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Document Sample
Ethnographic Analysis of Art in Daily Life:
Implications for DIA Communications
August 2006
P0652
Objectives and Method
• Objectives
– A cultural analysis of visual art consumption
• Explore consumer understandings and beliefs about art
• What are its emotional and symbolic values?
• How does art relate to other visual aesthetics in their lives, e.g., fashion, automobiles, home design?
Or other forms of creative expression, e.g., crafts, film?
• Wishes or desires of art in their lives?
– An ethnographic exploration of art in daily life
• How is art „consumed‟, e.g., art fairs, art purchases, window shopping, books, going to museums?
• When/how is art part of life?
• What is easy and what is hard when it comes to art in daily life?
• Role of museums vs. fairs vs. other „art‟ venues?
– Implications for DIA communications
• What values, symbols, ideas are most resonant?
• How best to ignite interest and motivate a trip to the DIA
www.practicagroup.com 1
Objectives and Method
• Method
– In-Home Ethnographic Interviews
• N=17; Detroit metro; July, 2006
• 3 hrs, videotaped
• About half included other HH members (children and/or spouse); included home tours and some included out and
about visits
• Homework: Ode to a piece of art in their home
– Respondents
• All respondents
– HH income 75K – 150K+
– Oakland County (11), Ann Arbor (2), Gross Pointe (4)
– Mix of working and non-working; college+
– Rate „visual arts‟ 5+ on a 10 point scale; engaged past year in performing or visual art venues, but have not
been to a Detroit metro art museum in past year (15 of 17)
• „Suburban Moms‟ (n=12)
– Women, 25-44, with children 5-12
– Married
– Included 2 African Americans and 2 Asian respondents
• Traditional Target (n=5)
– Women, 45-55, married and not
– If kids are at home, then 16+ years old
www.practicagroup.com 2
Part I: The Frame for Life Today
(Elusive) Values that Matter
Everyday Life
“Getting Away”
(Elusive) Values That Matter
• Values that matter include stretching your mind.
– Not to be complacent, to be open to new ideas
– “You always need to be growing…to get out of your box”
• Through, for example, work, parenting, pursuing kids‟ interests; books, magazines, internet; home
rehabbing; travel
– To recognize the larger world, accept different ways of doing, thinking and being
• “I want my kids to know shades of grey, not black and white”
www.practicagroup.com 4
(Elusive) Values That Matter
• Finding sanctuary is also key.
– Peace and calm are elusive but desired…
• “Where I need to be”
• “I would love to feel that calm”
• “You have to create these moments, to look
for them, because everything else is all
rushing”
– To be centered by sensory experience
• “I bet she‟s listening to the birds, she feels the
heat of the sun, the warmth of the rock”
• “Feel that sensory experience”
• “Silence and beauty centers me”
www.practicagroup.com 5
(Elusive) Values That Matter
• Creating a sense of family also critical for this audience.
– Investing in relationships was an explicit priority voiced by all our respondents
• “Spending time together”
• “Growing together”
• Shared time with loved ones (could be parents, children, nieces, nephews, siblings, friends…)
– A continual challenge because of the transitional nature of life…
• Of younger children maturing, of older chiildren‟s autonomy, of children leaving for college
• Of parental illness or death
• Of jobs, new jobs
www.practicagroup.com 6
Everyday Life
• Values that matter can be elusive in daily
life in part because…
– Life is in constant motion
• Juggling work, family, kids, home, social life
– “Home is so much about work, chores,
things that need doing”
– “Constant running”
– If parents, life is wrapped around kids‟
activities
• When both parents work, even more motion…
– Life is uncertain
• Never knowing what will be coming your way
• Changing terrain at home (kids growing, leaving;
parental illness) means uncertainty is a constant
• Trying to prepare for it, “staying on top”
www.practicagroup.com 7
Everyday Life
• In the constant motion and hedging against uncertainty, it often feels that
life is taking place on the interstate vs. the back roads.
