This presentation outlines the front-end and formative evaluation of the redesigned Ancient Worlds Gallery at the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM), set to open in the spring of 2015. The gallery will contain artifacts, props, and interactives pertaining to ancient Near Eastern, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman cultures. The previous MPM exhibition featuring these civilizations was presented chronologically; for this new gallery, six themes have been selected to guide the visitor experience: construction, communion, community, communication, commerce, and conflict. When affiliated with the Institute for
RK&A was contracted by Save Ellis Island (SEI) to conduct a front end evaluation, funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities planning grant. The objective for the evaluation was to examine Ellis Island's visitors' overall responses to the exhibit concepts, themes, and interpretive approaches for SEI's planned interpretation of Ellis Island's hospital and other medical facilities located on Ellis Island. RK&A first participated in planning meetings with SEI and their team of consultants to explore ideas for interpreting the medical facilities of Ellis Island. Upon reviewing the
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Randi Korn & Associates, Inc.Save Ellis Island
This front-end evaluation study provided information about how potential visitors to the Dena'ina exhibition (scheduled to open at the Anchorage Museum in 2010) might think and feel about the exhibition's themes. Twenty interviews were conducted with a diverse group that included people with Dena'ina and other Native American cultures. The key findings were: There was a lot of diversity about what participants knew, or didn't know, about the Dena'ina, and how the Dena'ina culture was similar to others. People knew about the effects of contact on religion, education, and dress. Non-Natives (as