On memorability of place and installation

Abstract Memorability of place and artwork is an important issue for exhibitions in museums and galleries. Understanding the memorability of an exhibition and its effects on visitors might guide curators and designers in exhibition design. The main questions of this study are ‘Can a temporary installation remain memorable for visitors?’ and ‘Which features of installations and place affect visitors?’. The study focuses on the visitor experience to understand the memorability of both an installation named Brain Forest Quipu and the exhibition place which is the Turbine Hall in the Tate Modern Museum. Therefore, visitor comments on social media (Instagram and YouTube) and the Internet were examined with the content analysis method. In order to make the analysis clearer and obtain more precise data, words that are taken from comments were grouped under “Definition” and “Interpretation” titles. Also, five parameters that can affect memorability were identified based on the literature review and included in the analysis. As a result, visitors’ comments revealed the feelings and expressions which both installation and exhibition place created, and it can be said that installation had an impact on most of the visitors because of its topic and the representation. However, it was hard to define the degree of memorability because of the lack of information about visitor’s background and interests. On the other hand, using this perspective about social media comments to discover the thoughts and feelings of visitors can be useful for future studies. The method can be developed with the involvement of some other scientific measurement techniques used in studies on memory.