– Where efficiency, speed, productivity are maximized
• E.g., kids‟ classes, activities, chores, sports, not to mention work, careers, needs of extended
families
– No time for the meandering, wandering that occurs when you take the back roads
• Though not for lack of desire, “I‟ve been practicing very hard to leave work at work”
“This picture represents all the driving I do
everyday – work, clients, chauffeuring my kids
to school to classes, birthday parties…I‟m
always moving.”
www.practicagroup.com 8
Everyday Life
• Paradoxically, despite the activity level, everyday life isn‟t particularly
„open‟ (to ideas, new ways of doing, other ways of thinking).
– Structured, encapsulated, with little room to maneuver
• “I sometimes think I live in a bell jar”
• “Where is the color, the imagination?”
• Routinized
• “A daily grind”
– Even „fun time‟ is structured
• “This past Fall was football [son‟s activity, husband‟s obsession] punctuated by Show Choir
[daughter‟s activity] performances”
The bell jar…living in our own little world
www.practicagroup.com 9
“Getting Away”
• “Getting away” is a symbolic arena opposed to Everyday. It is a search
for centering and perspective – to regain what daily life strips away.
– The primary context for „Getting Away‟ is vacation.
• Practically, e.g., away from “all the noise, phone ringing, congestion”
• Symbolically, e.g., immersing yourself in some „other‟ kind of experience, and being transformed
or enriched in the process
– The more structured and „interstate‟ daily life becomes, the more vacation becomes a
literal and emotional antidote
• “I save [myself] up for this”
• Getting Away = activities rarely done in everyday routines, whether fishing, hiking, kayaking or
art purchases, museums, different foods, theatre, concerts
• Getting Away = travel (typically), itself a means for imagining another time or place or self or way
of thinking, e.g., the Klondike miners‟ path, glaciers, a Buddhist temple, the Caribbean, Alaska,
“up North”
X
www.practicagroup.com 10
“Getting Away”
• „Getting Away‟ is, in fact, just as structured as the Everyday, but by a
different set of values…
– Getting Away is not only about escape, rather it is the means by which to reconnect with
what really matters…
Everyday
Getting Away Efficiency
Experiencing anew (re)Invests relationships
Nourishes the spirit Productivity
Stretching your mind
Inspires Speed
Creating „family‟
Responsibility
– Getting Away is a symbolic and experiential space removed from daily experience
– It invests the Everyday with some of those properties…inspiration, nourishment
www.practicagroup.com 11
Part 2: Domains of Aesthetic Pursuits
Travel is a Metaphor for Aesthetic
Experience
Domains of Aesthetic Experience
Travel is a Metaphor
• Travel is the articulated metaphor for aesthetic experience among our
respondents.
– Aesthetic experience is articulated as a journey, by all our respondents
• Separation: You go somewhere in your head
• Transformation: You transform yourself in the process
• Re-integration: You come back to daily life a different person End Benefits:
„Everyday‟ is enriched
Peace Personal enrichment
Serenity A sense of wonder
Noticing beauty Strengthening social relationships
Harmony Inspiration
Spirituality Socialization of children
A Journey of the Imagination
(“Getting Away”)
For this audience, the journey of aesthetic experience is a form of “Getting Away”
www.practicagroup.com 13
Travel is a Metaphor
• The Everyday is enriched: Aesthetic experience away from home is
brought back and used to invest the home, daily routine or job with its
power, thereby enriching it.
– For one‟s job
• “I get a lot of inspiration for hair coloring from outside. The color of Fall leaves, the progression of
color – I do that on people‟s hair… Or I look at the feathers on a bird and try to get the hair to lay just
like that.” (Hair stylist)
– One‟s garden
• “I love to garden – taking something dull and transforming it into a beautiful landscape. Going on
garden tours gives me inspiration for my own endeavors… It‟s interesting to see what people can
come up with. Just taking the everyday and making it beautiful.”
– One‟s daily life
• After a trip “up north”, “[The emotions are] happy, excited, peaceful, motivated. It inspires me to go
home and inject some of that into my [daily] life.”
www.practicagroup.com 14
Domains: Travel
• Travel is also a primary venue for engaging in aesthetic experience.
– Whether a day trip, weekend or weeks
– Both Nature and Culture are travel‟s destination
The Vision of Another
Culture
The Vision of Nature
To experience first hand
“Gives you space to the imaginative space of
think about your life” another society –
Re-connection to a architecture, food,
larger world of life dress, spaces, artistic
expression, modes of
Map of the West Indies displayed on a wall
interaction…
“I have a real appreciation for the beauty of
creation. I can sit for hours and look at water.
