Understanding and Improving Public Engagement with Holocaust Photography
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Nottingham
Department Name: History
Abstract
This project examines visitor engagement with an interactive, multimodal exhibition that explores the role of photography in mediating the public understanding of the Holocaust. It builds on the success of the AHRC funded project 'Photography as Political Practice in National Socialism' (2018-21), which explored how photography, which was widely used in Nazi propaganda, has distorted the ways we perceive victims of the Holocaust today. The project also unearthed how people persecuted by the Nazi regime deployed photography to record counter-narratives, thus creating a rich visual resource, which is, however, largely unknown to modern audiences. These insights have informed a national touring exhibition 'The Eye as Witness: Recording the Holocaust', which will allow us to test new methods for exhibiting these sources.
This Follow-on Funding project is designed to enhance the significant social and cultural impacts of the project by capitalising on the unforeseen yet invaluable opportunity provided by the exhibition's tour: to observe and evaluate audience responses, thus generating evidence of the effectiveness of our various interventions in reaching contemporary audiences. The aim is to inform future curatorial, pedagogical and policy practices around the use of photography in Holocaust memorialisation and learning. The project takes place against a backdrop of rising racially-motivated hate crimes, Anti-Semitism, and a decline in public knowledge about the Holocaust. This political context means that gathering information regarding public understanding of these issues is both timely and urgent.
Our hypothesis is that public understanding is currently compromised by a one-sided reliance on perpetrator-made images when imagining the Holocaust today. While these images engage audiences emotionally, they also perpetuate harmful stereotypes. This follow-on funding allows us to ascertain whether different curatorial interventions can help audiences to view photographs of the Holocaust more critically.
In our exhibition, visitors enter an immersive Mixed Reality experience which allows them to explore a classical perpetrator image of the Holocaust, sharpening their awareness of the perspective, framing and selection at work in the image. They then encounter alternative images produced by victims of Nazi persecution, which are very rarely seen in exhibitions or online. Interactive display screens invite visitors to record their own reflections and to apply lessons learnt from the exhibition to photographs of violence, atrocities and mass migration in the world today. A purpose-made artistic video installation provides the opportunity for us to explore the effectiveness of artistic interventions in supporting historical and technological displays.
This project comprises detailed visitor observation, questionnaires and interviews in all five venues hosting the exhibition: the Imperial War Museum North (Manchester); the Bradford Peace Museum; the National Memorial Arboretum (Staffordshire); the Djanogly Art Gallery (Nottingham), and one London venue tbc. Our project is ground-breaking in combining established qualitative methods of museum audience research with innovations from digital humanities approaches. This includes technological observation through gaze, eye and movement tracking in our Mixed Reality headsets, and digitally recording choices visitors make about photographs on interactive touch screens.
The resulting evidence will demonstrate the effects of our interventions on different demographics, empowering museums to make optimal use of our research for future displays. Our testing the effectiveness of digital interventions will also inform museums about the potential of new technologies to engage visitors with other difficult subjects in the future, and to minimise harmful side-effects when displaying problematic images.
This Follow-on Funding project is designed to enhance the significant social and cultural impacts of the project by capitalising on the unforeseen yet invaluable opportunity provided by the exhibition's tour: to observe and evaluate audience responses, thus generating evidence of the effectiveness of our various interventions in reaching contemporary audiences. The aim is to inform future curatorial, pedagogical and policy practices around the use of photography in Holocaust memorialisation and learning. The project takes place against a backdrop of rising racially-motivated hate crimes, Anti-Semitism, and a decline in public knowledge about the Holocaust. This political context means that gathering information regarding public understanding of these issues is both timely and urgent.
Our hypothesis is that public understanding is currently compromised by a one-sided reliance on perpetrator-made images when imagining the Holocaust today. While these images engage audiences emotionally, they also perpetuate harmful stereotypes. This follow-on funding allows us to ascertain whether different curatorial interventions can help audiences to view photographs of the Holocaust more critically.
