A new exhibition is challenging the traditional "look but don't touch" approach that dominates most art galleries and museums, arguing that this policy fundamentally misunderstands how humans learn and denies visitors crucial educational opportunities. The exhibition "The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of Her Parts" at the National Gallery of Australia demonstrates that visitors spend significantly longer with touchable elements compared to visual-only displays, and engage with art in fundamentally different ways.
Research conducted at the exhibition reveals that visitors engaging tactilely ask different types of questions, moving from "what is this?" to "how was this made?" and "what if I tried?" This shift represents a more active and constructive approach to learning that goes beyond passive visual consumption. The exhibition creator argues that museums have become "temples to visual consumption, where knowledge is received through eyes rather than constructed through bodies," which contradicts natural human learning processes.
The exhibition includes bronze reliefs that visitors can touch while viewing corresponding paintings, revealing artistic knowledge that visual observation alone cannot provide. In one observed instance, a child placed her hands on reliefs while looking at paintings and discovered that "this looks like the background, but it feels raised." The bronze sculptures translate semi-abstract paintings into three-dimensional form, but what appears to recede in the painting might actually protrude in the bronze relief, forcing visitors to reconcile conflicting sensory information.
This type of engagement represents spatial reasoning in action, where understanding emerges not from a single sense but from comparing and reconciling information from multiple sources. The child had to work harder to understand what was actually happening by comparing what her eyes told her with what her hands discovered, demonstrating active rather than passive learning.
The exhibition's centerpiece is a large playable sculpture called "Ludic Folly," which transforms semi-abstract figurative forms into an interactive adventure where visitors can climb, rest, and navigate space. Observers note that children and adults repeatedly have "aha moments" as their physical position fundamentally changes their understanding of sculptural forms. Research shows children naturally learn by building foam compositions on this interactive sculpture, stacking geometric shapes while balancing on curved surfaces.
Children using the interactive sculpture discover that triangular forms won't balance the same way rectangular ones do, and that weight distribution changes everything. Their whole body becomes part of the learning process as they negotiate what works through physical experimentation. When children build these compositions together, they don't just absorb information but actively test different approaches, with their hands and bodies providing immediate feedback about balance and stability.
When foam structures collapse in Ludic Folly, children don't view this as failure but as valuable information. One child, after her tower collapsed, told researchers "Oh, it needs more support here," and immediately began rebuilding with a wider base. This demonstrates how physical interaction teaches resilience and problem-solving skills that purely visual learning cannot provide.
The research explores a concerning pattern where students from highly supervised, risk-averse childhoods often struggle with creative risk-taking in young adulthood. Physical risks in early childhood build resilience that enables later intellectual and creative risks. Museums maintaining "look but don't touch" policies aren't just being conservative but are reinforcing educational approaches that produce passive, risk-averse learners precisely when society increasingly needs creative problem-solvers.
When children climb, balance, and build structures that might fall in Ludic Folly, they're developing both physical confidence and intellectual courage. This mirrors real-world learning, where people never rely solely on vision. When cooking, people listen to sizzling, feel heat, smell when something's ready, and taste as they go. When fixing something, hands provide as much information as eyes do.
Cultural institutions can implement embodied learning approaches without major infrastructure changes, according to the research. Recommendations include allowing visitors to explore exhibitions with their hands by providing various textures, weights, and temperatures to manipulate while studying artworks. Museums should design exhibitions requiring physical navigation and multiple viewpoints rather than static observation, and create spaces where visitors can build, arrange, and problem-solve together using loose parts or modular elements.
Institutions should also allow visitors to handle tools, materials, or work-in-progress pieces that reveal artistic processes typically hidden behind finished works. The bronze reliefs and playable sculpture contain embodied knowledge that exists only through physical creation and is accessible only through physical engagement. This isn't secondary information but primary artistic knowledge completely inaccessible through visual observation alone.
Just as artists build knowledge in their bodies through practice, children acquire tacit knowledge through deeply immersive physical processes. Over time, an artist's body becomes a repository of knowledge, with each movement and gesture informed by years of practice, allowing work with precision and artistry often described as "second nature." For children, this process happens through play and exploration.
To support this approach, a comprehensive learning resource was developed to accompany the exhibition, featuring essays, activities, and inquiry questions that help educators and families understand how children learn through embodied knowledge. Museums embracing all senses aren't just being more inclusive but are being more effective educators, creating spaces where learning becomes collaborative rather than passive.
The exhibition argues that it's time for cultural institutions to recognize what children have always known: real learning engages the whole person, not just the eyes. "The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of Her Parts" runs at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra until September 21, offering visitors the opportunity to experience this multi-sensory approach to art and learning firsthand.