It‟s never the same thing twice.” “Take Ireland, for instance. The towns are incredibly clean,
there are window boxes with flowers everywhere. Even
“It‟s just so peaceful and calm… It‟s the businesses have flowers everywhere. It‟s so green, there is
tranquility you feel…I just love being at peace so much countryside. You know you‟re in a different
and I try to get it whenever I can.” country…it‟s like a living museum… It gives you a sense of
wonder, like being a kid.”
www.practicagroup.com 15
Domains: Home
• As the primary site for self-expression and the construction of identity (of
self and family), home becomes a venue for aesthetic pursuits.
– Individually crafted
• By way of materials, textures, colors
• To achieve visual pleasure
The marble foyer, the cherry hardwood
Portrait of her daughters framed by the
The color coordination of the rug and the couch flooring; a reason the owner fell in love with
couch and color of the pillows
the house
www.practicagroup.com 16
Domains: Home
• As the primary site for self-expression and the construction of identity (of
self and family), home becomes a venue for aesthetic pursuits.
– A collector of objects
• In the form of craft, decorative objects, or art that are valued on their own, but then integrated into an
overall aesthetic of the room.
Pewabic tile collected by the
owner and then used when the
floor tile was redone. An
example of art in her home.
The Nepalese rug that greets her each time The portrait obtained in the Dominican
she walks in the front door, taps the soul Republic, a gift from her father, put in the
through visual senses; a source of marital living room; the fireplace wall painted this
discord when her spouse discovered the color explicitly to coordinate with the portrait
price. Knowledge about its weavers and the
Restored 1950s Herman Miller table and chairs technique added to its sense of „art‟.
“makes me happy every time I look at it” www.practicagroup.com 17
Domains: Home
• As the primary site for self-expression and the construction of identity (of
self and family), home becomes a venue for aesthetic pursuits.
– A collector of objects
• In the form of artifacts locatable in time and space
– Belonged to a relative, handed down as a gift…
– In their presence and use, recreates other times and other spaces
Minstrel figurines from a collection of
objects depicting African-American A grandmother‟s gold leaf tea set or
history silver setting
www.practicagroup.com 18
Domains: Home
• Nonetheless, aesthetic pleasure at home can be elusive.
– The promise (and not) of art or music…
Son‟s painting is displayed with family photos
because he struggles so much with art, unlike
her daughter who is prolific (below)
The absence of anything, including color, on
this living room wall a source of
A symbol of what matters, rather than embarrassment. After 2 ½ years in the house,
what occurs in daily life it‟s still barren; life is too busy.
www.practicagroup.com 19
Domains: The Outdoors
• Home often fails in giving aesthetic pleasure because home life (Everyday)
intervenes, rendering the contents less visible… while the outdoors
retains visibility.
– Gardens: recognize a creator‟s vision and the technical know-how to bring it to fruition
• “How could you not feel better here?”
• Creates or provokes a state of mind or being – of peace that then yields perspective
• Could be one‟s own backyard (or not), a neighbor‟s yard, a local garden
Frustration with inability to
make the garden an
Gardens that are admired – shapes, aesthetic form, despite yearly
textures, depths, height, ongoing color… efforts
www.practicagroup.com 20
Domains: The Outdoors
– Gardens
Sitting on the swing at the end of the day (in the recently landscaped yard).
This is where peace and serenity are found which, in turn, recharge, refresh.
www.practicagroup.com 21
Domains: The Outdoors
• Home often fails in giving aesthetic pleasure because home life (Everyday)
intervenes, rendering the contents less visible… while the outdoors
retains visibility.
– Beyond gardens
• “I drive around looking for beauty… I go to aquariums and look at the colors of fish. I go to the zoo –
they have a butterfly house– I look at the iridescent colors. I go to the pet store and look at birds…
Sometimes, when I‟m driving at night, I‟ll look at the moon. It looks so different at different times. It
has so many different colors.”
On the boat at the end of an
evening… or could be just driving on
Lake Shore Drive
www.practicagroup.com 22
Domains: Elsewhere
• Outside of home: each of these venues offers a promise of aesthetic
experience – Getting Away, for this audience.
