Eastern State Penitentiary

                In Michelle Henning’s “Museums, Media, and Cultural Theory,” she observes that although museums and museum exhibitions may attempt to make objects out of things and display them for an audience, the museum also provides a space for romantic encounters, for daydreams, for losing one’s self or imagining one’s self differently.  At the Eastern State Penitentiary, the building itself is essentially the object on display.  ESP provides the visitor with the historical facts and information, which the visitor is then able to experience through the site and the building itself.  Henning’s also states, the objects and antiquities a visitor encounters in a museum are stimuli for daydreams, ‘free-wheeling mental associations’ and ‘the world dissolves into a solipsistic fantasy.’  I know, for me at least, being in the actual setting of the penitentiary inspired my imagination to run wild and give me a chance to put myself in the position of the prisoners and guards who once inhabited its walls.  I also associate the site with ghosts, which seems common among visitors, and ESP does not try to prevent that.  I mean, come on, the building is pretty creepy.  The prison became a historical site after a few decades of abandonment, and the ESP’s decision to leave it mostly in that state—with exceptions for preservation—gives the it authenticity (and the perfect location for a haunted attraction).

                Museums like the Penitentiary must also consider people’s ways of seeing.  Different people view things differently, based on their gender, social position, personal history, etc.  The assistant program director of education, Linda Neylon, explained how she must always be aware of the different backgrounds children could have and the possibility of a family member in prison.  The museum cannot totally shape and predetermine the experience a visitor will receive; everyone is viewing things through a different eye and establishing an association between personal memories and museum objects. The artist instillation in the penitentiary by James Mills illustrates how our ways of seeing have changed over time as the result of historical events.  The concept of his pieces highlights the touristic attraction drawn to "dark" places, sites of suffering and death.  A century ago, ESP would have been a prison, a place one would not have the particular desire to enter, but now it has become a historical and entertainment site.

                Regardless of everyone’s own way of seeing, the one common factor uniting us is modernity; we are all in the present.  Henning illustrates an example of a museum exhibition in England that used the modern time to relate its message to everyone.  The “Britain Can Make It” exhibition displayed furnished rooms in efforts to provide plans for a reconstructive post-WWII society in London.  The museum controlled the visitor’s path throughout the exhibit, yet invited them to participate and be involved with the space.  Henning describes the museum’s intentions to ‘educate the taste and shape the lifestyles of the visitor’s’ and introduce ‘new forms of social control and organization’ while promoting the ‘production of a disciplined self.’  In the same way, ESP informs its visitors of the incarceration problem occurring in the United States; our country has the highest percentage of its population in jail.  The Penitentiary stresses this statistic in hopes to encourage visitors to brainstorm ways for its improvement.