When Museums Stir Visitors' Senses

French museums are increasingly incorporating sensory experiences—smell, sound, and touch—into their exhibitions to attract broader audiences. The Musée des arts décoratifs in Paris, for example, has introduced ambient scents like horse manure, jasmine, and tobacco in its exhibition "Une Journée au XVIIIe siècle," alongside reconstructed sounds and dimmed lighting, to immerse visitors in an 18th-century atmosphere. Other institutions, such as La Piscine, Musée du Quai Branly, and the Musée des beaux-arts de Lyon, are offering olfactory walks, soundscapes, and multisensory rooms, often originally designed for disabled visitors but now opened to all.

This trend matters because it signals a fundamental shift in museum mediation, moving beyond visual-centric displays toward holistic, embodied experiences grounded in art-historical research like "sensitive studies." By engaging multiple senses, museums aim to make collections more accessible, memorable, and appealing to diverse publics, transforming the traditional role of the museum from a place of passive observation to an active, participatory environment. The success of these experimental initiatives is prompting institutions to rethink how they present art and history, potentially reshaping the future of museum-going.