The Emotional Museum: Joy

How do you feel when you step into a museum? It’s rarely a simple answer. 

Through ‘The Emotional Museum’, a team of University of Glasgow researchers untangle the complex and often overlooked feelings evoked by collections and the spaces that hold them. 

Moving beyond the labels and the glass cases, we ask: what do these objects really do to us? 

From joy to exhaustion and from anger to ambivalence, join us as we explore the full spectrum of feelings that museums provoke. 

What do our emotional responses to collections reveal about power, identity and belonging? And how might reckoning with these emotions help us build more honest and accountable museums? 

In this episode, Amina, John and Salma share thoughts on joy and playfulness.

Transcript

SALMA

Dealing with that subject matter, but also like going to work day-to-day, if you're always constantly doing things that are exhausting or in confliction with all your histories and what you know, it just becomes depressing to go to work. But if there's an end goal to include something that's joyful and playful, then it gives that work a little bit more joy as well. So, it just gives you something to look forward to day-to-day.

ZANDRA

The Emotional Museum is a series of conversations exploring what we feel when we enter museum spaces.

Through intimate conversations, we unpack the emotions that surface among objects, stories, and silence - how memory, identity and power shape our experiences of museums, and how museums shape us in return.

In this episode, Amina, John and Salma share thoughts on joy and playfulness.

SALMA

As we start today's session, we thought we might kick it off again with another description of joy and playfulness, today's themes. The Oxford Dictionary defines joy as a feeling of great happiness. It can also refer to a source or cause of great pleasure or delight or the expression of such happiness. 

On the other hand, playfulness is described as the quality of being full of fun and wanting to play. It refers to the state of being light-hearted and not serious, often seen in playful remarks or actions. Essentially, it encompasses A disposition to find or create amusement, a festive and merry feeling, or enjoyable and amusing activities.

JOHN

All right, guys, so I reckon probably a good place for us to begin this conversation is to talk about, quite a general level, what parts of museums we think contribute to the feelings that Salma just defined – so, joy and playfulness.

SALMA

I think I've often found joy and playfulness in spaces that are quite tactile, that allow you to immerse yourself in the story or in the subject matter that's being explored within that museum space. So, things that allow you to really engage with the material, not just look at things through a glass display case or read a text.

Things that can feel quite alienating, for me, those sorts of displays can feel quite alienating on occasions, but when you can actually get into a place and, for example, if you go to one of the Scottish castles and you can walk all over the walls and touch the cannons, that can feel quite tactile and exciting to be in those places.

And that can help you engage with the subject matter, but in a way that makes you feel like you're part of that story, and that can make you feel playful and excited about that space as well.

AMINA

I think I 100% agree with that. Just thinking back to like the most recent kind of experience of my engagement with a museum in a joyful way. It was an experience that I had with others, so with my family, and we were people of different ages, and we were all able to kind of engage with the things on display in an interactive, immersed way. 

There wasn't this kind of need to be, to follow the sometimes constraining rules of being in museum spaces. Yeah, so we could touch, we could speak out loud, really engage with the display. So, yeah...

JOHN

I think specifically for playfulness for myself, touching on what you just brought up there, Salma, there's always some kind of element of interaction that's involved in my head when I think of playfulness in the museum space, kind of like the grander, the better. Because it kind of breaks, it breaks with what I'd consider to be like the kind of traditional museum space, right, which this sort of almost closed off glass case with an object sitting inside.

I think any opportunity where that is sort of changed or altered, I find myself experiencing quite a lot of joy when it comes to that. Because it's just something different, you know. I mean, us as researchers, we spend a lot of time in museums and a lot of time in these, you know, museums, galleries, any of these sorts of institutions really. So, finding something that's different, I think is automatically makes me kind of go, ‘oh, this is fun’.

This is, I can engage with this more. I can kind of like touch it with my hands. I think that's a really important part of it. There's also this idea of like grandeur and spectacle, I think, that I always kind of touch on, like a feeling of joy. And it's kind of, related a lot to just like big sweeping spaces filled with something huge that you wouldn't really expect to find inside a room. I always kind of associate that with it.

A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to go to Berlin, to the Pergamon Museum, where they have a reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate, which is the royal processional way into Babylon, the Ancient City of Babylon. They've completely rebuilt it and they've used this gigantic space to kind of have the whole processional way, like on either side of you as you're walking down into where the gate would have been, and that was just an incredible, incredible experience.

