The ‘inside out’ museum
June 15th, 2008 by Trends
The wall are crumbling…
More and more cultural institutions are realising that in order to connect with consumers they need to bypass physical constraints, extending their brand and assets in ways that follows their patterns and desires. People want to consume culture on their own terms and they often want to personalise the experience.
The Grand Tour project, which set free paintings from the National Gallery across the streets of London, is recognition of this shift. The success of the original concept has now seen it extended to the city of York. The Grand Tour in York also draws on the collections of the York Art Gallery. The reproduced works can be seen juxtaposed with dramatic and ordinary locations and once again the viewer can download a podcast from the Grand Tour website to fit the experience of their choice.
The project was once again powered by HP technology and was based on an original concept by London agency The Partners (part of the WPP group) who worked on the recent re-brand of the National Gallery. Sandwiched in between was Station Masters, a National Gallery collaboration with Eurostar. Travellers could select digitised images from museums collection that were transferred to plasma screens positioned around Eurostar’s first class lounge at St Pancras International. This effort was developed by Land Design Studio and Studio Simple.
The entry of major branding and communications agencies such as Wolff Olins (Tate), WPP (National Gallery) and Shine (PlayStation Series) has contributed to the emergence of culture superbrands and a closing of the gap between institutions and consumer expectations. Anyone who has been to the V&A shop recently (not to mention the pop-up shop for the China Now exhibition) can see a similar transformation in the retail offer. The National Trust has embarked on a major new high-street store opening programme and licensing has seen the Natural History Museum and Science Museum products sold in Dixons, Argos, WH Smith and Marks & Spencer. The museum (or at least it’s brand) is finding it’s way into all of our homes.
[PT]
