The Missouri Historical Society embraces the public as curators with “Vision Lab”

The Missouri Historical Society is inviting visitors to step into the role of curator with their new exhibition, Vision Lab. The interactive experience opened April 2 and provides the public with the opportunity to reflect on their previous museum experiences, examine upcoming exhibition details, and vote to share their opinions. 

“The Missouri Historical Society really places a strong emphasis on listening to visitor evaluation and advancing the mission through evaluation,” says Victoria Eudy, manager of institutional evaluation at the Missouri Historical Society and content lead for the new exhibition. “They recognize that evaluation is critical to what we’re doing and listening to the visitor and visitor feedback is essential to our institution.”

By placing the public first, Eudy believes that this space operates as a breakthrough experience for other museums and exhibitions to possibly incorporate in the future. “This is industry-leading, so we’re really excited about it,” Eudy says. “What makes it industry-leading is that it’s an entire space dedicated to visitor feedback. There’s a lot of entry points for people to engage with.”

These various entry points include interactive games, voting stations, and feedback prompts located throughout Vision Lab. The first two large-scale exhibitions that the public is being invited to provide feedback on are the new World’s Fair Gallery, which will open in 2023, and Gallery STL, a historical look at St. Louis’ progression as a city, which will open in 2025. 

“It’s fun to step into the role as curator and tell us what you want to see,” Eudy says. “But also, it’s something that helps shape everybody’s St. Louis experience. That’s one of the things we started to do, showing you a St. Louis that you’ve never seen before. We really encourage visitors to come out and really make this space their own by engaging with us and telling us what you want to see.”