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Sharing what we have learned, telling behind-the-scenes stories, and the reasons behind display and design choices: welcome to our magazine. The articles we propose are a way to develop a more attentive, critical, but also curious gaze that begins  with the reflections of those who work at We Exhibit, and other professionals and experts we esteem.

Our articles are a way to develop a more attentive, critical and curious gaze that begins with the reflections of our team, and other professionals and experts we esteem. 

Magazine | Exhibit Design | We Exhibit

Museums

After our collaboration with Studio Bound (Hessa AlBader, Hussam Dakkak, Basmah Kaki) in setting up their installation 'City as a Mosque' at the first Islamic Arts Biennale, let's cast a bigger light on this incredible event. For the first time globally, a Biennale on Islamic arts and culture has been inaugurated to share values, traditions and new realities of the contemporary art world that we are proud to be part of.

January 23 to April 23, 2023 A surprising shroud of darkness greets visitors to the first Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In the first gallery, amidst the blackness are the chant-like sounds of American-Lebanese media artist Joseph Namy’s Cosmic Breath, in which recorded prayers from various countries are played powerfully in unison. Across the room are Saudi artist Nora Alissa’s haunting black-and-white photographs, arranged in a triptych. Titled Epiphamania: The First Light, the evocative pictures depict pilgrims around the sacred Kaaba, the building at the centre of Islam’s most important mosque, Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which Alissa photographed from underneath her abaya. Just a few steps away is a series of historic astrolabes dating to the 17th century. They serve as a reminder of the contributions Islamic philosophers have made to discoveries in astronomy, geometry, and mathematics for centuries.

Under the theme of ‘Awwal Bait’, which means ‘first house’ in Arabic, these works – traditional and contemporary displayed in together in the birthplace of Islam – act as a precursor for the rest of the exhibition which, as the visitor moves from darkness to light, balances its 280 works of Islamic historical objects and artefacts with 60 newly commissioned contemporary artworks. The effect is at once ritualistic, meditative, and mystical.

Staged at the Western Hajj Terminal at the city’s King Abdulaziz International Airport, used during the hajj for once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimages to Mecca, the world’s first Islamic arts biennale offers a cultural and metaphysical exploration of the artistic heritage of Islam.

The first Islamic Arts Biennale: history in the making

‘This is a historic moment not just for Saudi Arabia but for the entire Muslim world,’ said Sumayya Vally, artistic director of the biennale, the South African architect and principal of Johannesburg-based architectural studio Counterspace. ‘At its essence, this biennale is about giving contemporary objects a home by giving them a lineage, and giving historic objects a home by giving them a future.’

Working alongside the exhibition’s curators – Saad Alrashid, a leading Saudi scholar and archaeologist; Julian Raby, director emeritus of the National Museum of Asian Art at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC; and Omniya Abdel Barr, an Egyptian architect and Barakat Trust Fellow at the V&A – Vally drew much of her inspiration from her own experiences in the Western Hajj Terminal, as a pilgrim looking up into the canopies, surrounded by pilgrims from around the world. The artworks in the exhibition are physically oriented towards the Qiblah (the direction of the sacred Kaaba, the building at the centre of Masjid al-Haram in Mecca), as if they too were in a call to prayer. They are divided into six galleries with themes reflective of Islamic ritual: Adhan: The Call; Wudu’: Purification; Salah: Prayer; Salat Al-Jama’ ah: Congregational Prayer; Mawt: Mortality; and Bait: House of God.

The biennale has been staged by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation, established in 2020 by the Saudi Ministry of Culture to produce the country’s first-ever art biennales. These biennales – of which the Islamic Art Biennale is the second – are some of the numerous new cultural activities being rolled out at rapid speed as part of the kingdom’s Vision 2030, crown prince and prime minister Mohammed bin Salman’s strategic plan. Its stated goal is to diversify the economy, reduce its dependence on oil, and transform Saudi society.

As this inaugural biennale demonstrates, at the core of such a vision is an emphasis on preserving and upholding Saudi identity, Islam and wider Islamic culture.

A harmonious marriage between conceptual or abstract works and traditional Islamic art creates an enlightening and serene air in the biennale. Traditional works include the doors of the Kaaba; some of the oldest Quranic manuscripts in existence; and intricately made sitaras (curtains that cover the Kaaba).

Among the contemporary artworks that create a similarly mystical and enchanting experience is a work by Saudi artist Muhannad Shono, who represented Saudi Arabia at the 2022 Venice Biennale. It is titled Letters in Light, Lines We Write (2023), and takes the viewer on a journey through light, sound and suspended geometric shapes, which sevokes a personal relationship with the spiritual. Saudi artist Basmah Felemban’s Wave Catcher (2023) places large wooden circular forms in space to reflect the adhan (call to prayer), with the spheres representing sounds and their size, shape and place indicating their duration and pitch. These forms also evoke traditional drums or the fishing traps used on the east coast of Saudi Arabia.

Towards the end of the gallery section, South African artist Igshaan Adams displays used prayer mats from the Bonteheuwel district of Cape Town, his hometown. They glisten with semi-precious stones, cotton thread, dye, wire, and beads. Also from South Africa, in an adjacent expansive room, is Haroon Gunn-Salie’s Amongst Men, comprising 1,000 cast kufiyah hats. It is a reference to the funeral procession of Iman Abdullah Haron, a South African Muslim community leader killed by apartheid police in 1969. The work, while based on an act of violence, has an ethereal air: the multitude of white hats suggests a resurrection where the spiritual realm transcends the earthly.

While the synergies between past and present Islamic art weigh powerfully in this first biennale, the question that remains for many is: what constitutes Islamic art? Why stage a biennale titled ‘Islamic, and why aren’t there biennales of Christian, Jewish or Hindu art?

The reasoning Islamic scholars often give emphasises the power of Islam itself as a culture—one that is as expansive geographically and culturally as it is in faith.

‘Islamic art refers to a great range of cultures within a very large geographical area,’ explains William Lawrie, co-founder of Lawrie Shabibi, a gallery in Dubai and a former specialist at Christie’s Islamic art department ‘For those who appreciate or study Islamic art, there’s always an inherent understanding or agreement that the genre is a placeholder for a much larger idea. At least in terms of historical Islamic art, you would be referring to an art from various geographical areas ruled by Muslims, or where Islamic culture in one way or another has perfused into the local visual culture.’

