Putting Visitors to Work

Museum at Work? Why not put visitors to work?

One of my most memorable participatory museum experiences ever was at Mystic Seaport. It's pretty simple, they make a bunch of visitors work together to raise the sails of a 19th century ship. A staff "chanteyman" sings a work song to keep the pace. You're actually standing on the ship, doing it.

The physical novelty of my experience as a visitor served to underscore the extreme historical routine-ness of it. For me, I realized, this was a total break from my normal rhythms; for sailors 150 years ago, it was the most basic, even monotonous rhythm of their lives at sea.

It's an effective interpretive program because it's a relatively simple, immersive, authentic, and cooperative activity. Strangers rely on one another. It's dramatic. The sails are big, and real, and put up a lot of resistance against the rough rope. Mystic's interpretive staff make it clear that you have to take it seriously, too -- everyone on the line has to plant their feet properly, pay attention to the rhythm of the song to know when to pull the rope, and place hand over hand correctly as they pull.

I really didn't want to be the one to mess up. It feels like there's really something at stake. Check it out: in this video they're raising a whale boat (I think), rather than the sail, but the environment, effort, and chantey are similar enough to give an impression:

Can other museums put visitors to work in a similarly safe but powerful way?