While reading The Ten Faces of Innovation, by Jonathan Littman, one “face” that I focused on enacting during site visits and throughout my travels was the Cross-Pollonator.
“The Cross-Pollinator draws associations and connections between seemingly unrelated ideas or concepts to break new ground. Armed with a wide set of interests, an avid curiosity, and an aptitude for learning and teaching, the Cross-Pollinator brings in big ideas from the outside world to enliven their organization. People in this role can often be identified by their open mindedness, diligent note-taking, tendency to think in metaphors, and ability to reap inspiration from constraints.”
Using the techniques of the Cross-Pollinator allowed me to gain applicable insights into the design of museums and general design when visiting spaces I was less familiar with, including public libraries. When maintaining a Cross-Pollinator perspective in relation to museums and libraries, I noticed one of the many design challenges both institutions face is the challenge of encouraging conversation in spaces that are traditionally viewed as quiet areas.
In many libraries, including the public library in Delft and the library at Vrije Universiteit, museum staff are attempting to encourage conversations among visitors in hopes to help build connections between community members, especially in common areas such as the entry lobby. However, visitors often fall silent and begin speaking in hushed voices as soon as they enter the library, as libraries are often seen as purely silent spaces.
Similarly, in art museums, including the Van Gogh museum, staff are attempting to encourage conversation and interaction between visitors in order to deepen their understanding and engagement with the artwork shown. In the exhibit, Why So Serious?, the exhibition design was largely related to building interpersonal connections. The intentions of the design can be seen in small details, such as hand-ripped tape holding up written components of the exhibition information on the wall, and large details, such as a playlist for visitors created by the curators, homey furniture in the exhibit space, and information alongside each artwork that explains what others like about the painting. Details such as these most definitely give the art exhibit space a more personal and comfortable feeling, yet most individuals in the gallery continued to experience the exhibition in solitude rather than intermingling with other visitors.
Seeing the challenge of designing for interaction among both libraries and museums has caused me to think that a Cross-Pollinator would be able to unite these challenges across these spaces in order to ideate solutions for this challenge for both institutions simultaneously. How might we enable visitors to interact with each other? How could we help interactions extend beyond the physical space of the institutions themselves? These are some of the many questions I continue to ponder and will bring into my own work in these spaces going further.