Islamic art has rarely been given such an international spotlight. The last time a large-scale exhibition was mounted was in 1976 for the World of Islam Festival in London, intended to quell tensions between Christians and Muslims in England. The Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah is not only grander and more comprehensive in scale, it also brings the genre of Islamic art back home to its birthplace, while still professing its inclusiveness and universal vision.

Importantly, as Vally stresses, this Biennale offers the Islamic world, both past and present, an opportunity to finally be seen and heard on the world stage in the birthplace of Islam. It is a biennale that includes artists from across the Islamic world, including Iran, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

By Rebecca Anne Proctor, Wallpaper magazine

From darkness to everlasting light: all you need to know about the first Islamic Arts Biennale

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK, we will present the collective performance opera Under Scars at Palazzo Mora, the historical premises of the European Cultural Centre in Venice, on Saturday, December 17, at 7:00 pm (admission free). Under Scars is envisioned and devised by the artist duos VestAndPage (Verena Stenke & Andrea Pagnes) and Andrigo & Aliprandi in collaboration with Irina Baldini, Sabrina Bellenzier, Giorgia de Santi, daz disley, Nicola Fornoni, Marisa Garreffa, Fenia Kotsopoulou, Ash McNaughton, Aisha Pagnes, Enok Ripley, Sara Simeoni, Mauro Sambo, Joseph Morgan Schofield, Marcel Sparmann and Emily Welther.

The experience of the collective performance opera Body Matters: Anam Cara – Dwelling Bodies in 2018 made us imagine a radically different direction for the VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK. We realised that the production of collective performance operas should be nurtured by artists-in-residences that provide time and space for the needed intensive co-creation processes. Under Scars grew from this insight as a collective performance opera and work-in-progress. It developed from Body Matters: Co-Creation Residency, a shared artistic research and a co-creative path undertaken by 15 performance and sound artists organised in June 2023 at C32 performing arts workspace in Forte Marghera (Venice).

Under Scars is a gathering of experienced artists and performers who challenge their practice to attempt novel perspectives on art and society. It is a collective work that gravitates around the themes of disability, severe diseases, addiction, patriarchy, capitalism, abuse and discrimination. The wounds and stigma they cause are dealt with poetically through performance actions and artmaking rituals of kinship and togetherness. On this occasion, Palazzo Mora’s main hall and six adjacent rooms transform into a dwelling site of interconnected performance installations, where temporary, intensive co-creation processes aim to reveal the qualities of existence. The hosting space functions as a social-narrative incubator wherein performance methods are intertwined for coagulating inclusive and expansive life stories. The collaborative performance unfolds as it builds on sustained encounters of different artistic research combined with performative practices. As the title suggests, the artists now gather to unveil precious experiences of vulnerabilities, hesitations, fragilities, hopes, the unspoken they carry under their cicatrices, and wounds healed by performing. Memories and experiential transformation processes entwine and collide to respond poetically to present emergencies.

Young performance artist Nicola Fornoni has a core role in the performance opera, alongside artists and performers who supported the ten years of activities of the VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK to today or have previously collaborated with us. Passion, creativity and enthusiasm are the primary resources that allow us to perform and experiment. All of us participating artists are producers of ourselves. We have reconstituted a cluster of performers who offer live art to create reflection and dialogue on the present urgencies and emergencies. Over the past five months, developing a sense of community and belonging, we have been working together to assemble the performance opera, aware of its complexity and duration of almost three hours.

After six successful editions of the VENICE INTERNATIONAL PERFORMANCE ART WEEK, seven Summer Classes of its educational program, and the two-year interruption due to the pandemic, Under Scars is now an opportunity to understand today’s audience for performance art in Venice. Finally, it also signifies returning to my origins in social theatre and applied drama. That is, I envision this work as a form of collective care.

We Exhibit for The Venice International Performance Art Week 2022

As heritage practitioners and researchers, we live unquestionably in	fruitful but also politically crucial times in which to study, to experiment and to advocate queer activism in the heritage sector. LGBTQ equality is gaining increasingly public and political attention and much is changing also in the heritage sphere, as institutions are growingly engaging with	sensitive	and challenging subjects breaking the	boundaries between traditional cultural work and activism	(Janes and Sandell,	2019).  Yet, activists purposefully remind us, that change – both in theory and practice – should happen at	a fast pace as cultural institutions aim to	mirror and shape the social environment where and for which they exist. This essay stems from a research	promoted by IHLIA LGBTI Heritage on the current developments and ethical challenges in the field of LGBTQ+ activism and culture. The research has looked at the Dutch scenario in relation to the  wider international realm – most notably the UK – as cultural practices develop also through international influences. The methodology of the paper, unavoidably exploratory and qualitative, has intertwined desk based research, interviews	with	heritage professionals and case studies. What follows is a critical analysis of how debate and practices in this field are	evolving and it highlights areas  of possible tensions, andethical challenges, as well as areas asking for future	developments.

Queering the collections In order to consider the	challenges and developments we encounter when researching queer concepts in the policies and practices of NL/UK	heritage,	 the	journey taken by the Queering the Collections network (later referred to  as QtC) is a proactive example. QtC is a collaborative initiative started in 2015  in The Netherlands by a consortium of partners which included cultural and academic institutions as well as individual heritage professionals.	The	diversity of the actors involved reflected the shared need to better clarify what a queer approach might entail for a cultural institution, as well as to join forces in order to make this critical stand a higher priority for Dutch organizations. At this point it is interesting to note that in spite of the international resonance of The Netherlands as a country which very early on  guaranteed equal rights to LGBT people and where the social acceptance of  this community is high (Government of The Netherlands,2018), representations of LGBTQ+ narratives have been largely absent or obscured in Dutch museums and archives (Parry and Schalkwijk, 2020). The reasons behind this omission are multiple and complex. Manon Perry and Hugo  Schalkwijk, scholars in Public History at the University of Amsterdam, have recently asserted there is a widespread belief that	a special	focus on	LGBTI histories in heritage is not	needed since this community is not marginalized  (2020).  In addition to this the Director of IHLIA, Lonneke van den Hoonaard, has pointed out other challenges that refrained the wider heritage sector to engage with this matter. To begin with, queer theory is inherently hard to  grasp. Nikky Sullivan has indeed noted that «attempting to define what queer is […] would be a decidedly un-queer thing to do»(2003,p.43) outlining that queer theory is a positionality which aims at deconstructing and challenging heteronormative structures and relationships. Various heritage organizations  struggled to understan how this could be relevant to their work, assuming also that the collections they preserved had few connections with gender and sexual diversities. A specific challenge for the Netherlands was that Amsterdam hosts an international documentation center entirely dedicated to making LGBT subjects accessible and that therefore many cultural institutions may have felt that it was not their responsibility to embrace the “queer cause. Ultimately, some museum directors may have feared the political consequences of a possible engagement with these issues. Five years later, this	scenario has evolved and the QtC	network has expanded its members reaching the goal of making the	interrelations	between	gender, sexualities	and heritage a structured topic of experimentation and research also in universities (Queering the	Collections,2019). The most fundamental question that inspired the	international conference during which QtC was launched was: how can	we make non straight histories more visible in heritage sites? (Knoop et al. 016, Hoonaard, 2016). Looking backwards, the developments since 2015 allow us to address that same question through a variety of examples and to highlight diverse approaches across multiple museum typologies.

