Good Nightmares

Will you be at MAAM Building Museums this week? Me too! Drop me a line, I'd love to connect.

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A college student I know took a friend to see an exhibition in Berlin: Yadegar Asisi’s panoramic “The Wall”. He had seen it before, when he was younger.

Here’s the weird part: he told me that his first visit gave him nightmares. 

Huh? Why go back?

“They were good nightmares,” he said. “It’s important history.”

Maybe you have heard me say this before: an exhibition can change you only two times. Those are …

1. When you are in an exhibition
2. When an exhibition is in you — as a memory

Because we only have those two chances as exhibition makers, we need to get good at making memories.

Repetition helps.

But emotions help even more — the more powerful the emotion, the more likely the memory. And negative emotions are especially good at memory-making. 

Our distant ancestors, attacked once by a saber-toothed tiger, were mindful of every rustling bush after that.

See a gripping panoramic light show of Berlin’s Cold War “Death Strip” and you’ll have “good nightmares” that you want your friends to have too.

Here’s the thing:
Exhibitions do nothing if they are not remembered. Memories are made through emotion. Positive ones are not the only option. 

Sometimes the memory we want is negative for good reason. 

Sometimes we want good nightmares.

Warmly,
Jonathan

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MtM Word of the Day:
Operating costs. The ongoing regular expenses needed to keep a museum or exhibition running. This includes things like salaries, maintenance, insurance, and marketing. These support daily activities, visitor services, and the museum’s future. (Compare to ”capital costs”, which pay to make a museum to begin with.)