I've always enjoyed seeing engaged children in the ROM and the AGO. I've felt envious of them, wished I had lived in a big city (and maybe had a different kind of family) when growing up so that I had greater access and exposure to wider cultural experiences. I'm old now and my mind is a little less pliant - it's more important, I think, that these places speak in a meaningful way to the children than to me. I can cope with a little liveliness from them as long as the collections aren't at risk. I've, over the years, been more horrified at the way some adults, maybe most of all younger adults taking pictures with cellphones, behave in the galleries. There's that giant bell just inside the entrance to Asian galleries on the first floor that has a prominent Please Do Not Touch sign on it. No one pays attention. There are those big sculptures just outside there in the hallway also with signs asking people not to touch. How many people climb on that kneeling camel for a quick selfie? Stand by the Confucius heads on the third floor at a busy time and see how long it takes someone to yuk it up for his friends by putting his hand on the blue boob of that contemporary Indian statue with the backward hands. At the AGO I've often cringed to watch some oblivious adult point their fingers (sometimes holding a pen or glasses) inches from a painting.
I've been away from Toronto for a few years but back three-five years ago when I had memberships at both the ROM and the AGO, I thought I saw patterns in the way security at each building behaves. This is just speculation, but I always took it as a sign of the relative health of their employee relations and back room bureaucracies. At the AGO you could look around and see a guard, and certain guards were quite proactive at interacting with patrons. They seemed proud of their institution. At the ROM I'd often see a couple of them together out in the hallways and Libeskind nooks and angularities, away from the galleries. There was an avoidant vibe to it.
