ABSTRACT
Exhibitioning is a mode of publicness for which the museum was clearly mandated. This chapter discusses the structuring of public spaces at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), which were conceived as part of the ‘hardware’ of the museum, and focuses on the public nature of its exhibitions, perceived by museum management as part of the ‘software’. Exhibitioning must be understood within current debates about the role of exhibits as communication and cultural forms. The exhibition attempted to draw out interfaith dialogue between Christian, Judaic, and Muslim religions by stressing the commonalities between traditions. The important visitors’ experience that emerged in the ROM’s post-exhibit evaluation was ‘crowding’, which was treated as a logistical problem using language such as ‘bottlenecks’ and ‘visitor flow’. The chapter concludes with an analysis of how ROM management chose to ‘engage’ with an external political challenge from non-typical publics demanding transparency in addressing the controversial topic of Palestinian history.