In 2019-2020 the National Museum of World Cultures branch in Amsterdam, the Tropenmuseum, mounted	an iconic	show addressing perhaps one of most vital issues in our contemporary understanding of gender. What a genderfull world, as the title suggests, explores gender  as a  fundamental relational and cultural construct,	whose forms of interior perception and exterior expression are influenced by contingent elements such as time, place and societal norms. Through an immersive and interactive experience visitors are welcomed by the guiding voice of a Trans person. They are invited to reflect on the differences between sex and	gender and their multiple nuances, and to learn how diverse cultures throughout history have admitted, censored or encouraged countless gender expressions beyond the binaries and stereotypes of female and male (Moolhuijsen, 2019). This multilayered exhibition which features a miscellanea of objects, such as social history collections, installations and documents, would have been accompanied by a lively program of public and educational activities. A similar approach  in terms of interpreting world cultures to address contemporary  stereotypes has been taken forward by the British Museum for a number of years. A compelling evidence is the trail Desire, love, identity which interprets the permanent collection from an LGBTQ perspective (British Museum, 2019). Through object-based interpretation and a concise brochure, visitors can learn how different societies have conceptualized and celebrated multiple gender identities as well as same sex love and desire throughout history.  The message that it conveys is strong and traightforward: non binary gender identities and non heteronormative relationships have always existed throughout history.  In this context, and elsewhere, it is nonetheless interesting to interrogate whose voices are represented within the exhibition space. Although the British Museum actively works with LGBTQ communities, it perpetuates a hierarchical mode of interpretation where the curatorial voice of the museum is the only one visible in the displays. The brochure is written from an expert point of view lacking communities’ perspectives. It becomes then interesting to investigate how institutions could challenge their institutional voice.

[...] how can we make non straight histories more visible in heritage sites?

The	case of Kingston Lacy, a historic house and	propriety of the National Trust in the United	 Kingdom, allows us to further  elaborate on this.  To mark the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalization of homosexuality in 2017, the Trust embarked in a challenging programme aiming at making LGBT histories more visible (Sandell, Lennon and Smith, 2018). The programme had an explicit intent to challenge	visitors’ perceptions and understanding of these subjects.	 At Kinston Lacy visitors could explore the story of one of its owners, William Bankes, who was prosecuted in 1833 for indecent acts	but also learn about the wider history of LGBT struggles for human rights (Research Centre Museums Galleries, 2017). Additionally, various creatives were invited to co-design the experience in which people’s real life stories of homophobia and displacement  were also incorporated.  Their struggles were projected on the historic house windows through texts and sounds recalling visitors’ attention. On overall, the juxtaposition of information derived from interdisciplinary archival research and contemporary	perceptions provided visitors a multitude of points to access content and connect the past with current challenges. This approach broke the boundaries which often persist between curatorial knowledge and people’s lived experiences, providing	opportunities for understanding contemporary struggles in a historical setting.

Incorporating the records of marginalized histories within cultural institutions should also prompt discussions in relation to meaningful community engagement and the extent to which people’s voices and priorities are actually taken forward	through heritage policies. This point is especially relevant for the Trans community, whose portrayals in the media are often delivered by third parties reinforcing negative stereotypes (Sandell, 2018). People who experience gender dysphoria tend to be depicted in the media at two extreme opposites: either in a state of fragile mental health and inevitable sufferance or as young individuals, who can ultimately find recognition and are successful after transitioning. As Trans issues have scarcely been considered in institutionalized contexts, it is interesting to look at the approach taken by IHLIA.n The exhibition Trans in Amsterdam was the result of a collaboration with the activist organization Transvisie and featured large size photographs combined with texts where local Trans people told stories from a multitude of viewpoints. The following show at IHLIA is resulted from a collaboration with artist Erik Alkema and author Eveline van de Putte who carried out an oral history project on Trans elderly and their family members (Putte, 2018). In both cases IHLIA’s staff shared third party expertise to content development leaving room for activist organizations, artists, authors and most importantly the Trans community itself to publicly present their voices in personal ways. IHLIA added context and perspectives by exhibiting related objects. Overall, these participatory projects highlighted how archives	 can	 become	collaborative	platforms in their local contexts. From queer/ing interpretation	to the queer museum Early debate on gender activism and heritage focused on how to make LGBTQ+ stories and histories more visible (Swedish Exhibitions Agency,2018). As was remarked by Robert Mills already in 2008, «Theorizing the queer museum does not simply entail contemplating how time and space might be devoted to the inclusion of previously excluded social groups. It also affords opportunities to think museums  themselves radically	 otherwise» (p.50). Several authors who have looked at heritage from human rights perspectives have craved for more radical change in the	 sector (O’  Neil 2006, Message 2018, Chynoweth et. al. 2020).  In fact, even if out-reach activities can be very meaningful, the values that underpin them are seldom a reflection of the wider organizational culture in which they are	shaped. The shift that occurred in the last years in the debate on gender activism and heritage is the call for making queer thinking	a more structural approach, rather than a temporarily	engagement with marginalized histories. Nikky Sullivan and Craig Middleton have developed this claim in their recent Queering the museum (2019). The Australian-based authors	 have outlined how a queer museum is one that fundamentally and structurally troubles the traditional museological categories and processes of knowledge making, without attempting to “simply” filling in the missing gaps of a universal history by involving some communities	temporarily. They problematize the tendency of incorporating LGBTQ+ histories in modernist progressive narratives that due to their epistemological foundation can not be inclusive of all cultures.	These narratives, they argue, can have the double negative effect of replicating «exclusion rather than to challenge the logic that produces it»	(Sullivan and Middleton,	2019,p.108). The authors draw on philosophical theories to further	explain the wider aims of queer ethics, referring to the works of Foucault and Derrida to highlight the need to de-construct processes and practices, challenging structures of power and privilege in order to make the situational character of knowledge ultimately visible. In their words, queering practices can «take many forms and involve all aspects of museum business: juxtaposing disparate objects; tracing object biographies; cataloguing diverse interpretations and multiple ontologies and making  them publicly available; facilitating the emergence of previously marginalized voices, knowledges, and forms of engagement» (Sullivan and Middleton, 2019, p.110).

