Marzia Varutti Affective Encounters in Museums Introduction I had decided to visit the African Gallery at the British Museum. As I entered the main lobby I headed towards the back, zig-zagging between tourists, eager to get through the crowds quickly. But in crossing the lobby I instinctively turned my gaze to my right where I was met with something that attracted my attention. Without rationalizing or questioning, I diverted my steps towards it. The exhibition room was small and intimate, dimly lit and relatively quiet. As I entered I could feel I was leaving behind me the noisy flow of tourists following their hurried trajectories straight into the heart of the museum; this smaller exhibition room on the side of the main entrance went unnoticed to many. There, alone, in a glass box at the centre of the room, sat the life-size bronze sculpture of a cat. The four sides of the room around it were covered with text and images, a visual noise against which the dark, slender bronze figure cut a stark contrast. The sculpture conveyed poise and an effortless, relaxed alertness. Through hollow eyes, it seemed to gaze hieratically into timelessness, as if knowing it was destined to travel across thousands of years. Its profiles were neat, essential; it called for respect, intimated dignity, imposed its alterity. This was no pet. A God rather – a Divine Cat revered in Ancient Egypt. It seemed to expect and to beckon admiration, and indeed, it felt appropriate to admire it. As much as the sculpture claimed my attention, it was straining to receive and hold such an intensity of purity of lines and elegance: its beauty was almost painful to look at. Too much to take in, at one single moment. I took respite in the surrounding texts. Reading some, browsing others, yet feeling slightly uncomfortable: turning my back to the sculpture in order to read the texts seemed not right. I felt compelled to return to it, forgo explanations, and just let myself become absorbed into its intense beauty. I knew nothing about the sculpture, but I didn’t need to, in order to fall under its spell. I eventually took the time to read the texts around it, and became even more enthralled by this object, but in the process, it had indeed become an object. The texts did bring me to look back at it, now projecting on it my newly acquired knowledge, almost searching for traces of what I had read on the bronze surface accretions and patina. Now I was observing, more than feeling. I have since forgotten most of the content of those texts. What I remember, from that visit on a day eleven years ago, is the cat, and how I felt in its presence. 1 This chapter explores the concept of affect in the specific context of museums. I am interested in pondering some of the multiple affective dimensions of museums, and in asking why it might be appropriate for museums to endeavor to integrate such affective dimensions in their work and mission. Could this open up for new kinds of engagements with visitors? Might ‘taking affect seriously’ recast what is considered ‘knowledge’ in museums? More broadly, might a focus on affect lead to fresh perspectives on human and non-human relations? I develop my arguments in several strands. Firstly, I reflect on the methodological implications of working on and with affect. Secondly, I consider what affect entails in a museum, and ponder how it relates to meaning-making and agency. I discuss some affective dimensions of museums, such as architecture, objects in the storage and on display, the exhibition environment and affective words. I then develop arguments in support of an active engagement with affect in museums, and consider the implications and potential of such a renewed attention for affect – in museums and beyond. Lastly, I reflect on how allowing ourselves to be affected deeply denotes our humanity, and at the same time how it opens up for more equanimity and empathy in our relations with the non-human world, thus carrying significant ethical connotations. Affect as method As a concept, affect denotes an altered state of being, generated by a complex set of interacting factors (sensations, things, landscapes, atmospheres, memories, emotions etc.). Anthropologist Kathleen Stewart (2007, 1-2) talks of ‘ordinary affects’ as “the varied, surging capacities to affect and to be affected that give everyday life the quality of a continual motion of relations, scenes, contingencies and emergences.” She notes (2007, 3) that “[ affects] work not through “meanings” per se but in the way that they pick up density and texture as they move through bodies, dreams, dramas and social worldings of all kinds”. Emotions, sensory experiences, memories, are then the stuff affect is made of, the channels through which affect makes itself manifest to the perceiver – and therefore they are the focus of a study of affect. It follows that the reflections presented in this chapter are largely based on autoethnography (e.g. Butz and 1 Divine Cat: Speaking to the Gods in Ancient Egypt , exhibition at the British Museum, November 2007 – January 2008. Details: http://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/news_and_press/press_releases/2007/divine_cat.aspx 1