Like, I remember just kind of looking up at this huge structure and being like, my God, how do they fit this in here? And that's kind of where it comes up for me sometimes as well, I think.

SALMA

Yeah, I think that, I like what you said there about… that joy leads to, it's experiential. It's something that makes you feel awe, that makes you feel connected to a moment in time.

So, you know, walking through the gates of Babylon, for example, another example for me was when I was in Turkey a few years ago, and being in Ephesus and walking down an old Roman road and hearing that Cleopatra walked down that road thousands of years ago - and it was just such a profound feeling to be like, someone occupied this space and knowing that it still stands and being able to share that moment in time, even if it's thousands of years later, just being able to share that space and that time with someone that you hear about a lot, it just leaves you feeling very profound and can evoke not just joy, but a lasting legacy on your own psyche and your own memory. And I think that could be quite profound.

AMINA

Yeah, I think what I'm hearing from both of you is like this sense of being embodied, being in a, having a joyful, playful experience in a museum kind of involves all kind of sensory aspects, not just the ocular, which museums tend to focus on.

So, the sense of like touch and, and smell and just having your body moved, kind of maybe connects with having your mind moved as well, your emotions moved.

SALMA

When I first came up to Glasgow and I was moving here for school, but my family came up to move in with me and we had turned it into a family vacation and we didn't have a lot of time to do a lot of different things.

So, we went into the Riverside Museum. It was the only museum we got to do when we were here as a family in Glasgow. And I could not recommend a better museum to go to for a family that's like pressed for time. Just because it was so tactile and I was a 28 year old woman, but I loved like climbing up over the buses, looking at the trains, climbing into the carriages.

It was just so much fun and that memory lives on in my mind. And, also, like, the way they layered that experience where they had videos of people talking about how they would take the bus back in the 60s and it was such an important part of their social life to be able to get to places. And if they couldn't get to that place then they wouldn't meet their spouse and then they wouldn't have had a future with that spouse.

I just thought that was such a powerful way to tell you about the history of Glasgow, of a time, of people, of societal expectations. I got so much more out of like a 60 minute video than I would have if that was like locked in a case and like a display text was like, this was a bus that ran through Glasgow city centre in the 60s. Like, what would that mean to me as a person who doesn't live in Glasgow - you know what I mean?

AMINA

As you were speaking, like I was just thinking of like other experiences I've had in the museum that have brought about feelings of joy and playfulness, not necessarily engaging like, you know, this embodied nature that we were talking about. I'm thinking of moments where satire has been used as a way of like making me like laugh out loud but like get something that's so serious. Yeah, so I think that's another mechanism that could be used within a museum context. Satire.

SALMA

Purposefully using merriment and creativity to actually get your message across. Yeah, that's true.

JOHN

I think we've also touched on there on a really important potential point of conflict with this idea of joyfulness and playfulness, which is this idea of, as you mentioned there, Amina, kind of using satire or humour in a way to tell certain things. But there can be a degree where that could go potentially too far, and you run the risk of sort of trivialising some of the material that you're talking about.

So, I wondered if we could spend some time talking about how museum goers, adults, children, professionals, you know, like everyday people, how they can engage with joyfulness and playfulness in museum spaces, and how this can be achieved and organised by the museum itself without going so far as to trivialise what's being talked about.

SALMA

So, when you're asking this question, I'm thinking about like the Oxford Dictionary that says it refers to the state of being light-hearted and not serious, which I find quite problematic because I don't think playfulness means that you're not serious. I think playfulness can be very serious and actually help you to address serious issues in a way that's accessible.

JOHN

Obviously, having alternatives and accessibility for a whole range of different people is the objective of a museum, and it cultivates a better experience for a wider proportion of people. And it's something that obviously needs to be taken into account always, but there does run a risk with some content if it's being displayed in a sort of jovial, light-hearted sense that it can lead to trivialisation.

And so, it's maybe, I kind of just want us to talk about how museum goers can engage with this and how museums can create these opportunities, which are obviously beneficial for a wide range of people, without going so far as to trivialise certain aspects of the content in order to achieve this.

It's kind of a difficult point to analyse because you can understand in both senses, like museums cater to all age groups, right? They don't just cater to people who have like a deep-rooted knowledge of what's being talked about and what's being displayed.

And a lot of them people don't go to a museum for that experience. Like you said earlier, Salma, they go for just a break, a nice day out, something to entertain their children, connect with family, that sort of thing. So, it's an important kind of balancing point. I just wondered how you guys felt about how this can be achieved.

