The Raisin Muffin Principle

What’s a raisin muffin mostly made of? 

Raisins?

Despite the name, a raisin muffin is mostly not raisins. It’s mostly muffin.

Star billing goes to the less common ingredient. Same with sesame bagels and chocolate croissants.

So, the Raisin Muffin Principle is:

“A small amount of a star ingredient can give an experience its name.”

Many museums want interaction, immersion, and high-tech. But few are so well-funded to have only those features. Usually, an “interactive” exhibition is mostly not interactive. It’s mostly muffin.

Imagine a new “interactive exhibition about forks.” We can expect lots of forks. And texts, videos, maybe oral histories (heh).

And some cool interactives. We just don’t expect the entire thing to require interaction. In fact, that might be a bummer. Like a raisin muffin made only out of raisins.

So what percentage of a muffin has to be raisins to merit the name? 37%? It’s way less than you think. The art lies in making it seem like there’s more than there is.

Here’s the thing:

Our exhibitions can have fewer interactive, immersive, high-tech elements than we think, and still keep their adjectives. Which will save our budgets.

The art lies in making it seem like there’s more than there is.

Warmly,
Jonathan

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MtM Word of the Day:
Didactic. Used as a noun, "a didactic" refers to a piece of interpretive or educational content that provides contextual information about an exhibition element. Typically written by curators, these can take the form of a text panel, artifact label, or interactive video.