Våga visa, våga fråga - en studie i hur museer kan hantera utmanande ämnen

Sammanfattning: During the last twenty years there's been a growing amount of exhibitions that in different ways challenge peoples feelings and ideas. It can be exhibitions that show other interpretations of a phenomenon than the once we're used to see or subjects that can be found sensitive or provoking to some people. I've found an explanation to why museums show this type of exhibitions in the new role of the museum; it has gone from being a temple to being a forum. The museum is no longer set out to show the truth, it's now trying to be a place where different points of view can meet. With this master's thesis I set out to explore how museums think about, and how they work when they challenge their audience, but also how they work with people outside the museum before and during an exhibition. To do this I've conducted a case study where I've explored how different museums have worked with the exhibition Jerusalem by Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin. I've found that to be able to show challenging exhibitions museums need to communicate, both internal and external, and also they need to know why they show the things they do. Further more I've found that working with referential groups can be both including as well as excluding. It can give you a more complex view of something but also when you let a small group of people answer for a large group of people to questions who's answers are highly individual, the answers you get might not be representative. The reasoning that follows gives birth to a discussion where you on the one hand have the ideal that no one should be offended of what you show and on the other you have freedom of expression.