【精英翻譯】的部落格

Don’t Touch the Exhibits

博物館展品　不是告訴你不准碰了嗎？

精英翻譯社轉自https://www.ivy.com.tw/newsLetter/analysis_cont/2021033109480160251

When you visit a museum, you will typically see some signs that read, “No Touching.” It should be common sense that one is not supposed to touch any of the exhibits. Occasionally, as with the Louvre’s Touch Gallery or the British Museum’s Hands On desks, visitors are granted the opportunity—even encouraged—to directly touch certain art displays. Most times, however, museums do not allow the handling or touching of valuable pieces. If everyone could touch the Mona Lisa, for example, the face, eyes, and smile of the lady would be wiped off the canvas. Fiona Candlin, a professor of museology at Birkbeck College in London, has long contemplated why people want to engage directly with objects of art.

當你參觀博物館時，通常會看到一些標誌上寫：「請勿觸摸」。不應該觸碰任何展品應是常識。有時候，遊客被給予機會 ―― 甚至被鼓勵 ―― 直接觸摸某些藝術展品，如同羅浮宮的觸摸藝廊或大英博物館的動手櫃檯。不過大部分時間，博物館是不允許遊客去拿或觸摸珍貴的作品。舉例來說，如果每個人都能觸碰《蒙娜麗莎》，那位女士的臉龐、眼睛和微笑都將從畫布上被抹去。費歐娜．坎德林（倫敦大學伯貝克學院的博物館學教授）長期以來一直在思考，人們為什麼會想要直接接觸藝術品。

Candlin speculated that there must be a rational explanation for why people have the impulse to touch what they look at. For most people, a museum visit is considered a purely visual experience, but that may be because we are told not to touch the items on display. In fact, one museum attendant hired to keep an eye out for visitors who cannot resist the urge to touch art pieces without permission said, “You stop a hundred people touching and there are two hundred more. It’s like trying to turn back the sea.” Candlin wrote the book Art, Museums, and Touch (2010) to better explain this phenomenon. Candlin concluded in the book that people instinctively touch new things because touch is an integral part of humans’ learning experience. Perhaps this is why most people learn better through “hands-on” experiences.

坎德林推測，對於人們為何會有想要觸摸他們所見物品的衝動，一定有個合理的解釋。對大多數人來說，參觀博物館被認為是純粹的視覺體驗，但這可能是因為我們被告知不要觸摸展出的物品。事實上，有一位博物館服務員就被僱來留意那些無法忍住衝動、未經允許就去觸碰藝術品的遊客，他說道：「你阻止一百人觸碰展品後還有兩百人在碰。這就像要大海倒退一樣。」坎德林寫了一本名為《藝術，博物館與觸摸》（2010）的書來加以解釋這個現象。坎德林在書中總結說，人們出於本能地觸碰新的東西，是因為觸覺是人類學習經驗中不可或缺的一部分。也許這就是大部分的人透過「實作」經驗能學得更好的原因。