An instructive example of how such an organization may look like is the experimental Van Abbemuseum. For a number of years the institution engaged in various projects that challenged modernist, heteronormative and colonial structures of knowledge (Rensma et al., 2019). These initiatives have a particular symbolic importance in a museum that exhibits modern and contemporary art – a type of material culture traditionally exhibited from the modernist canon – and which is the legacy of a private collector linked to the colonial system. Queer projects at the Van Abbemuseum have taken multiple forms, ranging from the possibility to investigate artworks from queer perspectives (reading information on visitors’ clothes rather than on traditional labels) to the long-term involvement of multiple queer constituencies, who jointly shape the institution’s cultural production. However, it is not the sum of the single projects that makes this museum queer but rather their common underlying theoretical foundation which affects the organizational mindset. The institution aims at keeping the constituencies engaged in a continuous effort of questioning assumptions and normative dynamics (Rensma, 2018). This de-constructive exercise, which recalls Derrida’s approach referred to in Queering the Museum (Sullivan and Middleton, 2019), can be exemplified by the choice of replacing traditional toilets with gender free ones. It is not the gender free toiled in itself to be queer, but rather the self critical process that it instills into the visitor by having him/she/them question assumptions about gender and sexuality. This is the result of a process of systemic change in which the Van Abbemuseum has been engaged for years, demonstrating the close connections between queer ethics and the need to question diverse aspects of museum management. Managing intersectionality LGBTQ+ contents at heritage sites at times have been under scrutiny for replicating some heteronormative biases often present in non queer stories, such as the tendency of formulating linear narratives of rights struggles which culminate in marriage equality or the asymmetry in representation between black/white, able/dis-able, men/women and Trans/cisgender people (Truijens, 2017). These critiques of identity-based inclusion can be also found in the wider debate on identity politics. Therefore, it is not surprising that approaches seeking to overcome these challenges come from this broader field and that intersectionality is increasingly being discussed in the cultural debate on inclusion (Roberts, 2014). Intersectional approaches derive from black feminist contributions to the understanding of discrimination’s dynamics and outline how people’s social and political identities are part of multiple axes of power based on variables such as sex, gender, sociocultural background, disability, sexuality and religion among others, which can determinate multiple factors of exclusion (Collins and Bilge, 2016). Intersectionality allows to conceptualize people’s identities by unpacking their evolving and multifaceted nature and by providing stimulus to overcome compartmentalized approaches to social inclusion which tend to associate stereotypically people to singular and monolithic boxes, such as “the queer”, “the black” and so on. In the Netherlands the crucial importance to value people’s overlapping identities has become especially evident as the Black Lives Matter movement gained prominent public awareness. An institutional recognition of this gradual change is the initiative Queer Baseline (2020) launched by Studio-I and other partners. The platform aims at giving visibility at Queer People of Color by enabling representatives of the community to express visions and demands for intersectional inclusion in heritage.

[...] heritage institutions face the further challenge of needing to reinterpret of collections in contexts that are different to those of their origin and cultural belonging, trying to engage simultaneously [...] with discourses on colonialism, sexism and racism.

Another milestone in the Dutch cultural scenario in this domain is the project The Critical Visitor carried out by a consortium partners across the nation that includes heritage organizations and universities but also activists and professionals. This project aims at developing a «palette of inclusive practices that fulfil today’s ethical standards set by governmental bodies and critical voices in heritage spaces» (University of Leiden, 2020). Both initiatives deserve the merit of proposing intersectional inclusion on the Dutch cultural agenda and introducing heritage professionals to a new set of values and critical stands. The growing need for intersectional thinking needs to be understood in relation to the management approach of heritage organizations. In fact, staff working towards common socially inclusive goals is often organized in separate teams with diverse target groups as focus and these compartmentalized organizational approaches are reflected on institutions out-reach programs lacking intersectional perspectives. It is important to acknowledge that questions of inclusion on the basis of gender, culture and so on should collaboratively coexist under the same organizational umbrella and be weighted evenly in relation to the context. It is interesting to consider the Amsterdam Museum’s approach where socially inclusive practices are carried out within the frame of the New Narratives project, an initiative that aims to reflect the city’s diversity by creating connections between past and present and by involving diverse local communities to reflect on issues relating to gender, culture and religion (Hart Amsterdam). This participatory framework that creates a direct reciprocal relation between the engagement of communities and the new stories that are being told in the institution – also online – is collaboratively developed by staff working on research, education and communication, showing how the diversity of a social context can only be portrayed through heterogenous background and experiences of both staff and potential visitors. Beyond LGBTQ A recent article published in a national Dutch newspaper addressed the often contested relationship between the acronym LGBTI and its actual inclusiveness, stating that this shorting of words may no longer be relevant to describe gender and sexual minorities (Dirks, 2020). The article originated from the decision of The Hague’s municipality to replace the term LGBTI with queer and pointed out that increasingly more people identify as Queer, looking at this umbrella term as a more inclusive definition for the wider spectrum of identities. Critics of the inclusive nature of the acronym LGBTI (and its possible nuances such as LGBTQQIP2SA) are not new. Eliza Steinbock illustrated in the essay LGBT and the addition of TQIA2S (2018) how inclusive representations and proper use of language are extremely cultural and context specific issues: where for some communities the shorting LGBTQIA may come across as inclusive, for others it would reflect a rather Western-centric approach. Additionally, heritage institutions face the further challenge of needing to reinterpret of collections in contexts that are different to those of their origin and cultural belonging, trying to engage simultaneously a variety of communities in their work intertwining research and practice with discourses on colonialism, sexism and racism. Even if Steinbock (2018) point out that using the correct terminology is an important step for museums in order to achieve equity, it appears that both culture and language are in a constant flux of change, where every choice may eventually feel more representative towards certain groups than others. Looking at this debate from the perspective of social constructionism and the field of psychology may offer fresh insights into how to address these problematics. Social constructionism is a theory of knowledge that investigates how socially and jointly constructed understanding of the world develops.

