Those who have been to the Metropolitan Museum in New York know that it is overwhelming. That you lose yourself in its magnitude. That – especially coming from Berlin where most museums have been reinvented over the last couple of decades – it would seem that it may need a fresh makeover here and there. And that it would be nice if it was a little less crowded.
Be it as it may, the collections are breathtaking. Our first destination is the ‘Arms and Armor’ section, as we expect this to be a particular highlight for our five-year-old son. It turns out, however, that our children just rush through the collection as if they were consuming fast food. Knights in armor here, swords there, samurais here, Persian daggers there. After not even half an hour, we have done the entire tour of the collection.
My wife and I are both concerned. It seems as if the children had inhaled the exhibits like some sort of fast food without any appreciation for the individual artefact.
On the spur of the moment, my wife runs to the museum shop, buys two sketchbooks and pencils. She hands them to the children and invites them to return to the exhibition rooms to draw those exhibits which they preferred. And this triggers a new museum experience for the children and for us, not only because each child starts to focus on individual pieces but because the drawings reveal the children’s perception of the objects in front of them. Quite a moment to remember. In the left column below, you will see a selection of individual objects, and in the right column what our son made of them.
And here while watching the little guy copying arms and armor, the image of the knight I mentioned in one of my earlier posts pops up in my head and how I was thinking that it stands for dispute resolution in so many ways: integrity, devotion, comradery, chivalry. But that it also comes with lethal weapons. And that modern alternative dispute resolution thrives to overcome violence.