Concerts, "how can such powerful sound
create such serenity?”
Churches, the original sanctuaries Libraries, by virtue of books and, increasingly,
activities and outdoor spaces targeted to fostering
„open-ness‟ and „creating family‟
www.practicagroup.com 23
Part 3: The Meaning of Art
(Visual)Art
Art Venues
Art Museums
(Visual) Art
• Art is valued as a process.
– Creating art is valued because of its perceived impact on personal development
• A means of expression distinct from verbal confidence in self-expression
• A means of expression totally your own creates a desire to explore (in life)
• A process that fosters experimentation (in life)
– About appreciating kids‟ points of view…
• “Brings joy into our house on a daily basis”
Art piece-of-the-week goes on the‟ fridge
www.practicagroup.com 25
(Visual) Art
• Art provides a window into other people‟s heads…and your own.
Ode to My 4 year Old‟s Drawing
I was in my grape house sleeping
When I heard something outside creeping
I opened the door
To go explore
Aliens were coming
And so I was running
I was just hoping there were not more coming.
The three eyed aliens were green
And they sure did look mean
They had a purple spaceship,
They had made a long trip. Carry me back to the days that have past
And the wondrous stream my memories can‟t forget
This was my son Jason‟s story This time is frozen but not forgotten by me
That he drew at school Longing for the calm that makes me feel free.
There were lots of details that made it quite cool.
The tree weeps but only my tears fall
I long to break the air as I dream of being so serene
Most are unaffected by your beauty but I can‟t forget.
I am rejuvenated. It sets my spirit free.
The sky embraces you warm and still
Only if I could rest under you
Deep rooted soul could I feel complete
Even when the tree is sleeping it is free.
www.practicagroup.com 26
(Visual) Art
• Art in homes speaks… you allow it to engage you…
– An ongoing conversation framed by life and life‟s values
• “Whenever I come home, I look at that picture (in entryway). It represents who I think I am. I see
something different everyday.”
• Works of art in the home can function as symbols of relationships, shared time, loved ones, and
personal journey – deriving from the original consumption occasion or personal connections to the
maker
A watercolor of a Buddhist monastery
“That was painted by my great aunt. Most of obtained in the context of an impulsive
the paintings here are hers…It‟s really adventure to a monastery outside of Osaka
beautiful. It has family history and it has lots when in Tokyo on business.
of memories. The kids like it too.”
www.practicagroup.com 27
(Visual) Art
• Art in homes speaks… you allow it to engage you…
www.practicagroup.com 28
(Visual) Art
• Art in homes speaks… you allow it to engage you…
www.practicagroup.com 29
(Visual) Art
• Importantly, there is a belief that “artistic expression is part of being
human”.
– Visual art symbolizes openness (stretching the mind…) by its very existence
• An idea, a vision and its expression, “Knowing that someone made it, that they put their unique idea
into it, their vision. You identify with what they did and you‟re like, „Oh my God, I love it.”
– A transformational experience: Beauty thought provoking and/or revitalization of all the
senses spiritual renewal and/or means to see things differently
• “It can make or change your mood”
• “[Going to the DIA], puts me in a different state of mind. Just going beyond where I am now.”
• “Art is something that can take you somewhere else”
• “Beauty allows us to become part of what we‟re looking at”
• Anselm Kiefer painting, “so passionate, so much feeling in it that I lose myself… and then I get calm
and centered”
www.practicagroup.com 30
(Visual) Art
• “Artistic expression is part of being human”
– Consuming art is a form of “Getting Away” – a journey in which personal transformation
occurs
– (What‟s important about art?) “It‟s visually pleasing. It gives viewers a certain kind of
experience. Serenity, beauty, inspiration…it‟s like the feeling I get on my vacations.”
