Museum of Communication conquers Europe with "host" concept
The Museum of Communication in Bern is attracting interest at home and abroad with its concept of "hosts" instead of supervisors, which was introduced in 2017. According to the museum, numerous museum professionals have received further training on this in Bern.
Among the museums interested in the concept are the Deutsches Museum in Munich, as well as museums in the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland, the Museum of Communication announced on Tuesday at its annual media conference.
The "hosts" at the Bern Museum approach visitors individually, hold discussions with them, answer questions and invite participation. This personal touch pleases the guests, says the Bern Museum.
In the meantime, the museum has coined a formula for this. It is based on Einstein's formula - E to the power of three = P times M. What is meant is experience to the power of exchange of experience to the power of knowledge, which equals audience to museum, as was said at the media conference on Tuesday.
More audience again
Last year, more than 80,000 people visited the Bern-based institution, which is a foundation of Swiss Post and Swisscom. That's 35,000 fewer than in the record year 2019, when there was no corona pandemic, but 25,000 more than in 2020, which was marked by the pandemic and its lockdowns.
Without a two-month closure and without restricted admissions in March 2021, the museum would have recorded over 100,000 admissions according to a projection, director Jacqueline Strauss told the media. That, she said, was the institution's goal. Therefore, she is very satisfied with the visitor interest.
The Bern Museum has also enjoyed international success with its own 2018 production "Sounds of Silence": this exhibition will be on display at the "Universience" in Paris in 2023/24.
"Hybrid museum" to be created
The Bern Museum wants to develop into a hybrid institution. Thus, the Museum of Communication wants to achieve that it can be visited analog and digital. As the head of exhibitions and digital museum, Christian Rohner, said, a two-year project phase has been launched for this purpose.
The focus will be on creating a dialog between analog and digital space and vice versa. (SDA)
