Motivations for participating in museums’ interventions

Abstract

The article examines what motivates people to participate in a cultural institution’s participatory interventions. In recent decades, the changing roles of cultural institutions and the concepts of defining museum audiences are brought together in the case study of the Estonian National Museum’s participatory interventions. This paper indicates that motivations for participation are emotional and personal, that social goals are often overestimated, but the wish to cooperate and gain recognition from institutions have often been underestimated as motivators. The museum’s roles to support intercultural dialogue and facilitate diverse views were not supported by the participational interventions. Analysis indicated that being a participant does not make people more critical or dialogical in a museum context, as the topics the participants chose to be involved with are appropriate to their own experiences, contexts and assumptions.

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