– In the consuming, it is often a personal transformation
End Benefits:
„Everyday‟ is enriched
Peace Personal enrichment
Serenity A sense of wonder
Art Strengthening social relationships
Harmony Inspiration
Spirituality Socialization of children
A Journey of the Imagination
(“Getting Away”)
www.practicagroup.com 31
Art Venues
• Kids: A venue for creating and consuming art
• At school, at home, at day care
• Is saved, framed/displayed, applauded
• For everyone, doing art is “expanding their horizons”
“At her daycare, they have lots of art projects. The
teacher takes digital photos and emails them to me at
work. One was of her (6m old) painting. They‟re
growing their imaginative life, not just being baby sat. I
like that they‟re doing stuff, that they‟re learning.”
www.practicagroup.com 32
Art Venues
• Vacation: a framework for exploration
– Cruise ship seminars, museum shops, street fairs are all venues for consuming art on vacation
– The pieces then become symbols of the shared experience at home
– Importantly, they are symbols of „openness‟ that, when brought home, invest the Everyday world
with meaning
• Of a time and space that was out of the ordinary and into someplace else
Torquay print; purchased while on a cruise Print of a marketplace; family trip to the Caribbean
Renoir prints; trip with spouse to Paris
with girlfriends www.practicagroup.com 33
Art Venues
• Vacation: a framework for exploration
Original watercolors of indigenous
Alaska flora, from a family trip to
Alaska; hung in family room.
Purchased on her honeymoon;
particularly likes the art within art
references characteristic of this artist
www.practicagroup.com 34
Art Venues
• Art fairs/street fairs: fun and festivity
– Can be a family event
• Model art consumption for kids in a way that is „fun‟
• “I like the freshness of it. You‟re outside, in nature, in
the sun. It takes your mind away. And I love the
feeling of being with family and friends.”
– Easy…
• For kids (can run, eat, take a break)
• To talk (to artists, to friends, to each other)
• To express opinions Purchased at a street fair in Nice
• To learn without “learning”
Ann Arbor art fair Purchased at a street fair in Paris
www.practicagroup.com 35
Art Venues
• In sum, art is consumed in lots of venues (beyond museums) – venues that
occur in daily life and occur when away.
– Art is always consumed in a matrix of larger life values
• Consumed during vacations and brought back into the home as talismans of journeys „away‟
• Consumed at art fairs as a means for creating family or as personal enrichment
– Art finds its way to „fridges and walls
• Thereby re-creating original experiences whenever it is noticed or commented on
– Through young children, the significance of art is re-created in daily life
How do art museums fit as a venue in these respondents‟ lives?
www.practicagroup.com 36
Art Museums
• Art museums are „high‟ culture – a status granted by all respondents.
– High class
• “I think swanky movies or the Thomas Crown Affair”; “I think of charity auctions, sipping champagne”
• Location of a first date for one of our respondents, “we were trying to impress each other”
– Revered because of its special place in life and society
• Linked with personal histories
– “My grandmother would take us to the DIA and historical museums when we were kids… I
used to think it was the greatest thing to go down there – to Detroit… We would stay for a
week. We‟d tell them [grandparents] where we wanted to go and they‟d take us… Every
summer, we‟d be there with my grandmother. It was a ritual. My time with her was definitely
important in introducing me to aesthetic things.”
– In high school we used to hang out at the DIA… we‟d look at different things and say, „hey,
that‟s awesome, look at that‟.”
• Linked to travel (i.e., pursuits of personal and familial transformation)
– “When you go on a trip, [art] museum-going is a good thing to do. It‟s the highlight of the
city…It‟s the way I was brought up. It makes you well rounded. It exposes you to different
things. It enlarges your experience.”
www.practicagroup.com 37
Art Museums
• Art museums are „high‟ culture – a status granted by all respondents.
– A transformative space
• Visiting an art museum is a spatial and aural, as well as visual, experience. The tranquility and
contemplative atmosphere provides the experience of sanctuary, like a cathedral
• Nourishment for one‟s soul
– “My husband would go to the DIA before a swim meet, just to relax before competing”
– “[Going to the DIA], puts me in a different state of mind. Just going beyond where I am now.”
• Ideally, nourishment for a child‟s imagination
– If a child seems to have artistic inclinations, then potential for shared experience with mom,
e.g., “she (4 year old) just might become my partner in art appreciation… she‟s like me, very
visual. She notices things. She‟s very observant. She makes comments on things. She‟ll show
me stuff – she‟ll want me to see things that are beautiful.”
