Multi-generations also have an opportunity to explore and learn together in the unique environments of cultural institutions. Self-defining experiences are found in these environments where autobiographical memories are created, validated, and cultivated. They can include museums, libraries, gardens, or zoos. The importance of the exchange between visitors exploring and learning together involves the sparking of one’s autobiographical memory. An object that reminds the visitor of a specific period in his life might trigger this spark. It may include a favorite childhood toy, or the discovery of an item that ties him to the past generations of his family, such as a tool that his grandmother used to make jelly. Joseph Cornell frequented the New York Public Library in search of his favorite Victorian images, which he photocopied and included in his artwork. A museum visitor might also identify with something that symbolized a larger cultural event, like objects from the Civil War or memorabilia marking JFK’s assassination. The cultural institution allows the viewer to see familiar objects in the context of a

greater story and fit their story into the myth that makes up the history of our world. The objects and ideas collected in cultural institutions allow memories and even attitudes to survive, live and grow across generations and to continue to establish an identity of those that it becomes part of. “For an adult,” Csikszentmihalyi states, “objects serve the purpose of maintaining the continuity of the self as it expands through time.”

Objects placed in cultural institutions provide an opportunity for the visitor to gain a new understanding of self and share the importance with their fellow visitor. Niki de Saint Phalle, Tinguley’s partner and collaborator, emphasized the importance of visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her mother one Sunday a month. The opportunity for a child to visit a museum, botanical garden or zoo with their parents, grandparents or mentors provides the experience of transferring information between one another. David Carr describes what these early experiences should include:

1. It might be useful to describe the museum user’s tasks not as opportunities for learning or education, but as moments or situation for new thoughts. All learners should be helped to know the constructive play of such moments. For children, they are also opportunities to be caring with adults and other children outside the home, engaged in a traveling conversation, moving through the setting as a single unit: a moving conversation with legs, heads, hands, and eyes. The best work of the individual child in the museum is to use these moments of combination and shared energy for thinking well, asking questions, seeking information, and taking pleasure in the senses invited by new images of possibility. It is less important to learn in these moments than it is to feel capable and engaged and to take pleasure as well in not being alone.
   

These important and affirmative moments shared with an adult begin to spark interests and curiosities within a child, developing the foundation of a creative individual. In the vast collections of cultural institutions, children are able to literally wander through displays of endless topics and draw correlations with the guidance of an adult. These innovative

combinations of ideas could eventually unfold into a new creation, just as they did for Calder. He applied his engineering education to his love for color and expressed his ideas with wire, his favorite childhood medium, leading to the creation of his mobiles. As Carr states:

1. What children see, feel, and understand in museums contributes to a continuity expanding cognitive record that becomes richer and more complex over the lifespan. Not only do strong images and engaging information become permanent parts of our repertoires of memory, these images and information helps us to reinterpret what we have seen and known in the past.
   

2. 
   

3. Museums move us forward.
   

The following story shared by Sharon Shaffer, Executive Director of the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center, illustrates how a young museum attendant incorporated the vivid image of a tiny detail from the memory of her visit into all of her work.

1. Sara remembered that Whistler had painted a small blue butterfly on one of the shutters in the room, and in addition to all the beautiful peacocks and feathers that he painted, he signed his name with a small blue butterfly on a golden moon. Even though there were live peacocks running around in the courtyard outside the Freer, what Sara always remembered was that little butterfly. Sara’s now 13 and loves science and art. She writes and paints, and signs everything with either a little butterfly or a ladybug. That was something that she took away from her first experience in the museum. What’s amazing is that when Sara had that experience, she was two and a half years old. I think as parents and educators we sometimes underestimate the power of an experience, but every day this child remembers her experience in the Freer Gallery as she signs a new paper or a piece of artwork.
   

A child’s memory of a very fine detail of the opulent peacock-covered room Whistler created presents how a tiny image of a butterfly can captivate the imagination with a young child and resonate in such a way that it has made an impact on every creation she has made since seeing it for the first time. The small logo has become part of who she is just as it had for Whistler. They share something in common that she modeled after his behavior.

The Art Institute of Chicago understands the importance of making artists actual people to children beginning at a very young age. The purpose of their guide, “Learning Art Together,” and outreach art programs are to encourage parents to feel comfortable with bringing their children to the museum despite any intimidation they may feel in regards to the complexity of the artists and their artwork. The guide describes the level of familiarity a child requires to begin to feel affection for the artists.

1. (M)ake artists real to kids. They don’t need to know everything about them, but they should realize that these are real people creating art out of things that happen to them, their own histories, and feelings. Ideally, they’ll begin to feel like the artists are their friends. Alexander Calder was known by his friends as Sandy, and so all the children I took the museum to see his work would say, “Well, my friend Sandy, we’re going to see his artwork.”
   

When children are able to identify with the artwork and artist in this way, they are likely to take the ideas home with them and incorporate it into their play. The guidebook also suggests making postcards of favorite art pieces available for the children to use during play time. With the goal of creating lifelong visitors to the museum, the Art Institute offers gallery walks that focus on the permanent collection to encourage frequent

visitation by the family and create familiarity and affection for the art. The more familiar and accessible art is to their memories, the more likely they will return to it and use it as a resource later on in life.

Carr expresses the expansiveness children find in cultural institutions:

1. For many children, museums can provide experiences of intensity, hope, and intellect. They are places of engaging work in observation and documentation. They involve purposeful, empirical, imaginative, grounded, and ordinary and extraordinary thinking. They present circumstances of intrigue and curiosity. They entail public and private questionings, comparable to serious adult inquiry. They may involve dialogue with companions and further experiences of language. They may lead to writing and reading, to seeking documents and additional information. They may lead to further pursuits beyond the museum and its constraints, among other objects and texts, and other lives.
   

For children, these environs are places where they are presented with a diverse array of ideas and exposed to potential interests that could grow into affinities. This process of developing affinities builds self-confidence through success in a given topic area. Smith said, “students should be empowered to explore the power and possibilities of thought themselves, by seeing others explore, examine, question, and argue, and by being permitted to behave similarly.” Cultural institutions model this behavior by providing questions, activities, and resources as starting points. Mel Levine describes the importance of affinities that are developed as Smith described. Levine said, “(A)ffinities are fed so that they can develop into passions and those passions also become zones of expertise. Depth of knowledge is a bountiful dividend for a developing mind.” The communal learning environment of museums springboards visitors into reaching out to learn more about sparked interests and affinities.