In our exhibition, visitors enter an immersive Mixed Reality experience which allows them to explore a classical perpetrator image of the Holocaust, sharpening their awareness of the perspective, framing and selection at work in the image. They then encounter alternative images produced by victims of Nazi persecution, which are very rarely seen in exhibitions or online. Interactive display screens invite visitors to record their own reflections and to apply lessons learnt from the exhibition to photographs of violence, atrocities and mass migration in the world today. A purpose-made artistic video installation provides the opportunity for us to explore the effectiveness of artistic interventions in supporting historical and technological displays.
This project comprises detailed visitor observation, questionnaires and interviews in all five venues hosting the exhibition: the Imperial War Museum North (Manchester); the Bradford Peace Museum; the National Memorial Arboretum (Staffordshire); the Djanogly Art Gallery (Nottingham), and one London venue tbc. Our project is ground-breaking in combining established qualitative methods of museum audience research with innovations from digital humanities approaches. This includes technological observation through gaze, eye and movement tracking in our Mixed Reality headsets, and digitally recording choices visitors make about photographs on interactive touch screens.
The resulting evidence will demonstrate the effects of our interventions on different demographics, empowering museums to make optimal use of our research for future displays. Our testing the effectiveness of digital interventions will also inform museums about the potential of new technologies to engage visitors with other difficult subjects in the future, and to minimise harmful side-effects when displaying problematic images.
Planned Impact
The findings of this research will allow us to improve our host venues' exhibitions, to increase public awareness through more effective and more ethically sound curatorial and pedagogical approaches to Holocaust photography. Through this, we will drive the agenda of Holocaust memorialisation and learning both in the UK and further afield. The project equips exhibition goers and learners to engage critically with photography as a document -- not only about the Holocaust, but also when engaging with more contemporary images of conflict, human suffering and victimhood.
Beneficiaries will include Holocaust museums, galleries and memorial sites, members of the public visiting these sites, Holocaust educators, including school teachers and academics engaged in efforts to improve Holocaust education in schools, and policy makers. Evidence gathered regarding the effectiveness of different media and display strategies in reaching contemporary audiences, and specific demographic groups within them, will feed into the further development of the National Holocaust Centre and Museum's permanent displays (CF project partner letter of support), and generate evidence that can be shared with a wide range of potential new museum partners and educators. It will inform choices that our partner venues will make in future regarding curatorial best practice on exhibiting other difficult and ethically sensitive histories. The research will also impact collaboration with non-university partners through developing innovative immersive technologies to enhance visitor engagement with visual and material culture displayed in museums, galleries and memorial sites.
We will scale up the impact by sharing key findings with the sector more widely, in order to influence future directions in museum curation around the visual display of violence and suffering. Given the global geographical spread of Holocaust museums and memorial sites, there are significant opportunities for extending this impact internationally. We have recently held meetings with museum staff at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem; both are interested in our findings from this project. We will work with existing and new partners to empower them to make optimal use of our audience observations, to inform their future approach to engaging target demographics, and improving the way in which they empower audiences to respond critically to visual media.
This is of particular significance in educational settings, and the data gathered will be invaluable for guiding best practice pedagogies for pupil engagement with photography. The project will thus also inform new guidance for teachers and museum educators with whom we are already working with on the original research project, to help pupils and students engage with images more critically and inform the development of exemplar teaching materials. This will also help teachers to prepare pupils and students for participation in museum visits where engagement with and developing an understanding of visual images are expected, and to help develop further learning opportunities that involve engagement with photographic evidence.
