Soft caresses, play, hard touch and a tight hug are among the descriptions of touch that were displayed in the assignment “Heritage in Hospitals”. The assignment researched the connection between the option of handling objects and wellbeing, with individuals at the University College London Hospital. The research was a cooperation between the hospital and the University College London Museum where the researchers has meetings with the participants. Participants in the research handled museum items of different kinds while the conversation took place (Chatterjee et.al., 2009). Two themes were discovered from the meetings of the qualitative data of the research: impersonal/informative and personal/memories. The first theme describes how participants reacted to objects by looking at them, ask about them and learn about them. The second theme is characterised by a personal connection to the object, where the participant connected the object even to personal memories that came up in the conversation to the researcher. Some meetings had both themes while others had only one. For example could talking about the source and material of the object, lead to participants to react with their own stories of memories that they connected to the object itself or it’s source (Chatterjee et.al., 2009). This journey from the impersonal to the personal in a conversation about objects can also be found in the assignment “Body, Mind and Spirit” which is a cooperative assignment of the Children’s Hospital School in Leicester and the New Walk Museum & Art Gallery. The assignments aims were to give sick children at the Children’s Hospital a cultural experience alongside giving them an opportunity to express themselves about their own self-image from the museum’s objects. A group of children had a field trip to the museum to examine some objects, and where they were asked questions concerning the mind, body and the spirit. At first, they talked about the physical properties of the objects, like the materiality and how the touch of it was. From there the conversation led to the children’s association to the object and finally how it made the child feel. Happiness, inspiration and excitement were measured higher after the visit (Dodd and Jones, 2014). Increase in positive feelings was also measured with the participants in the “Encountering the unexpected”, a cooperation between five British museums and a community of elders in the area, with the aim to increase wellbeing. There museum objects were used to stimulate conversations and spark curiosity. Among the feelings measured in the assignment were happiness, inspiration, excitement and interest (Dodd and Jones, 2014). Similar findings were in Thomson’s and Chatterjee’s (2016) research, where it was shown that Museum object handling sessions returned increase in happiness and decrease in negative feelings. Participants of the research were located in three places, in a hospital, psychiatric ward and a caretaking facility (Thomson & Chatterjee, 2016). Museum objects seem to be some sort of “an anker to conversation”, the handling of the objects can lead to creativity, memories or connections within a group (Morse, 2021; p. 148). In their research connected to care in museums within Tyne & Wear Archives and Museum, Morse discovered that by creating a safe space of caretaking for the participants, the museum’s objects and some creative tools could help people work with their selfimage after personal difficulties, for instance after a heart-attack (Morse, 2021)
Touch
The skin is a person’s main connection to its outer surroundings (Critchley, 2020) and that is why it is a good choice to look at the visitors touch within the museum if wellbeing is to be supported as well as the connection of the individuals to the museum. Francis McGlone (2020) has pointed out that touching museum objects can help visitors to get closer to materialistic objects in a way that makes their experience richer and more sensitive. This is done by touching the objects with a different part of the skin than usually, to touch with a so called “hairy skin”. Hairy skin is everywhere on the body, except for inside the palms and under the feet. Generally nerve ends get message through with touch, temperature, itch and pain (McGlone, 2020 cites Willis 1985 and DarianSmith 1984), but there have been new discoveries that in that area there are nerve ends that get activated through slow, gentle movements and can cause positive emotional reactions. With this knowledge in hand, McGlone points to that you can use the back of your hand or even your face to sense these objects in a new way and at the same time increase the experience of handling the objects (McGlone, 2020).
Chatterjee, H., Vreeland, S. and Noble, G. (2009). Museopathy: Exploring the Healing Potential of Handling Museum Objects. Museum and Society, 7(3), 164–177..
Critchley, H. (2020). Emotional Touch: A Neuroscientific Overview. Í R. F. Peters, I. L. F. den Boer, J. S. Johnson, & S. Pancaldo (editor), Heritage Conservation and Social Engagement. UCL Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv13xps1g.17
Dodd, J. and Jones, C. (2014). Mind, body, spirit. How museums impact health and wellbeing. Research Centre for Museums and Galleries. ISBN -1-898489-49-8
McGlone, F. (2020). The Two sides of touch: Sensing and Feeling. Í H. J. Chatterjee (editor), Touch in Museums: Policy and Practice in Object Handling. Routledge.
Morse, N. (2021). The museum as a space for social care. Routledge.
Thomson, L. J. M. and Chatterjee, H. J. (2016). Well-Being With Objects: Evaluating a Museum Object-Handling Intervention for Older Adults in Health Care Settings. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 35(3), 349–362.. https://doi.org/10.1177/0733464814558267