Museum communication between Enlightenment and Experience

In museum studies, the relation between enlightenment and experience has often been seen as an antagonistic discourse. In a pell- mell, debates over museums as temples of knowledge and public memory institutions versus Disneyfication, commercialization and adaptation to the experience economy might indicate this dichotomous relation. Especially, under the influence of the hype emanating from the latter concept, museum practices have been conceived of as a tension between a historical commitment to the values of “enlightenment” and more contemporary demands for producing entertaining “experiences” (Skot- Hansen 2008). This special theme of Nordic Museology has had its outset in discussions connected with the large Danish research and development project, Our museum (2016–
Lt, 2020). In this projecIt a central objective is to examine the antagonistic discourse in question here: how well-documented is this antithetical relationship between enlightenment and experience when discourses are critically examined? Or, rather, how many discourses contradict and even falsify this antagonism?