According to social constructionism meanings develop in coordination with  others and form only on the basis of shared assumptions of reality, without necessarily capturing the essence of things or their true/false nature (Galbin, 2014). From this point of view it is possible to argue that the notion of LGBT and queerness exists only in opposition to heterosexuality and cisgender identities and that their challenging power of societal structures is in place only if ones accepts cis-heterosexuality as the norm. Already thirty years ago the iconic Epistemology of the closet (Sedgwick, 1990) discussed how of all the possible dimensions from which to describe someone’s romantic attraction or sexual activity, precisely the gender of the subject of choice has become the paradigm from which to discern someone’s “sexual orientation”. The iconic letters L G B do not succeed in subverting this paradigm but further reinforce the idea that someone’s affective and sexual identity can be defined on the basis of the gender of attraction, without even troubling the notion of gender as binary. Drawing on social constructionist theories, the field of psychology is offering interesting epistemological alternatives from which to look at the realm of gender, sex and relationships. Recent theoretical thinking and counseling practices in this domain are being carried out under a novel paradigm, that is to say that of GSRD, standing for Gender, Sexual and Relationship Diversity. As pointed out in the publication Good Practice across the Counselling Professions (Barker, 2019) it is actually important to challenge the acronym LGBT for several reasons: «LGBT does not cover relationship diversity which […] is intrinsically linked to gender and sexual diversity. For example, people who are polyamorous (in multiple relationships), in open relationships, who do not experience romantic attraction, or who privilege platonic love are also marginalised. LGBT also does not cover sexual identities/practices like kink/BDSM. The acronym LGBT represents a particular white western understanding of sexuality and gender. […] We need to be cautious not to impose this on people of different cultural backgrounds who may not understand sexuality as an identity, for example, or may have more diverse gender options available to them. The focus on LGBT assumes that sexuality and gender are only relevant – and potentially linked to mental health problems – for people of marginalised sexualities and genders. Actually sexuality and gender are highly relevant – and linked to struggles – for normative groups such as heterosexual and cisgender people too. The LGBT abbreviation is ever-expanding into a kind of alphabet soup to incorporate all marginalised genders and sexualities. For example LGBTQQIP2SA or QUILTBAG include some or all of: queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, pansexual, and Two Spirit people. GSRD is both shorter and more expandable to include emerging communities as a wider culture becomes more aware of them» (p. 13, appeared in different order). In the words of Meg-John Barker «GSRD captures an important point in time – at the beginning of the 21st century – when we are seeing an explosion of GSRD identities, terminologies and experiences» (2019, p. 13). Although primarily aimed at professionals in the socio-psychological field, the philosophy behind GSRD succeeds in making it clear that new thinking around gender, sexuality and not ultimately – also relationship patterns – is most fundamentally a cultural shift, occurring now and worldwide. GSRD achieves the goal of separating the political debate around LGBTQ+ issues, in which the iconic acronym has an important history and legacy, from the cultural side of the debate, highlighting how we are all “gender, sexual, and relationship diverse” (Barker, 2019, p.13). Rather than approaching all minorities as a bloc with the attempt to “normalize’ or ‘include” them in a world view where cis-heterosexuality is still all-pervasive, GSRD changes the perspective to an approach to work on diversities. Although acknowledging that the term GSRD is not as evocative as  LGBT for many people who identify and belong to these communities, the reframing of thought behind the former can offer new opportunities to exploit the agency of cultural institutions.

[...] in contexts where the representation of queer heritage is not mainstream but underground and virtual forms of cultural productions are persistently challenging power systems and offering inspiring models of experimentations.

Rather than an engagement with politically sensitive themes aimed at involving marginalized histories and communities, engaging with GSRD could be conceived as inherently pertinent to the role of all heritage organizations in relation to all people. This acknowledgement unveils the potential to permanently work on these subjects forging new alliances across different sectors – from educational institutions of all kinds, to human rights agencies and brands committed to equality – to lead this cultural change. Heritage organizations should not, in a desperate search for relevance and political consent, struggle to develop a few projects on queer issues that may be disconnected to their overall mission and vision. They should aim to be leaders in this cultural shift and enable different communities to live confident and fulfilling lives thanks to their engagement with the cultural world. Hopes for the future We are far from having reached a stage in which queer histories and approaches are a structured and widespread area of work within the heritage sector across the world. Nonetheless the cultural institutions I discussed here prove that they can be sites which can purposefully engage with human rights, challenging people’s feelings and stereotypes. Furthermore, recent researches show us that these actions can actually challenge and transform people’s attitudes and beliefs (Dodd et al., 2018). This essay has highlighted some changes in the realm of queer heritage activism that I consider significant, showing the need to embed more radical thinking on inclusion in the organization’s DNA as well as to approach intersectionality more holistically and long-term. Thinking about the ethical implications, this kind of work should encourage us to approach gender, sexual and relationship diversities more permanently, transversally and across sectors. We live in a globally, hyperconnected world where LGBTQ+ progressive cultural content travels not only through the work of cultural and creative industries but also through digital platforms (such as Netflix). This acknowledgement should force us to critically think about ways to further develop queer cultural contents that are not only extremely context-relevant but also internationally responsive. As cultural institutions in the digital age have the power to engage audiences far beyond their national borders, what is their moral and ethical responsibility towards people and institutions who struggle at promoting LGBTQ+ equality? Informal networks such as QtC could become platforms for the sharing of expertise transnationally, in order to support professionals in this work also in contexts where the debate on LGBTQ identities is critical. This exchange could be reciprocally valuable; in fact, in contexts where the representation of queer heritage is not mainstream but underground and virtual forms of cultural productions are persistently challenging power systems and offering inspiring models of experimentations. Acknowledging that GSRD hold significance for every single individual – although in different ways – should lead institutions in finding more audacious and daring ways to play a leading role in wider policy making. Otherwise the risk is that they will always look at real life changes from the perspective of a binocular and ‘be followers’ towards mainstream social movements. Diversities of gender, sexuality and relationship patterns matter for everyone, in distinct ways. Institutions such as the British Museum, which recently developed educational activities on sex education creating links with the national school curriculum (British Museum, b), are leading the way towards new ethical responsibilities and  roles. With respect to the Netherlands, it would be useful to better understand and evaluate the impact of queer cultural practices on the communities they aim to serve. What are the needs and priorities for LGBTI people and how could heritage organizations meet them? And how could they play a more strategic role in wider policy making? Hopefully these interrogatives can be the starting point for future research.

