Triangle

Event title

  • Playful Approaches to Museum Interpretation

Location

  • London

Date

  • Tuesday 18 February 2025

Event facilitator

  • Anna Ravenscroft
  • Anna has delivered world-class interpretation for Imperial War Museum and Science Museum masterplan galleries.
  • In her freelance capacity she has worked with the Natural History Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Science Museum, the Barts Health Archive Trust and more. 

Event details

Participants will explore the role of play and its purpose in museums.

If museums want a better future, they must be welcoming, playful, social spaces.

Participants will join interpretation specialist Anna Ravenscroft to explore play and its purpose in museums.

Play is not childish, it is child-like — inviting wonder and leading to discovery.

Play is active and it is how children learn.

Participants will discover how designing playfulness into museum spaces allows adults to experience that same feeling, even those that are excluded by traditional styles of interpretation.

Participants will explore how playful experiences change the way all audiences interact with content and create a manifesto for less text and more play, as well as a tool kit for putting that into action at their museum.

Anna believes that her experience of delivering interpretation for and with young people has developed her practice, and that the principles that underlie this approach improve interpretation for all audiences.

Participants will work with Anna to create a manifesto for less text and more play, as well as a tool kit for putting that into action.

All outputs will be shared with the group after the session as a draft participants can use and adapt to their own settings.

During this event, Anna will draw from her experience of working on the Technicians Gallery at the Science Museum and the development work on a forthcoming Children’s Gallery at the Natural History Museum.

In developing an intergenerational learning strategy, she has spent a lot of time observing playful experiences and how this changes the way all audiences interact with content.

To find out more, potential participants can access Playful Approaches to Museum Interpretation.

Convened by Museum ID.