Anyone who’s ever tried to drag a child through a museum or gallery knows that it can be hard work. You’re often frowned up by other patrons, you struggle to find something that captures the child’s imagination, just even trying to start a conversation about something you’ve seen seems like too much effort.
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Our cultural institutions are recognising this, making spaces family friendly, developing bespoke activities for children of all ages and, increasingly so, looking for ways to incorporate new and emerging technologies into their programs.
The National Portrait Gallery has stepped up the game with the launch of Headhunt!, a tablet-based app developed in Canberra by Stripy Sock which has already garnered international interest.
NPG digital manager Gillian Raymond was looking for a new way to inspire and excite both children and adults while remaining educational and collection focused.
“This unique combination of self-directed learning by the participants and the ‘magic’ of what is actually an extremely complex tech build has resulted in an innovative new way for young audiences and their adults to experience our collection,” Raymond said.
“Through Headhunt! participants are asked to look closely at the portraits that intrigue them and to delve into the artistic elements of the work and the stories of the people featured.”
What is unique about Headhunt! is at the end of the exploration a report is generated containing the content (text, image and audio recordings) created by the participants which is then able to be shared with their teachers, carers or parents during their gallery visit or as a post-visit activity emailed to the supervising adult.
The app recently won an award at the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museum Innovation Awards in Canada and has been shortlisted as a finalist in the Museum and Galleries National Awards to be announced on June 6.
Managing director of Stripy Sock Jake MacMullin said one of the joys of working with the NPG was its open-minded approach to how technology could be used to enhance the engagement of visitors.
“The initial idea was a scavenger hunt style experience where children would be asked to explore the gallery to find something that interested them, to reflect on it, and come back and talk about it,” MacMullin said.
“We soon saw in those early prototypes that children were excited by the idea of sharing their point of view.”
One change that was made during development was the introduction of a component that enabled teachers or accompanying adults to engage with the child by seeing what portraits the child had chosen ahead of time so they could be more ready to start a conversation.
“The key is collaboration,” said Alana Sivell, digital learning coordinator at the NPG.
“You want the children to be discussing the work with each other, with the teacher.
“We’re trying to give them an experience but also trying to give them the skills and the tools so they can go to galleries by themselves and still get something out of it.”
MacMullin said developing apps for the museum and galleries sector was a growth area.
“People's expectations of technology are that it’s available everywhere you go,” he said.
“In museums and galleries it’s a different situation because obviously people come to visit because of the art or the objects and in some ways technologies can be seen as a potential distraction from that.
“But the galleries themselves are looking for opportunities to use it in a way that adds to the experience rather than take away from it.”
NPG director Angus Trumble said engaging children has been a priority for the gallery since it first opened.
“I think we have an enormous advantage in that basically, unless you're unusually misanthropic, people are interested in people and moreso children are interested in other people,” he said.
“A portrait gallery is like an adventure playground, coming face to face with famous people, learning about amazing things that unfamiliar people have done, and, crucially, storytelling .
“That is an advantage of this app, it allows kids to tell their own stories to each other and share them.”
The app is available for school groups during the term and family groups on weekends and in school holidays.