SALMA

It's worth thinking about the question just in general, as someone who works in the museum sector as well, because making things accessible does run the risk of like, do you dumb it down, quote unquote, to make it meaningful to that?

I think probably one of the greatest ways to avoid doing that is to involve the people whose stories are being told, to make sure that their stories aren't being told in a way that's trivialising. Not telling to, but telling and sharing and involving the community whose stories are being told.

That way, most likely communities don't want their stories to be told in a way that's victimising or oppressive or shows them as people who are just having things done to them, they actually would rather tell stories that are empowering for them. So, as a museum that are trying to not trivialize a story in joy and playful ways, that a, working with communities whose stories are being told would be a great way to start, but also doing things that are alternative ways of telling history.

You don't have to think about, you know, approaching this as a way that I'm just going to put an object on display and write a text – like, that is one way to be in a museum space, but actually what are alternative ways of telling history that are empowering for different peoples and different communities that still tell the story but don't necessarily trivialise it?

So, could you use things like intangible cultural heritage? Could you use music? Could you use dance? Could you put on a show instead of like a display case? Would that be a better use of resources to tell a story that doesn't trivialise but makes it accessible?

JOHN

Yeah, I think another aspect of this - to bring it back to kind of interaction, right, and interactive exhibits - I think there's maybe a general feeling that interactive spaces are inherently something for perhaps, say, children, right, in a museum, right?

It's inherently sort of associated with playfulness in a good way, but specifically with playfulness for people who maybe aren't there to engage with the kind of standard idea of the thing in a glass box with an object label. I'm a very strong believer in the fact that I don't think interactive exhibits are child-only spaces. I think they're an incredibly useful tool for everybody to engage in a museum - and it doesn't necessarily indicate even playfulness. It doesn't have to, right? And it certainly doesn't need to engage in trivialisation.

I think engagement with like raw, real elements of history in an interactive way that gets you looking at things beyond reading a label or just glancing at something can actually lead to a far deeper understanding of what that history is, while also bringing in a sense of joy through participation, right?

You're engaging in the history yourself, you're participating in it as it's there, and a lot of really meaningful experiences that I've had in museums have been through interactive exhibits - whether it's kind of like listening to like an old style kind of like phone headset, right, of something playing at the time or things like that.

They can really kind of bring you into it more, and I think this kind of, this like, automatic association of interaction with like childishness, I think can be problematic in some ways as well when we're talking about joy and playfulness in a museum space.

SALMA

Yeah, it's true. And I think it comes to the idea that adults don't have to play or don't want joy. You know what I mean? Like, adults want to be serious and they have a very defined sense of what is proper and what is expected of them in museum spaces.

And I think hearing, based on this conversation, what I'm hearing is like, if museums set out to make joy and playfulness the target or the goal, the objective of an exhibition or a space that they're setting up, if joy and playfulness is an objective for how we're designing exhibitions, then if that's your end goal, when you're working towards that end goal, you're giving it that care and that attention it deserves to not make it trivial, you know that you want to have joy and playfulness, that ultimately that will lead to more engagement and more empowering stories being told. So, how do you do that in a way that's genuine and sincere without trivialising the material that you're doing?

So, it's really, I think it really becomes a question of process, that you're not thinking about, oh, we want to do something fun, and then you just kind of build fun, interactive things, but do it thoughtlessly, you make joy and playfulness an end game, and in the process, develop that, give the subject matter the care and attention it deserves, and how do you think about joy and playfulness in telling those stories?

AMINA

What you said about setting the intention or objective of an exhibit, I think that's a good point to think on, and maybe thinking about objectives of an exhibit is wanting to trigger or invoke like some kind of emotion. Yeah, whether that's joyfulness or something else.

SALMA

Or maybe joy and playfulness is used to balance other emotions, right?
Like, you purposely design other things in your museum space to be joy and playful because there are other issues that need to be serious and need to be dealt with in a way that can be quite triggering and quite harmful to people, but then from there you lead people into a space or into something that is more joyful and playful so that people can have that space, that mental space to break from something that could be triggering for them.

AMINA

I connect back to the conversation we were having outside about the anatomy museum and how that space, the way it's run and the way it's used, it's kind of like devoid of the intense emotions that are engendered by being in proximity to the objects that are housed there. So, maybe working within the Anatomy Museum, like people need to think more about from an emotional perspective in terms of how being there, yeah, and being with those objects like makes people feel.