Queer identities and heritage: current developments and hopes for the future.

A green museum is a museum that incorporates concepts of sustainability into its operations, programming, and facility. Many green museums use their collections to produce exhibitions, events, classes, and other programming to educate the public about the natural environment. Many, but not all, green museums reside in a building featuring sustainable architecture and technology. Green museums interpret their own sustainable practices and green design to present a model of behavior. Green museums strive to help people become more conscious of the limitations of their world, and how their actions affect their world. The goal is to create positive change by encouraging people to make sustainable choices in their daily lives. They use their position as community-centered institutions to create a culture of sustainability.

Green museums aim to promote a culture of sustainability, which can be defined in two parts: culture, which includes the values, practices, beliefs and aspirations of a society. Whilst sustainability asks people to adapt at a cultural level, changing their beliefs and behavior.

Museums are in a unique position to establish and promote a culture of sustainability as they are arenas that simulataneousy preserve and create culture. As a result, museums are now considered to have a key role in shaping a sustainable future. These changes can be achieved through their exhibitions as well as their active engagement in debates surrounding climatic and environmental changes.

Museums have the capacity to influence visitor attitudes toward their local environment that can have a positive impact, for example, on the preservation of local biodiversity. Bristol Museum & Art Gallery joined a global coalition to raise awareness about the protection of biodiversity and launched its exhibit Extinction Voices which aimed to highlight the threat of wildlife extinction and gather ideas for collective action. Another aspect of museums role in the culture of sustainability is getting their visitors to engage in climate change and sustainability issues more widely.

Museums are taking a more active approach to the project development of their exhibits. Children's museums initiated the green museum movement, mainly out of health concerns for the young visitors. Using toxic materials and chemicals on structures intended for children became a high worry for both the museum staff and parents. "In its 2004 expansion project the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh used only adhesives, sealants, paints, carpets, and composite wood that are certified formaldehyde free with near-zero off-gassing."

Before the reduce, reuse, recycle mantra became mainstream, a small number of museums had already begun promoting sustainable decision making through exhibits. The Boston Children's Museum, developed a concept known as "The Recycle Shop".

Organizations are working to develop a standard rating system for the specific needs of green exhibitions. In 2008, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) developed the OMSI Green Exhibit Certification guide to assist museums in assessing the environmental sustainability of their exhibits, and to help develop more sustainable forward plans. Based on the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, the OMSI Green Exhibition Certification guide simplified and adapted the LEED system to cater to the specific needs of the museum sector, especially in view of the limited financial and human resources found in many museums.

The guide provides a checklist for organizations who follows eight elements regularly used in exhibit design.

After evaluation, they are awarded 0-4 points:

1. Rapidly Renewable Materials
2. Resource Reuse
3. Recycled Content
4. End-life Assessment
5. Low-Emitting Materials
6. Certified wood
7. Conservation
8. Regional Materials

Through the project, Sustainability: Promoting Sustainable Decision Making in Informal Education, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), OMSI also developed Exhibit Social Environmental and Economic Development (Exhibit SEED) in collaboration with multidisciplinary professionals across the United States. Exhibit SEED is a toolkit designed to help museums create holistically sustainable museum exhibits. The guide is based on "Three Pillars of Sustainability for Museums," considerations based on environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and social sustainability, and provides multiple examples of how a museum might reasonably adjust their practices to incorporate these pillars. Many museums across the globe has since developed and shared their own guidelines for sustainability in museums. The Madison Children's Museum in Madison, WI developed their own "green guide" for sustainable museum practice; their green initiatives in sustainable materials, community outreach, and museum programming led them to become the first Wisconsin museum to receive LEED certification.

Discussions within museums about environmental sustainability began in the 1990s and have continued to grow. Green museums are receiving a lot of attention from academia and the mass media. Some scholars believe that a focus on sustainability is a way for museums to be relevant in the 21st century.However, most conventional museums are not engaged in sustainable practices.

The green museum movement began in science and children's museums. Science museums found that environmental advocacy and education fit easily within their missions and programming. Children's museums saw that using green design in their inside environments created a healthy playground for their young visitors. Once sustainability became a topic of discussion in museum circles, zoos and aquariums realized that their existing missions and programming of species conservation was in essence sustainable education. Recently, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums revised its accreditation standards to include a requirement of environmental advocacy.

With the green museum movement beginning in children's museums, The Children's Discovery Museum in Normal, Illinois, became the first LEED certified children's museum on October 3, 2005, when it received a Silver certification. The Wild Center in Tupper Lake, NY became the first LEED certified green museum in 2008, followed by The Brooklyn Children's Museum, who achieved the LEED Silver certification in 2010. In addition, this museum used rapidly renewable and recycled features such as bamboo and recycled rubber flooring to construct the building as well as used photovoltaics to generate electricity. Other good examples of green museums include The Boston Children's Museum who earned a LEED Gold certification in 2007, and Pittsburgh Children's Museum, who received a LEED Silver certification in 2006.

Science museums and zoos were quick to follow children's museums in the green movement. One of the first science museums to adopt green initiatives was ECHO, Leahy Center for Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont, which was the first LEED certified building in Vermont. The Natural History Museum of Utah is another museum that has taken charge in the green museum movement. The Rio Tinto Center of the museum has been certified with a Gold LEED Certificate.

Zoos and botanical gardens have also become leaders in the green museum field. The Denver Zoo, Woodland Park Zoo, and Cincinnati Zoo all received Green Awards at the 2011 Association of Zoos and Aquariums conference. The Phipps Conservatory & Botanical Gardens was given a LEED silver certification for its new Welcome Center, which "is designed to evoke the geometry of the historic glass houses behind it." It has 11,000 square feet of lobby, ticketing, gift shop, and cafe space with a 34 ft high glass dome that is insulated to control glare and heat. Architects partially built the structure into the terrain, with 14th feet of usable space below ground. It was determined that by doing this, Phipps would save 40-50% of annual energy costs compared with an entirely above ground structure, and demonstrated that sustainable design could be created in ways that were still sympathetic to historic settings. Phipps will also be opening the Center for Sustainable Landscapes, which will house a center for education, research, and administration. It is scheduled to open in the spring of 2012, and is planned to exceed the LEED platinum certification, and achieve the Living Building Challenge. Art museums are now also joining the movement. The Grand Rapids Art Museum became the world's first LEED certified art museum complex in 2008 when it received LEED Gold certification, with such innovative features as a heat recovery ventilator, CO2 sensors, and on site grey water reuse.

