with that.

― chris (chris), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Like none of you were ever children!

This is why I defend the rights of children to run around museums, because that was me, 25 years ago!

― Citizen Kate (kate), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:44 (twenty-one years ago)

But Kate, 95% of these children don't *want* to be there!

― Markelby (Mark C), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't either the first time I went.

― Citizen Kate (kate), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:50 (twenty-one years ago)

(That said, I did get annoyed at the schoolchildren in the Tate Modern yesterday or whenever it was. But they weren't children, they were teenagers, and that's another story. I'm in favour of exposing children to art. Or vice versa. Or... oh god, that sounds dirty, never mind.)

― Citizen Kate (kate), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:51 (twenty-one years ago)

All I know is that the Saatchi Gallery causes all children to cry.

― Carey (Carey), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Making museums more child-friendly is I suppose a good idea in theory, but there's nothing more irritating than going to look at the little blurb on the wall by an exhibit and finding it's been replaced with some 16-point font thing that says "People in the nineteenth century used to ride in carriages! What do you think riding in a carriage is like? Why do you think they didn't use cars?"

Also, button-press exhibits would be great - except generally there's only one of them, and it's had chewing-gum shoved into the works.

(middle-class parents who take 5-year-olds to galleries and let them run around screaming are still WRONG.)

― cis (cis), Thursday, 4 December 2003 13:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, but this is a problem with the parents, and not the children.

― Citizen Kate (kate), Thursday, 4 December 2003 14:05 (twenty-one years ago)

last time i went the barbican had one of the those disco machines

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 4 December 2003 14:06 (twenty-one years ago)

All text should be in at least 14 point font anyway for readability.

Maybe a wider question is, should you (can you) force education/art etc on people. And follow that up with should you do it to children. Certainly nearly all the school museum trips I went on the most exciting thing was NOT BEING IN SCHOOL. But if there were buttons, obv that was great too.

I might have a quick wander through the BM this afternoon, this has inspired me. not been in for a couple of weeks.

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 4 December 2003 14:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Get kids into modern art. Show them Richard Wilson's 20:20. Tell them to explore it.

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Thursday, 4 December 2003 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.