SALMA

Yeah, and it's difficult to be viewing those kinds of, well, they say specimens in the space and that's the word that I'm inclined to use, but I hate using that word because again, like they're not specimens, like those have very real lives and real souls and real meaning behind those displays, behind that collection. And it's like, to put on a space like that, you have to purposely disassociate from emotions.

Because how is a collection like that? How do you display a collection like that, having emotions? Because if you start getting into the humanity of it, and you start thinking about the humanity behind that collection, then it starts to make you question everything, like the provenance, putting it in glass cases, what it means to have that kind of thing.

AMINA

It starts to make you question, but it also starts to make you handle these specimens and think about them and think, work with them with a lot more attention and a lot more care.

SALMA

Yeah, which I think is probably what we're advocating for, right? The care in museum spaces. Because if you recognize that emotionality, then you inherently put more care into it, which is something that's needed when we're thinking about topics like decolonisation and counter-cultural approaches because putting emotion back into museums centres the fact that collections came from different peoples, different groups.

There are for peoples and you're centring that humanity back in the purpose of a museum space and an exhibition. And sometimes, like, it's really difficult to have joy and playfulness. Like, how do you have joy and playfulness in a space in the Anatomy Museum. And you can, sorry, John, I just want to finish one point. You can see that joy and playfulness can feel quite awkward and can actually, like, it can be quite a reductive experience to have joy and playfulness in a space like the Anatomy Museum, because, like, we saw that being in that space where there were students working in there, and that is their place of work. You know, they're doing a medical degree at Glasgow University.

We have those collections to facilitate that study and research, but then you can see them in that space, studying for an exam, and finding a community and finding joy doing that study group, but then also being mindful as people who are visiting the museum, that those are specimens of humans, of people and animals with real living souls that have real living memories.

So, like there's this juxtaposition that it's really hard to like reconcile. How do you balance that? Like this collection is inherently problematic, but also you can understand the scientific rationale behind having a collection like that.

JOHN

I think there's a general feeling that in order to care about what's in an exhibit in order to show care and carefulness, feeling joy and playfulness is inherently disregarding of that. And not necessarily within the Anatomy Museum because that's a very specific thing. But I think in a wider sense the reason why I think there's a sort of unsaid truth about museums not necessarily being a place of joy and playfulness because we were expected to be serious because feeling that way can be dismissive or trivialising of what the history actually is.

I think that's why it makes these conversations quite difficult because you're sort of you're starting from a like a pre-agreed point where we have to be sombre and respectful, yes, but that inherently involves not feeling joy and not engaging with any sort of playfulness within a space. I think that can be difficult. I think it can lead to really like feeling quite, feeling quite hypocritical and guilty maybe about being in an exhibit about potentially things that are quite difficult to unpack.

You can then kind of come away from that and feel like, oh, well, this feels a little strange. You know, like I enjoyed it in the moment, but when I'm thinking about what I'm engaging with and what I'm doing, is there a place for joy and playfulness in these exhibits and then what I'm looking at?

AMINA

But I kind of feel like playfulness can also be defined as being curious, like as a curiosity. And so that isn't necessarily associated with pleasure, but it's still a valid way of looking at playfulness. So, you can engage with these really difficult places, spaces from a point of view of curiosity.

SALMA

It's interesting as well because when we're thinking about seriousness and sombreness, that's inherently related to guilt as well, that someone is making that decision that we have to treat this with so much sombreness because they might be on one side of the story, thinking that they owe something or that there is this guilt to kind of tell a story a certain way, but actually on the other side of it, that specific narrative that's being told is only a very small portion of a larger history or a larger culture that needs to be shared and needs to be talked about.

And not necessarily needing to put joy and playfulness within that specific subject matter, but actually understanding that while we need to treat that with solemnity, that treating only that particular topic with solemnity actually diminishes and takes away from the fact that there are other moments of joy and playfulness in other people's histories and cultures, right?

And it's like that level of guilt that forces us to be, that we have to treat this one thing with solemnity and mournfulness and sobriety. Does that mean now that we only focus on that one subject matter and then make everybody's histories reductive to that one particular moment of violence or oppression or injustice? Right?

Not advocating that we shouldn't tell those stories, but saying that if we're going to tell those stories and be solemn about it, that's important, but I think it's important to balance that now with the joy and playfulness of a larger narrative, of other happy parts of, and other meaningful and engaging and moments of power and agency of other people's cultures and histories. It's not enough to just say, we have to be solemn about this one moment and then just tell that one story.

