ABSTRACT
There can be little doubt that museums are complex institutions and that there is no simple way of understanding them. In fact, they are better understood as places which give rise to a variety of experiences. The unexpected is the norm, and the best laid plans of curators, education officers and marketing experts can be creatively altered by the imagination and expectations of the museum visitor. Those who visit museums and indeed all those in whose name museum developments take place add a wonderfully subversive element to museums in any society. The joy of museums is their capacity to be places where people explore something of themselves, although this does not necessarily come about in the way the museum itself may intend.