Art museums have very positive elements (personal experiences, family histories,
perceived potential to enrich their own lives and the lives of children, qualities of
the space itself) – these elements are bridges to the public that can be enhanced
and built on
www.practicagroup.com 38
Art Museums
• The corollary of “high” culture, though, can be intimidation.
– Assumed to require specialized knowledge, especially by those who didn‟t grow up with art
museums in their lives
• “I wish I remembered more about the college course in art history I took”
• “I don‟t know what I‟m looking at”
• “I feel like you need to be educated into the correct meaning of the art. With other kinds [of art], like
paintings you buy, you can make up your own meaning. As a Black person… Blacks are not
educated to know those stories. It‟s something only whites, or people of a certain class, know about.
Whereas I can go to art fairs, zoos, and out in nature and I can create my own interpretation.”
– Those who grew up with art museums discovered that specialist knowledge is optional,
something to take or leave
• If art museum experiences were deemed essential by this group, knowledge of art history was not
– “I don‟t know art history, but I guess ignorance is bliss”
– “[Possessing art knowledge] is like watching a movie when you‟ve already read the book… but
I would probably prefer not to know.”
– “If you have the [art history] knowledge, maybe you get a different perspective. But I like to just
look at them, see different varieties, and just spend the day.”
For those who grew up with art museums, specialist knowledge was not seen as a
pre-requisite for museum attendance; for the less initiated, it often was.
www.practicagroup.com 39
Art Museums
• The corollary of “high” culture, though, can be intimidation.
– Assumed to require „best‟ behavior
• “I remember being reprimanded by a guard” (in her youth on a school trip)
• “You need to be in the right frame of mind for an art museum…contemplative,
thoughtful…academic. You have to be ready to learn something.”
• Mothers shushing, berating, entreating children ages 5-13 in the DIA (personal observation)
• “Not for kids”
• “Don‟t touch”
Ideally, a visit to an art museum works on a personal level, a family level, a
kids‟ developmental level
“My ideal visit? I‟d take my husband and boys (5, 3) to a contemporary exhibit
because there‟d be a lot of technology involved. Everyone would find a piece they
loved and could get excited by. We‟d totally talk about it… I‟d explain the process to
them, like how Chuck Close paints… In reality? Steve would see it as a cost, my
kids would be loud and I‟d be shushing them. It would be stressful.” (Sarah, the
most art knowledgeable person we spoke to)
www.practicagroup.com 40
Art Museums
• The corollary of “high” culture, though, can be intimidation.
– Kids and spouses are seen as especially vulnerable audiences
• Kids are more easily excused from art museums than other museums
– Parents of small children (age 3-8) feel their children are way too young for art museums
(despite the fact they are in other museums)
– Parents of older children (age 9+) increasingly let their children‟s interests dictate what they do
• Spouses too… can often be among those uncomfortable with lack of specialist knowledge
– “So we went to the Yankee game and made it a social event” (Getting Away in NY, deciding
against a trip to MOMA because it wouldn‟t be a treat for her spouse)
– “[Art museums] have an arrogance… and an intelligence that my husband doesn‟t have”
Kids are too often excused from art museum attendance.
This 6 year old is a productive force of art in the household.
Mom couldn‟t be more thrilled. Yet she hasn‟t taken her
daughter to the DIA, despite Mom‟s own experiences in art
museums.
www.practicagroup.com 41
Art Museums
• In contrast, other museums seem easier.
– Historical museums are time machines
• Artifacts are intuitively understandable in an overall narrative, which easily catalyze perspective (i.e.,
a sense of transformation and ensuing enrichment)
– E.g., First Ladies‟ gowns at the Smithsonian, Greenfield Village
» “You can imagine it, you can be there… a picture is harder to locate yourself in”
» What were their lives like? Where do I fit in?
• Historical narratives are consonant with the goals of travel – to understand a larger world and other
ways of life
• Such museums firmly situate the „I‟ and „we‟ in experience
– Good for larger groups
– Good for family coming in from out of town
– Good for adult-loved ones
www.practicagroup.com 42
Art Museums
• In contrast, other museums seem easier.