JOHN

Because then you risk creating this idea that histories of certain groups are always miserable. They can't be anything else. It has to be engaged with only solemnity, and we have to only ever really touch on the negative sides of things.

And like you say, those are incredibly important, and in no way would we advocate for not focusing on those, but I can just imagine someone else's perspective where they go into a museum space and all they ever hear about is this sort of one miserable aspect of their history where, like you said earlier, things were done to them, and there's never any section about their own agency or any sort of like celebrative elements of other parts of their history.

So, I think it's about combining those elements, like you said, it's really important, not to like treat the obviously horrific parts with joy and playfulness, but to build in a way where that can still be part of the experience, to complement it.

SALMA

And I think even in those stories, joy and playfulness are an inherent part of telling those stories, because in moments of violence and oppression, what do people do? They find ways to make their own joy and they find their own ways to play. That's what changes the human experience from surviving to living.

So, as people, we're naturally inclined to find ways to find joy in life. And if you don't find ways to tell those moments of joy and to share those moments of joy as experiential parts of an exhibit where you're talking about something that's quite solemn, then you make that story reductive again to like the point that it was just, they were just having things being done to them and they had no agency, no form of empowerment. Where in reality, that isn't true. That isn't true. That just isn't true.

AMINA

Okay, yeah, so Salma, I was just thinking about your last point about how the way certain histories are portrayed, how the narratives can be reductive. It got me thinking about how that kind of plays or connects with the education system.

I'm thinking of the experience of my nieces and nephews that have gone through the education system in the UK in recent times, and the way they've kind of felt alienated in the way that histories that are quite intimate for them is shared within the education system.

So, I think back to your point about the importance of narrating these histories in a textured way, kind of touches on the difficulties, but also tells a more rounded story, like to include the joy and the playfulness aspects, not just like the trauma.

SALMA

Yeah, I think it's important to think about ways of sharing history when we think about like what communities mean and what people of Scotland mean as well, right? Because when you're saying we want to talk about our history, what does our history mean? What does our story in a museum space look like? And if you're continuing to perpetuate a singular narrative, a very reductive narrative, then are you really telling the people of Scotland's history?

JOHN

Certainly, from my own experience, which is very different to your nieces and nephews, Amina, coming through the Scottish education system, it's… a lot of areas are very compartmentalised. They're kind of stripped down to a very basic understanding. And that can kind of create a lack of space for anything beyond like an overarching narrative of what a specific group's history is by definition and the emotional reaction to that.

I remember when I was doing National 5 History in school, our education of the transatlantic slave trade at certain points reduced down to just watching episodes of Roots every week, which is a very specific and very kind of quite horrible thing to engage with and obviously education about that is important and that's a separate issue. But I imagine coming away from that and coming into a space where a lot more of that history is told can be quite a jarring experience, but a necessary one, I think, as well.

And it's important to sort of have museums as a space to move beyond some of the more compartmental failings of the education system, which comes up from a number of different ways. But yeah, there's this sort of, this desire to easily define certain aspects of history as being one thing, where you should feel one way about it, and that's all that you're really afforded space wise.

And I think engaging more with joyful elements that you were talking about earlier, Salma, within the material itself, but also with bringing in more joyful elements of a history of a group that are outside of that specific focus are incredibly important.

SALMA

Yeah, it's definitely a way to make space for groups or communities that are normatively marginalised from museum spaces, right, and from histories in general, because I think museums just have a unique ability now, and especially in today's contemporary atmosphere in the approach to museums, where there is recognition that museums need to be more inclusive spaces.

They need to involve the people of Scotland in the work that they're doing, and they need to actually build relationships with Education Scotland as well to develop curriculums that address marginalised stories. And it's incredibly important because if you go into a museum space and you don't see yourself in that museum space, subconsciously you're just going to feel that you're not part of that place or space, right?

And I mean, it's one thing as a tourist to go into a space and be like, okay, this isn't a space where I'm going to be reflected because I'm not of this place, I'm not of this community, I'm not of this country, but who are the majority of museum goers?

They're your local mom and dads, or your local grandma and grandpas, your local like teenagers who maybe not have something to do in the summer holidays, right? And if we want to invite these groups and make them places where they can see themselves reflected, we need to engage with those histories, we need to engage in those stories. And I think joy and playfulness is an important part because no one wants to walk into a space and just see stories of themselves being victims. And nobody is a victim.