Beneficiaries will include Holocaust museums, galleries and memorial sites, members of the public visiting these sites, Holocaust educators, including school teachers and academics engaged in efforts to improve Holocaust education in schools, and policy makers. Evidence gathered regarding the effectiveness of different media and display strategies in reaching contemporary audiences, and specific demographic groups within them, will feed into the further development of the National Holocaust Centre and Museum's permanent displays (CF project partner letter of support), and generate evidence that can be shared with a wide range of potential new museum partners and educators. It will inform choices that our partner venues will make in future regarding curatorial best practice on exhibiting other difficult and ethically sensitive histories. The research will also impact collaboration with non-university partners through developing innovative immersive technologies to enhance visitor engagement with visual and material culture displayed in museums, galleries and memorial sites.
We will scale up the impact by sharing key findings with the sector more widely, in order to influence future directions in museum curation around the visual display of violence and suffering. Given the global geographical spread of Holocaust museums and memorial sites, there are significant opportunities for extending this impact internationally. We have recently held meetings with museum staff at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem; both are interested in our findings from this project. We will work with existing and new partners to empower them to make optimal use of our audience observations, to inform their future approach to engaging target demographics, and improving the way in which they empower audiences to respond critically to visual media.
This is of particular significance in educational settings, and the data gathered will be invaluable for guiding best practice pedagogies for pupil engagement with photography. The project will thus also inform new guidance for teachers and museum educators with whom we are already working with on the original research project, to help pupils and students engage with images more critically and inform the development of exemplar teaching materials. This will also help teachers to prepare pupils and students for participation in museum visits where engagement with and developing an understanding of visual images are expected, and to help develop further learning opportunities that involve engagement with photographic evidence.
| Title | Digital Exhibitions |
| Description | As part of this award, we created and tested with audiences our innovative multi-media exhibitions entitled "The Eye as Witness: Recording the Holocaust", respectively as a physical touring exhibition in five UK venues, and as an online re-creation of the exhibtion's content in an interactive on-screen format. Detailed visitor observations (see narrative 'key findings') have informed ongoing improvements to the platform itself. But they have also spawned a new online exhibition, which we co-created with Co-I Paul Tennent and his team from the Mixed Reality Lab, University of Nottingham, and the curatorial team at the UK National Holocaust Centre and Museum. Funded by a digtial innovation award from Arts Council England, we created 'Bubbles', which is a spatialised zoom call in which visitors explore a recreation of one room of the museums' award winning 'Journey' exhibition about Jewish life in 1930s Berlin. This new online exhibition has undergone an external evaluation process, and is now informing the museum's overall approach to better connecting physical exhibition design on-site and digital outreach. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | As described in more detail in the narrative impact section of this submission, we learnt a number of key lessons about the optimal integration of physical exhibitions and digital platforms. Both versions make use of immersive media -- e.g. the ability to "step into" a photo or a historical environment -- but both also need to respond to the different atmospheres of a museum space versus a classroom or home environment in which digital visitors sit. These findings are now informing the creative collaborations involved in a major museum redevelopment project at the National Holocaust Museum. |
| URL | http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pszpt/eaw |
| Description | We have used a variety of quantitative and qualitative techniques to gather data on visitor engagement with our touring exhibition "The Eye as Witness; Recording the Holocaust", when it showed in South Hampstead Synagogue and the Bradford Peace Museum between January and March 2020. The tour was then interrupted by Covid: after initial analysis was completed, this grant has been SUSPENDED. In January 2022, the exhibition re-opened at Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, where it closed on 13/03/2022. It is now set to open on 24 April at the Jewish Museum, London, where it will run until September this year. We are continuing the data collection. On the basis of data gathered during the first run, we submitted an interim report to our museum partners in November 2019. It focused on visitor responses to our "Ethics of Seeing" installation, which invited visitors to engage with three interactive screens, each featuring six photographs, whose content and reception have been researched as part