– Science museums have become how-does-that-work places for kids
• Discovery in the process of doing
• Delight taken by parents when kids show interest …, e.g., Cranbrook Planetarium
– “Their eyes are wide open…like light bulbs going on…it‟s inspiring”
• Feeds the values of openness and creating family
In the context of local alternatives, art museums get short shrift
For many, a sense that one should be going more frequently is outweighed by the
calculus of other needs (kids‟, spouses, family)
www.practicagroup.com 43
Part 3: Implications
Taking the High (Back) Road
Strategic Goals for Advertising
The Future
This 5 year old spent 2 hours constructing this fire truck
(without interruption or interrupting), but the thought of taking
him to an art museum? “Oh, no, he‟s too young for that.”
Taking the High (Back) Road
• Everyday and Getting Away are the symbolic arenas framing life today
– Each symbolic arena is re-created by actual behavior
• E.g., the routines of daily life continue to reinforce and recreate values of efficiency, speed,
productivity
• E.g., the missions of vacations (literally getting away) reinforce and recreate values of openness,
discovery, sanctuary, nourishment
• The contrasting values and subsequent behavior aligned with each arena serve to give each domain
separate symbolic significance
– Nonetheless, „Getting Away‟ happens in daily life (just as „Everyday‟ happens while away)
• When someone notices a garden while walking the dog, a moon at night in the yard, contemplates a
field on the commute home, focuses on a bird‟s feathers, feels sanctuary at church, feels awed by
the lake driving along Lake Shore Drive… OR, feels like family has been strengthened or a child has
experienced an „aha!‟…„Getting Away‟ has occurred (and is recognized as such)
• (Similarly, the grind of routine can occur in travel – the venue for „Getting Away‟)
„Getting Away‟ in daily life is the exception… though highly valued
This is the space to be claimed by DIA
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Taking the High (Back) Road
• Aesthetic pursuits are always journeys of the imagination, that live
symbolically in Getting Away (even if this happens in daily life).
Everyday
Getting Away Efficiency
Experiencing anew (re)Invests relationships
Nourishes the spirit Productivity
Stretching your mind
Inspires Speed
Creating „family‟
Responsibility
The DIA exists in the symbolic world of “Getting Away” NOT “Everyday”
The DIA has the potential to inspire, invest relationships or nourish the spirit (even if
consumed on a daily basis)
The DIA is equivalent to taking the back roads…
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Taking the High (Back) Road
• The significance of (visual) art is uncontested by these target audiences
– It is part of „Everyday‟ through children and in its display in homes
– It is consumed in „Getting Away‟ venues – art fairs, vacations, museums in other places
– It lives in their homes, as aesthetic contributions, as symbols of „Getting Away‟ experiences
– It is, in the viewing, an imaginative journey
Yet „art museums‟ are NOT a venue of first choice in daily life (for this audience)
For enrichment of children, other museums come first
For creating a sense of family, DIA competes with art fairs, science/historical museums, dinner
with friends, movies, camping, fishing…
For nourishment of the self, the DIA competes with family interests
If art museums are especially relevant when on vacation or other „Getting Away‟ venues,
the DIA has to capitalize and leverage its credentials for „Getting Away‟
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Strategic Goals for Advertising
• Advertising must inspire the feelings and values of aesthetic experiences
– The flights of the imagination.. the nourishment of the soul (serenity, peace, tranquility,
wonder, inspiration…) nourishment of the child‟s soul…
End Benefits:
„Everyday‟ is enriched
Peace Personal enrichment
Serenity A sense of wonder
Art Strengthening social relationships
Harmony Inspiration
Spirituality
A Journey of the Imagination Socialization of children
(“Getting Away”)
The strategic goal of the campaign should be here…………………..Not necessarily here (yet)
The DIA is “Getting Away” (in daily life)
Going there means a little bit of it can be brought back into the Everyday, in the form of
inspiration, centeredness or just a change of mood; it is nourishment.
