Can gazing at art boost your empathy? The Minneapolis Institute of Art is embarking on a five-year, $750,000 experiment to find out.
The museum recently nabbed a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to explore whether spending time in an art center might help you imagine the lives of others, feeling what they feel. As the country wrestles with deep geographic, racial and economic divisions, cultural institutions are arguing that they're the perfect places to help people see past those lines. "This is a time period where we could all benefit from greater understanding of other people ... who don't have the same life experiences," said Kaywin Feldman, institute director.
The results of the project could change how museums across the country feel and function. Researchers will test visitors' empathy as they enter, and then on their way out — perhaps by having them respond to expressions or emoji on iPads. They'll measure the effects of an interactive art display versus a static one. They'll experiment with telling more compelling stories about the artworks, tweaking tours and wall labels.
"This is a big bet for a foundation and for a museum," said Elizabeth Merritt, vice president of the Center for the Future of Museums.
That center, part of the American Alliance for Museums, recently predicted that "closing the empathy deficit" would become a major trend in the museum world. Across the country, art centers are experimenting with how they can use "their collections and spaces to help build empathy for people we may not immediately see our connection with," Merritt said, "people we have put in the category of 'other.' "
The MIA's announcement in December that it would create the world's first Center for Empathy and Visual Arts is the most significant of those projects, she said. "I'm hoping it has some enduring effects."
Art museums are especially well-equipped to build empathy, their leaders argue, because their paintings, sculptures and objects connect visitors to how other people are living — and in the case of MIA, how they were living centuries ago and continents away. They're also welcoming. Inexpensive. Immersive.
"They harbor these amazing collections — authentic objects that come with so much character and information and stories," said Elif Gokcigdem, a Washington, D.C.-based Islamic art historian and author of the 2016 book "Fostering Empathy Through Museums." People who encounter them connect to those pieces "not just intellectually but also emotionally, through our minds and hearts.