of the AHRC project "Photography as Political Practice in National Socialism". The first screen includes classic and frequently reproduced images of the Holocaust, taken by Nazi photographs and by members of the Allied liberators in camps in 1945. Our findings show the most common word associations with these images, exploring the balance between different emotional and critical responses, and testing the widespread assumption that graphic images invoke "empathy". The second screen includes six portraits of Jewish people during Nazi rule; with one exception, all were taken by Jewish photographers, some of whom challenged the official prohibitions for anyone but official NS photographers to take photos of deportations and in ghettos. Visitors were asked to record the questions such images provoked in their minds. We were particularly interested in exploring whether such photos do, as our research suggest, have a greater potential to make victims "visible" as individuals with complete life stories, rather than being reduced to a moment of victimhood. We also explored if our exhibition succeeded in prompting people to think more critically about such photos as historical sources, asking about the intentions behind their creation, and the histories of their preservation. The final screen featured six images, in pairs, of three more contemporary crises: the refugee camp at the border of the Spanish enclave of Melilla in North Africa; the US-Mexican border; and the ethnic violence associated with the civil war in Sudan. Each pair juxtaposes an "inside" and an "outside" view; the former taken by photographers who spent a long time embedded in the communities in question, the latter classic press photographs by professional journalists. Visitors were asked to rank these images in terms of which afforded the most dignity to the victims depicted. Our findings were presented as a series of pie charts representing visitor responses. Striking findings were: 1) data from London and Bradford very similar: these are not random snapshots, but quite consistent audience reactions 2) graphic images, by perpetrators and liberators alike, do NOT create empathy: empathy scores for photos of corpses in liberated camps were 2% 3) Jewish photos raised much more interesting audience questions about victims, their life stories, and the survival of the photos themselves. 4) people are transferring lessons to contemporary images: they ranked sensationalist and graphic images very low, and the clear "winner" was a thoughtful portrait of an elderly Mexican migrant -- interestingly, the photographer is himself Jewish, and lost many of his ancestors in the Holocaust. |
| Exploitation Route | The findings are already being used by several museums: details of this are included in the impact summary. |
| Sectors | Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Description | Supplying testimony for a REF impact case study, the Director of Education at the National Holocaust Centre and Museum, project partners on this grant, wrote about this project: "The collaboration has had a significant impact on the strategic work of the Centre in progressing both our approach to photography as we undertake planning for site re-development, and expanding our audience reach." The exhibition and its coverage enabled NHCM to develop new partnerships with the IWM North, Bradford Peace Museum, National Memorial Arboretum, the Jewish Museum London, and the Djanogly Art Gallery Nottingham. The tour was suspended due to Covid in March 2020, and resumed in January 2022. Its impact on NHCM has already been significant in terms of strategy and new partnerships: "The exhibition has helped to drive forward the work of the Centre. In conceptual discussions, we grappled with the ethical and audience-based questions of combining a multi-media approach with a focus on artefacts and individual testimonies. These discussions were invaluable in framing the strategic considerations of site re-development. The opportunity [] enabled the development of partnerships with hosting venues - including the Jewish Museum London, and South Hampstead Synagogue. These partnerships will be vital in helping us realise our ambition to achieve a truly nation-wide reach, and [] will act as the foundation of a programme of co-created exhibitions with partner organisations." Moreover, the visitor evaluation data has also informed the sector more widely. The Imperial War Museum consider it an "example of best practice in digital innovation" (REF impact case study support letter), and have used it to inform training for museum staff in their "Second World War and Holocaust Partnership Programme'', an NLHF funded project with eight museums across the UK exploring with new audiences, diverse stories connected to these histories, which involved at its first meeting a tour of the exhibition and a discussion of visitor feedback. In March 2020, Umbach met with Lord Pickles to discuss the use of photos in the Learning Centre of the planned National Holocaust Memorial in Westminster: Pickles then requested a copy of the data, which in turn informs their curatorial approach. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2019 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | Modes of Engagement: Comparing 'real' and 'virtual' platforms for Holocaust learning |
| Amount | £75,130 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | AH/V012622/1 |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 10/2021 |
| End | 07/2022 |