One specific example of a green museum is The Toledo Zoo in Toledo, Ohio. In 2007, the institution redefined its mission statement to focus on informing the public about conservation. As part of its mission, the Toledo Zoo committed to green construction, which was shown in the parking lot renovation project. The main parking lot was redesigned in order to increase parking capacity and aid traffic flow, and the project incorporated green elements such as rain gardens and reusing concrete. The renovation also included a residential-sized wind turbine and three solar panels to power the ticket booths at the park's entrance. The wind-turbine and solar panels generate 3600 kilowatt hours per year, which can be redirected into the zoo's main power grid when the booths are not in use and reduce the zoo's carbon footprint by 5600 pounds annually.

Another project at the Toledo Zoo is the Solar Walk, which opened in November 2010 and includes over 1400 solar panels that produce 104,000 kilowatt hours per year, the same amount of energy used by ten typical homes in Ohio. The Toledo Zoo and the Solar Walk's design team wanted the project to be a visual reminder to all zoo visitors and traffic from nearby highway of the zoo's commitment to conservation. In order to accomplish the project, the Toledo Zoo turned to a local companies, and used funds from private contributions and an energy grant from ODOD to cover the $14,750,000 price.Also, The Toledo Zoo, in keeping with their mission statement, included informational panels on how the Solar Walk works and the amount of energy produced to date, so that visitors can be informed on the conservational value of the project. The Solar Walk will reduce the Zoo's carbon footprint by over 75 metric tons each year, which is equivalent to 15 medium-sized cars. The Toledo Zoo has further committed to incorporate green construction into its building plans through geothermal wells, environmentally friendly insulation and other renewable energy and green construction materials.

During the lockdown, more and more museums around the world are offering digital tours online: they could be virtual tours, live guided tours or even tours accompanied by a robot. For many, with museums closed, these opportunities provide access to a world of content from the safety and comfort of their homes. For others, it would be even better to calibrate them to meet human needs. Both virtual and real experiences hosted by the museums, in fact, have something in common: their visitors’ needs are always the same, online and live. For this reason issues such as cognitive bias, learning accessibility and universal design principles, that take into account visitors’ behaviours and motivations, are key factors for any effective experience. 

What is your purpose? Do you want visitors to learn more about the significance of the works of art? Do you want them to have fun? Do you want to involve people who don’t usually attend museums? Do you want them to discover new strategies to approach artworks or to critically question their role as audience?

If you notice, the objectives of the virtual tours offered by museums are rarely made explicit and most of the time it doesn’t seem to be clear to the museum either. This generates a dissonance that makes it impossible to find coherence between visitors’ gestures and expectations. The most evident example: is a visit in which the artworks can be focused hardly will certainly not allow to deepen their value from the point of view of art history even if they could improve the interest for museums’ routes and architecture: in any case, it would be enough to know. As for the objective, it is a widespread misconception to think that a virtual visit could tempt you into actual attendance if you’re not already intrinsically motivated. Take a walk on “Google Street”: albeit there are some places in the world you would like to visit, it will not be because you simulated a walk through their virtual streets that your desire wil increase. 

Tip: set clear goals and share your intention with your visitors on the website to orient their path and understanding. 

In the last few weeks I have interviewed people with different interests and experience, and while the research is empirical, it leads me to think that those who appreciate virtual tours are usually people of medium cultural level, used to visit museums; they are used to traditional approaches of visit for which the interpretation is not open, the visit is passive and does not raise other questions. In other words, for them the museum is only a space where specific and in-depth content is offered in relation to the objects, especially for artworks. The choice to discover the museum from home is often motivated by their desire to learn something new, to see places already visited in the past, to deepen their knowledge or to see unexpected details, hoping to be surprised. 

Generally, visits especially when they are autonomous, as in virtual tours, tend not to last longer than what is considered the average concentrated attention span of about 7-10

minutes. In this sense, time should be observed following a qualitative and unprejudiced approach but more hooks to renew involvement and time would need to be included. About this topic, John Veverka (an expert in heritage interpretation), reminds us that a visit is not simply a matter of going from A to B, but of accompanying the visitor through the discovery of different and overlapping sensations and stimuli. In contrast, for many of the existing virtual tours the experience is nothing more than getting lost in a flat space, like a computer screen, unless it provides different strategies for interaction: the interface should be able to accommodate differentiated learning styles, to end up useful both in terms of accessibility and attention renewal. The opportunity to build connections and paths made by different types of stimuli and interactivity (music or perhaps open questions could be some examples) would increase engagement as well. 

Tip: Facilitate your visit by offering different learning approaches, diversifying the contents and disciplines, developing your interpretation broadly as a strategy. 

Expectations change according to the experience. As a museologist, for example, starting from the awareness that the museum is a learning device through which, hypothetically, everything is possible, I expect the spectrum of possibility to be further enriched by the online visit. 

Google Art has done a lot in this area and produced extraordinary results, especially when it suggests observation strategies beyond focusing only on content, as for example in the case of the Vermeer’s Milkmaid painting on the Rijksmuseum’s website. 

Life, of course, is easier if you are Google, but it’s not so much about resources as it is about learning objectives. In this case, in fact, the museum is suggesting the implicit

acquisition of skills which could turn out useful also in the real visit, as John Berger teaches in his famous book “Ways of seeing”. Moreover, the objective is clear and partly shifts from the more traditional proposal anchored to contemplation, effective only for a small number of visitors. 

What I would like to see: more strategies and suggestions for the visit which people can then use in the real world and more references to current issues and pop experiences: if the museum is a real space, why should the virtual try to simulate it badly? Maybe this is an opportunity to bring virtually back the Mona Lisa to Italy? Or even: could we finally talk with visitors about museology and history of collections? 

Peoples needs are always the same (Online and Offline) 

Lidwell, Holden and Butler, in their fundamental book “Universal Principle of Design” (2012) talk about the importance of addressing a “hierarchy of needs” in good design: in order to achieve the goals we have set, we must be sure that we have responded first and foremost to the basic needs. Using Maslow’s most famous scale, it is therefore a question of imagining a pyramid that develops from the bottom upwards able to meet people’s basic needs before satisfying higher level’s ones. As it relates to our topic it would mean to structure devices that at the most basic level include functionality (they should work), reliability (they should work well), usability (they should be easy to use), proficiency (they should enable people to do something better), creativity (they should enable people to envision something new) at the highest level of the pyramid. 

