The present is hard to love. Things were always better in the past. These are common tropes across culture. That’s why so many politicians lean into nostalgia, it’s easier than dealing with today’s messy realities.
A sentimental longing for a better past has social traction, it is a social emotion. We see that in myriad social media posts and images which bemoan the state of everything today while harking back to a less complicated past. We see it in the fascination for all things analogue, be it books or board games. Nostalgia for many people is about social connectedness.
There’s nothing intrinsically bad in any of that. But there can be a dark side to nostalgia, an implication that things were better before [insert name of transformative legislation X or social change Y].
Underpinning the fascination with nostalgia is the search certainty and simplicity. The past feels solid; the present chaotic. But, I have news. Things were not simpler back then.
- ‘Back then’ was once a ‘today’, and it felt as unrooted, chaotic, and prey to forces we didn’t understand as today does.
- The seeds of today’s technologically driven flux were planted in the fallout from colonialism and the birth of accelerated global capitalism in the 19th century.
- The 1950s were a dreadful time for many people, there was little that was ‘great’ about them and may people lived in a climate of fear.
Nostalgia influences consumer behaviour
For many consumers nostalgia is associated with authenticity. Authenticity and craft are things consumers are prepared to pay a premium for.
We know that exhibitions about certain eras have done very well for some museums. A slew of exhibitions foregrounding the early 1980s celebrating the Blitz Club and New Romantics, or the fashions of Zandra Rhodes, did very well. That’s because we were climbing out of the pandemic and audiences with spending power were those whose teenage years to their twenties played out between 1977 and 1987. It made sense to lean into the demographic reality and appeal to their nostalgia.
I’m cutting branches from the trees
David Sylvian, Nostalgia, Brilliant Trees (1984)
Shaped by years of memories
To exorcise their ghosts from inside of me
Millennial spending power is next in line. Mark my words, next on the cards will be exhibitions about the 90s. As Gen Z begin to achieve disposable income, so too will exhibitions about the noughties. But in each case, expectations of exhibitions and cultural experiences are also changing. The lines between static exhibitions, of look but don’t touch, are shifting towards tactility, interaction, and performance.
Values matter more than ever. Interactivity beyond technology likewise. Exhibitions, museums, and cultural spaces, will need to be more dynamic, flexible, able to accommodate people dancing through galleries; the era of hermetically sealed objects alone in cases and sitting in rigid timelines with strict curatorial interpretation are fast ending. Expertise will always be needed, and it is important. But academic research doesn’t pay the bills, people seeking cultural experiences do. Curators are not their museums.
Focus on audiences
Find out what they think, what they feel, what they want, and how they want it.
I think the apple’s rotten right to the core
Chalrli xcx, apple, brat (2024)
From all the things passed down from all the apples coming before
I split the apple down symmetrical lines
And what I find is kinda scary, makes me just wanna drive
An exhibition about the Transatlantic Trafficking of Enslaved African people will not bring in African Caribbean audiences.
Instead, think about involving African Caribbean communities early on in your ideation. Have ideas from these conversations shape outcomes.
The results are likely to be livelier and less stiff than might usually be the case. They will also be tied to motivations, drivers and aesthetics which appeal to the communities you’re trying to engage.
As for curators and conservators of any field from memory to museums, they can be part of the conversation too, but they are no longer primus inter pares.
Sanjit Chudha 