Sharing the Experience: The Building of a Successful Online/On-site Exhibition

In September of 1999 the Minneapolis Institute of Arts "MIA" opened an eight-week exhibition, "A Masterwork Restored" allowing the public to observe the process of restoring a 300-year-old painting. Unique to this exhibit was not only the visitors on-site access to the physical restoration of the 12' x 7' masterwork, but the opportunity for the public to view the "real time" progress of the project on the web. Conceived as an on-site/online project from the beginning, this was the first project of its type to be composed of collaborators from different departments and organizations within the museum. The resulting web program "Restoration Online" (www.artsmia.org/restoration_online) became one of the most popular projects to date. This paper will describe the process of developing this site, the factors that led to its success and the perspectives of the primary participants.