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Strategic Goals for Advertising
• For the visually inclined, DIA pieces could speak, on their own, without
„official‟ curatorial translations…
– In communications, let the pieces „speak‟ for themselves just by what they are; foreground
their power to engage the senses, to have conversations with their viewers
– In which specialist knowledge is immaterial
• Everyone knows art museums have „the best‟ (such is the vulnerability when I can‟t „appreciate‟ )
• The power is in their visual presence, their capacity to engage, NOT in mastering their pedigrees
This is the goal of a campaign
The DIA is “Getting Away”
This is an audience who notices and appreciates visual art and aesthetics already
Provoke them to tap their feet, feel a presence, notice a detail…
Possible if the onus of „specialized knowledge‟ is stripped away
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Strategic Goals for Advertising
• To motivate and ignite, the campaign itself has to be a journey of the
imagination…
– Needs to stand in for what is promised in the going…
• Leverage what your target does now…
– The details of color noticed in nature
All of which intrude, break
– The patterns of texture that inspire gardening through, the ‘Everyday’
– The awe of a glimpse of nature
– It needs to provide pleasure in and of itself
• A puzzle to be solved, a smile to the face, a something!
• Ideally, it (or some part of communications) needs to end up on their refrigerators…
Tap into and thereby remind people of what they do when they „Get Away‟ – whether
on vacation or when noticing something beautiful when commuting in traffic
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Strategic Goals for Advertising
• To motivate and ignite, the campaign itself has to be a journey of the
imagination…
– Currently, those not socialized into „high‟ culture often feel more comfortable searching out
their visual experiences at art fairs, yet the art museum has much more capacity to connect
the viewer to a variety different worlds to “get away” to:
• The visual life of subcultures within the US
• Other cultures abroad (both “ethnic” and “high” cultures)
• Other historical periods
Communications could/should highlight these varied „flights of the imagination‟
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Strategic Goals for Advertising
• Why this strategy?
– Has the crucial advantage of speaking to everyone in the target… (young moms and/or
traditional target for whom visual arts are important, though local art museums are not)
– Doesn‟t deny the cultural space the art museum occupies (in fact the opposite), but it does
deny implicitly the elitist baggage that is too often attached
– Sets up an expectation of an imaginative journey and leaves aside (as unimportant)
„specialist‟ knowledge
– Puts the communications emphasis on what visitors get out of their experience (vs. what the
DIA „offers‟)
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The Future
• To engage children and many spouses… the DIA needs to deliver beyond
personal nourishment.
– Currently, there is great emphasis among the American middle class on activities fostering
“self-development” of their children.
– This could be leveraged by the DIA, perhaps as a separate or later communications/content
effort
• Why separate or later? If the museum experience doesn‟t engage children – that is, if it is stressful
for parents, if it causes discord in „creating family‟, then the risk is losing these more vulnerable
audiences altogether
• If you can get the visual aesthetically inclined (male or female) through communications to visit the
museum – s/he will discover in the visiting what is possible for children/family, and so on.
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The Future
• To engage children and many spouses… the DIA needs to deliver beyond
personal nourishment.
– Allow exhibition content to function as a populist hook that overrides the specialist knowledge
obstacle. As one respondent, whose daughter does ballet, noted, “They (DIA) had an exhibit
of Degas of ballet dancers. She‟d like that.”
– This strategy could be used to draw in a range of audiences currently at-a-distance
• Exhibitions and events that tap into deep chords for alienated groups
– What can be done for kids?
– For spouses who‟d rather not?
– For people who weren‟t raised with art museums in their lives?
The goal would be to have the DIA come to be seen as a center for visual expression
and aesthetic experience for the entire Detroit community (democratic) rather than
simply a bastion of „high culture‟ (elitist)
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The Future
• To engage children and many spouses… the DIA needs to deliver beyond
personal nourishment.
– Put the science back into art?
• The technical craft, the how-did-they-do-this (mimicking the how-does-this-work of science/hands on
museums)
• Puts process into art museums, just as it is elsewhere
– The great appeal of sidewalk portrait painters is seeing them do it before your very eyes. The
interaction with the artist is a central part of the object‟s value and it becomes a relic of that
process/interaction.
– The art object displayed in the home is a relic, a mnemonic device, of the social experience of
its acquisition and the setting in which that occurred. It is as much about the process of travel,
the interactions during the acquisition, the settings and memories, as it is about the object
itself.
• In keeping with these varied interests in process, the DIA could present process-oriented pieces,
interactive venues, “demonstration”-type events by artists. It could unpack the „how did s/he do
that?‟ queries that visitors have of what they see.
Thus the museum could be seen as „laboratory‟ as much as „storehouse-for-objects‟
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