We are passionate about quality and impact. The only way to improve our work is to study what happens during a visit and its short—and long-term impacts. Publishing the results of our studies is an excellent way to oscillate between theory and practice.
Authors: Orna Cohen and Andreas Heinecke
The magazine: Curator,The Museum Journal: Volume 61, Issue 2 - Pages: 261-394
First published: 30 March 2018
Exhibitions in museums, science centers, and other socio-cultural locations can play a key role in shifting patterns in interpersonal relationships and understanding between “us” and “them.” This objective of changing attitudes and shifting perspectives can be accomplished with exhibitions designed with a clear methodology based on the Theory of Transformative Learning (Mezirow 1978, 1991, 2000). How can museum educators ensure that learners internalize attitude changes and perspective shifts, and what evidence can be shown that these learning objectives have actually been met? In this article, we explain the Theory of Transformative Learning and how it is applied to exhibitions to facilitate exactly these objectives.
Authors: Orna Cohen and Andreas Heinecke
The Book Fostering Empathy Through Museums - Chapter 4
Publishers: Rowman & Littlefield
First published: August 2016
How do we produce evidence that exhibitions at museums or science centres can foster empathy? The importance of promoting empathy is theoretically well understood and broadly discussed. Still, the question remains: What concrete examples measure an exhibition’s impact on visitors regarding behavioural change, mutual understanding, inclusion of marginalised groups, or openness towards minorities?
Chapter 4 of the book Fostering Empathy Through Museums provides examples and evidence of how Dialogue Exhibitions, Dialogue in the Dark, Dialogue in Silence, and Dialogue with Time are catalysts for social change.
Authors: Orna Cohen
The magazine: DASA Senografie-Kolloquium volume VII Szenografie in Ausstellungen und Museen - Pages: 11-26
First published: 2014
By 2050, a third of the world's population will be over 65, and many of these people can expect to reach a very advanced age. Paradoxically, ageing is often feared as a subject for discussion, and few exhibitions reflect this fundamental change in the world's population. The question arose about what could be shown alongside tables and graphs in a changing demographic pyramid. Images of older people or devices that help older people in their daily lives? It's an important subject, but the content could be more attractive to pin down and appeal to a broader audience. The article describes the development process to design the exhibition "Dialogue with Time".
Authors: Orna Cohen
The Magazine: Enfance & PSY n° 24 - pages : 57-66
Editiors: ERES
First published: 2003/4
The Cité des enfants at the Cité des Sciences opened its doors in the early 1990s. Enfances-et-Psy interviewed Orna Cohen to understand what ideas, knowledge about children, and experiences inspired her to design the exhibition.
Authors: Orna Cohen
Study for Dialoghaus, Hamburg
First published: March 2006
This study aimed to analyse the effects of a visit to Dialogue in the Dark. This study lasted six months and consisted of two parts:
1. Fifty phone calls were made to visitors who had been to the exhibition five years ago (the 50 people were chosen randomly from the booking lists).
2. An analysis of 1000 comments was chosen randomly from five years of exhibition guest books.
The study’s results showed that Dialogue in the Dark is an experience that is forever engraved upon memory. Visiting the exhibition leads to two important physical and intellectual discoveries: an awareness of one's ability to use one’s senses and a discovery of the world of blind and visually impaired people. The encounter with the blind guide is very emotional, resulting in respect and empathy. The change of mindset toward blindness occurring during the visit is probably the most impressive outcome.
Authors: Orna Cohen and Andreas Heinecke
The magazine: Visitor Studies Today, Volume VII Issue III - pages: 11-15
First published: Fall/Winter 2004
This article publishes the main findings of an in-depth study with the help of students from two Paris universities (Université Saint-Denis Paris VIII and Université Panthéon - Sorbonne Paris I). The study was part of the Dialogue in Silence exhibition at the Cité des Sciences in Paris. The study aimed to measure the impact of the exhibition on visitors. Identical questions were asked to 100 visitors about their perception of deafness before and after the visit. In addition, the contents of 5 visitors' books (3,870 entries) were analysed.
The four main findings of this study are as follows: Visitors had a transformative experience; they enjoyed discovering their non-verbal abilities. They experienced the exhibition as a lesson in tolerance, and their perception of people who are deaf or hard of hearing changed fundamentally.
We believe in experience-based learning and develop methods for designing exhibitions that generate a transformative learning experience. This helps people better understand themselves, others, humankind, and society.