Everyone has, they all, we all have moments of agency and power where we can reclaim narratives, where we can reclaim moments that have happened to us and find ways to be better than those little moments, not allow those moments to define us. I just think it's like a unique opportunity that museums have now to be able to think about, the ESSM recommendations and how we can build that into practice and process to include peoples that are normally part of museum narratives, but also people that have traditionally been excluded from those narratives to build a much more diverse, inclusive, and it's not even just about making space, which is important, but it's also like making those narratives much more diverse and engaging and complex and rich, right?

If you continue to tell one story that we all know and we all expect that of museum spaces, then you're just doing what you've always done, when you can do something that's much more enriching and much more meaningful and significant.

JOHN

I think that idea of adding complexity of experience is really crucial, and I think that's sort of what we're looking at in a wider sense for this entire project through the weeks, is we're acknowledging that there's not one specific emotional reaction that you get from a museum – sure, some of them dominate over others, but what's important is that there are a wide range of ways you can engage with this.

And there's a wide range of feelings, and one of them isn't necessarily better or worse than the other. They all have their place, they're all valid, and I think through having these different focuses on these different emotions, we're really kind of unpicking that, and how they all sort of have a part to play in making the museum a more complex experience, in a good way.

[…]

Returning very briefly at the end, I think it would be important to touch again on this idea of well-being that we brought up earlier. I think that deserves some expansion, not just for anybody who's engaged in the discipline in a more kind of professional setting, but also just for kind of everyday people who their desire to engage with museums can come from a wide range of different desires.

I think it's an important element to touch on for like why people go into museums, right, and what they hope to kind of get out of it. So, an article I came across from the Institute for Learning Innovation, which is called ‘Measuring What Matters: Museums, Wellbeing and the Real Value of Experience’, and noted that over 95% of museum goers report levels of benefit across four main domains of well-being, which I'd like to just touch on briefly and we can discuss maybe where we can see how these are enacted and experiences that we've had where we've felt these ourselves as well.

So, to begin with, this idea of personal well-being, so a sense of identity, inspiration or wonder, where visitors may leave feeling more like themselves, more creative, more connected to the world. There's also intellectual well-being in terms of learning something new, gaining new perspectives or satisfying a curiosity about something.

Social wellbeing, so in terms of like togetherness, going with a group of people, strengthening your relationships, fostering a sense of belonging and creating shared memories. And finally, just the basic idea of physical well-being, so the act of walking, decompressing and calming environments or just enjoying time away from daily stressors in a museum space.

AMINA

Yeah, for me, social well-being, a recent experience was when I went to the Museum of Illusion in Georgia with my nieces and nephews. They're a lot younger than me, but like they're teenagers. And we don't necessarily come together as a family often. So, we were in another city and this was a rare moment that we were all together. And when you're like in a city that you don't know, like one of the first things everyone kind of considers doing is like visiting, experiencing the city through the museum.

So, we went to, randomly picked a museum, the Museum of Illusion. And yeah, it was a really good experience. I think primarily for me because we got to enjoy something together. We created a memory, like a lasting memory together. But I also think the fact that the museum space was able to engender that was also impactful.

So like the exhibit was, as we've been saying, it was interactive, there were like different aspects of it that aim to like change your perspective - and so we kind of interacted with these displays together and so it kind of like brought us together in a moment of joy.

So, I'm also thinking about physical wellbeing that might be engendered and I'm connecting that with our previous podcast around exhaustion. I think one of the things that we said in that podcast was that sometimes going through museums, because they're usually so big and the displays are like, going through that, walking through museum spaces can sometimes be exhaustive. But at the same time, like the experience that I had recently with my family at the Museum of Illusion was kind of different.

And I think it was because it wasn't like a huge display or even a huge museum. It was quite short and sharp, but also the fact that it was playful enabled us to go through the display without it being exhaustive physically and mentally.

JOHN

Fantastic. I think we've, yeah, we've looked around really well there to a lot of the main benefits that we can get from engaging in joyful and playfulness, whether that be well-being benefits or accessibility benefits.

I think they all link into each other quite well. And it's not just well-being for, just to finally wrap this up, it's not just well-being as well for people who visit museums and for people who engage in that material, but it's also important to bear in mind the people that work in museums and work in the sectors themselves and how, certainly to a degree, engaging more with this sort of playfulness, joyfulness idea also makes their experiences of working in that sector a lot more enjoyable too.

ZANDRA

Thanks for listening to The Emotional Museum podcast. This episode was brought to you by The Emotional Museum, with The Hunterian at University of Glasgow.