SELFIE FACTORIES
Examining the rise in popularity of interactive art museums over traditional art museums BY AYAH ALI-AHMAD
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A staff member at the Museum of Ice Cream takes a photo of visitors.
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EL ESTOQUE | FEBRUARY 2020
verstuffed, small rooms lead to the next, with young attendees posing toward cameras, large, colorful sculptures flowing throughout and samples of ice cream flavors provided around every corner. For $38, junior Sophia Chen and her friends toured the Museum of Ice Cream in San Francisco, which serves both ice cream and the perfect backdrops for social media posts. “Take your time, get your photos,” are the first words attendees hear from the staff when entering the Museum of Ice Cream. Installations like this are spaces for people to take photos, and Chen credits this trend to the “Instagram era.” The aesthetics of the bright pink and white colors seen throughout the ice cream installation, along with the different themes inhabiting each exhibit, provide visitors with numerous photo opportunities. Since its opening in 2017, the building has captured the attention of almost 2,000 people every day. Chen went to the museum over the summer to celebrate her birthday. It was one of the many things they did that day, but Chen says she wasn’t quite satisfied. The bright lights and the “immediate sense of excitement” that greeted her at first didn’t last throughout the tour, and Chen attributes most of the fun she had to friends who accompanied her rather than the museum itself. “You get the immediate sense of excitement, then you walk in and people hand you ice cream, and it’s definitely a welcoming, happy experience,” Chen said. “As a person who doesn’t care that much about [taking] photos, personally, I didn’t think it was worth [the $38], but it was to celebrate our birthday and it was with a group of my friends, and I did have fun.” Chen says with her background in art history and being an artist herself, the interactive style of the museum did not meet her standards of an art gallery she would find interesting, and it is something she doesn’t consider to be art. “Is the Museum of Ice Cream even art?” Chen said. “Reading into the work
