Modes of Engagement: Comparing 'real' and 'virtual' platforms for Holocaust learning

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This project examines user engagement with an interactive, virtual exhibition that explores the role of photography in mediating the public understanding of the Holocaust. It builds on the success of the AHRC funded project 'Photography as Political Practice in National Socialism' (2018-21), which has explored the extent to which public understanding of the Holocaust is currently compromised by a one-sided reliance on perpetrator-made images. This follow-on funding allows us to ascertain whether a digital intervention can help audiences to view photographs of the Holocaust more critically. Our team and staff at the National Holocaust Centre and Museum (NHCM) have collaborated to create a virtual online version of our national touring exhibition 'The Eye as Witness: Recording the Holocaust', to pioneer methods for translating the project's insights into a digital forum, both extending the reach of our intervention and offering new modes for engaging learners with the importance of photographs in understanding histories of atrocity. In addition to reproducing the core elements of the physical exhibition, the online version supplements them with specially designed virtual pedagogical spaces: an antechamber and a reflection room which users engage with at the beginning and end of the exhibition. These expand on the exhibition's content to engage the user more fully with the role of historical photographs, and to sharpen the pedagogical function in the absence a member of the NHCM's educational team. This project comprises working closely with various groups to assess the impact of the virtual exhibition: schools will provide the primary partners for testing the program, and we will also work closely with charities who engage with community groups. This will take place both in the UK and in collaboration with our international partners in the United States and Germany. Our project is ground-breaking in combining established qualitative methods of museum audience research (questionnaires and interviews) with innovations from digital humanities approaches, including gaze and movement tracking in the virtual exhibition, digitally recording choices visitors make about photographs on interactive screens, and inviting participants to respond textually to questions posed in the virtual exhibition. The resulting evidence will demonstrate the effects of our interventions on different demographics, empowering museums to make optimal use of our research for future developments in digital curatorial and educational strategy to engage target audiences effectively and ethically with photographic depictions of atrocity and victims of persecution. They will also support teachers and educators to improve the visual literacy of a new generation.This grant would enable us to:- Design visitor questionnaires and interview questions collaboratively with our museum and international partners, whilst drawing on existing scholarship and practice as outlined in 'Context'- Develop additional resources to support teachers in framing the classroom discussion around the virtual exhibition- Organise international trials of the virtual exhibition in the United Kingdom, United States and Germany, coordinating the user questionnaires, interviews and focus groups with teachers both online and in person- Analyse the outcomes of the above, in conjunction with the data gathered electronically from the virtual exhibition and the interactive activities, to arrive at a holistic assessment that addresses all questions outlined in the 'Objectives'- Share the outcomes with all participating partners in team meetings and use them to develop concrete recommendations for the future, including, but not confined to, the introduction of interactive and immersive technologies to museums where they have not yet been used- Work with museum educators and teachers to develop new approaches and pedagogies to enhance the use of digital tools in educational settings