Tip: involve the whole staff with the question “What levels does our virtual tour reach?”, urging critical analysis and self-observation; test your virtual experience with different users, use UX and accessibility checklists or create your own.

Again, Veverka reminds us that to understand a part, you need to know the whole thing first. Try to think of a book: if the index was missing, wouldn’t you feel lost? Some of

 the virtual tours (especially those guided in real time) place our user experience at a predetermined starting point without clearly sharing a larger picture or destination. While in a real visit, one can guess the approximate size of the museum, or the possible route one would take (often thanks to a map), in the virtual visit these references are often missing completely. Sometimes the museum map is not even available online, which makes the experience more like a maze than anything else. This key concept should obviously not be confused with the Principle of progressive disclosure which suggests to provide only the relevant information at a given time without overloading the recipient. 

Tip: for any museum tours, especially those facilitated by a guide, allow visitors to always have a map available to frame the entire route from the beginning.

Tip: facilitate your visit by offering different learning approaches, diversifying the contents and disciplines, developing your interpretation broadly as a strategy. 

In a text still considered a classic in the field (Intrinsic Motivation in Museums: Why Does One Want to Learn?, 1999), Csikszentmihalyi and Hermanson described the flow experience as the optimal status that allows the visitor to feel completely involved and concentrated in the visit. According to their model, the flow is an intense and positive propensity to learning that occurs when we have just the right skills to face the challenges we meet. If our skills are higher than the challenges we get bored; if the proposal is too challenging, we end up anxious. In addition to the clear correspondence between skills and actions required, other aspects necessary for the activation of the

flow (and fatigue strength) should be: 1. clear objectives and defined rules 2. immediate unambiguous feedback 3. a positive state of mind 4. a sense of discovery and challenge, and no less important of all 5. intrinsic motivation. Some authors, such as neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf, say that since the digital age our flow experiences are inevitably compromised. She refers purely to reading, but I believe that this consideration can also apply to museums. Having said that, referring to flow as an ideal goal remains a good reminder for any projects audience-oriented. 

Tip: as people have different abilities, knowledge and previous experience, make sure that your online experience offers multiple levels of access and allows you to perform different tasks. 

It all depends on motivation. If visitors online and in person are first motivated by the idea of living a pleasant experience, maybe with company, even online we should meet the same expectations. The truth, as Tiina Roppola tells us, is that the museum experience responds in a multidimensional way to different needs that can be simultaneously educational, exceptional, social, leisure oriented or many others. 

Stephen Bitgood, a psychologist who has written a lot about the museum environment and its impact on visitors, describes motivation as a cognitive-emotional state to be strictly evaluated in a complex framework including the amount of perceived work and the number and intensity of distractions (2002). Motivation is powerful, not only because, when intrinsic, it is the key to activate the experience of the flow, but also because it allows us to overcome barriers. If I really want to do a virtual tour I will make every effort to understand how the computer works even if it is the first time I turn it on (of course, provided that this barrier is not impassable). Many hope that the virtual visit is a

worthwhile invitation to motivate non-visitors to go there: I have no data about it, but personally I doubt that those who have never been passionate about museums would become so now, unless the virtual experience is able to activate the construction of personal meanings. 

Tip: offer a friendly experience, involve the visitors offering a range of free-choice activities, support their own construction of personal meanings by engaging them and asking questions (as well as their opinion). 

As we mentioned in the case of the flow, there are many factors that limit our attention, especially if our motivation is not high. The Principle of Cost – Benefit is always valid: we will take an action only if we perceive that its benefits are equal or superior to the efforts. For example it can change a lot if we interact from a phone or a computer: the size of the screen has an impact on our effort, inversely proportional to accessibility. Moreover, if the attention is not stimulated (as it could be by an interactive activity or through the alternation of different learning styles) so many disturbing factors that can limit involvement, including things as simple as the table or work environment around the computer is in disorder. For facilitating attention, virtual visits (as well as the real ones) must be built with the importance of rhythm and timing in mind. For example, several authors, (including Falk, Koran, Dierking, & Dreblow, 1985) made clear that attention decreases over time: for this reason, if we assume visits of fixed duration, at least from the second half of the visit we should implement different strategies from the initial ones, just to avoid tiredness and fatigue. 

Tip: as Susan M. Weinschenk (2011) suggests “if you must hold attention longer than 7–10 minutes, introduce new information or a break”.

Autonomy: You have to know how to manage it 

On virtual tours visitors often rejoice in autonomy. As on Google Street they can move freely in space, but generally the euphoria fades away soon because the experience is always the same: after 10 minutes the experience doesn’t keep them engaged enough and boredom sets in. Unless they have a specific and personal interest to go deeper, their autonomy is limited because their actions cannot generate significant consequences. 

On the other hand, allowing visitors to make too many choices independently risks paralyzing them, as happens in those pages that offer too many resources (but even in this case there are many pros and cons). Once again it is about the flow theory.

Tip: facilitate the visitor’s experience by sharing with them some strategies or suggestions for the visit, according to their interests, expectations and time available. 

Of course, many considerations are still open. Above all, it is important to remember that there are no absolute solutions: everything lies in the quality and human-centred approach with which each proposal is structured. As was stated at the beginning of this analysis, human needs are the same whether the means of delivery are live or online, but on the contrary people may not always be the same, as they may experience the same visit more than once and perceive (and behave) differently each time. 

Other key issues to consider certainly remain: how to solicit social interactions between visitors, themselves or their families, how to build long-term relationships between the museum and visitors and above all how to expand research on this investigation. This last point, more than the others, deserves an in-depth examination especially with regard to the formative evaluations necessary to implement a product that tailors its function and satisfaction to the experience of different users.  There are many relevant projects that already allow us to approach the digital content of museums without virtuosity, especially when, as museums, we do not have the resources or skills to do so. But of course we also need new ideas, revealing the potential of this field, spreading new ways of interaction and also new interpretative approaches. Just remember to always ask for feedback from your visitors: they may seem to be only virtual people and instead they are not.

Do virtual tours in museums meet the real needs of the public? Observations and tips from a visitor.