This book offers a diverse, rigorous, and experimental analysis of what is commonly known as education, mediation, or interpretation within museum institutions. It takes the visitor not as a passive receiver of predefined content, but as a member of a constituent body, one who facilitates, provokes, and inspires. The publication situates these practices within the socio-political context and the physical and organisational structure, and attempts to understand this change in an integral, interdisciplinary manner. It addresses such issues as ownership and power dynamics, collective pedagogy, co-curation, crowdsourcing, digital cultivation, activating archives, and more.
The first book to take a "visitor's eye view" of the museum visit, updated to incorporate advances in research, theory, and practice in the museum field over the last twenty years.
Museums of the Commons examines L’Internationale, an ongoing confederation between six museums and contemporary art institutions in Europe. Drawing on extensive interviews with the directors, curators, public programs officers in all the museums, as well as artists, critics and members associated with them, the book provides a transversal account that connects the ideas across the various institutions and situates this in the wider visual and social context. Chronicling the challenges faced by the museums, Papastergiadis goes on to situate their responses within the wider political and cultural context that is shaping the future of all contemporary art museums. Five key domains of research are explored within the book: the genealogy of the museum; the need for alternative models of trans-institutional governance; examples of innovation in the spaces of aesthetic production; experimentation in the forms of partnership and engagement with constituents; and finally, examination of the impact of a collaborative and collective regime of artistic practices. Museums of the Commons provides a multi-perspectival account of a trans-institutional and transnational collaboration, which will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students working in the fields of Museum Studies, Cultural Studies, Art History, Media and Communication.
Impelluso analyzes the constituent elements of gardens, both real and imagined, and uncovers their often-hidden symbolic meanings. Paintings and the nearly 400 works presented here provide a continuous visual record of the myriad forms of gardens.
The days when museums were dusty, stuffy institutions displaying their wealth and wisdom to a reverential public are over. Museums today are a cultural battleground. Who should decide what is put on display and how it is presented? Who gets to set the narrative? In this passionately argued book, Jon Sleigh maintains that museums must be for all people and inclusion must be at the heart of everything they do. But what does good inclusion look like in practice? Cleverly structured like a museum tour, Sleigh uses seven illustrative museum objects from seven very different museums to explore such wide-ranging issues as trust-building, representation, digital access, conflicting narratives, removal from display and restitution.
During the half century following Malaysian independence in 1957, the country’s National Museum underwent a transformation that involved a shift from serving as a repository for displays of mounted butterflies and stuffed animals and accounts of the colonial experience to an overarching national narrative focused on culture and history. These topics are sensitive and highly disputed in Malaysia, and many of the country’s museums contest the narrative that underlies displays in the National Museum, offering alternative treatments of subjects such as Malaysia's pre-Islamic past, the history and heritage of the Melaka sultanate, memories of the Japanese Occupation, national cultural policy, and cultural differences between the Federation’s constituent states. In Museums, History and Culture in Malaysia, Abu Talib Ahmad examines museum displays throughout the country, and uses textual analysis of museum publications along with interviews with serving and retired museum officers to evaluate changing approaches to exhibits and the tensions that they express, or sometimes create. In addition to the National Museum, he considers museums and memorials in Penang, Kedah, Perak, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Sabah, Kelantan and Terengganu, as well as memorials dedicated to national heroes (such as former Prime Ministers Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, and film and recording artist P. Ramlee). The book offers rich and fascinating insights into differing versions of the country’s character and historical experience, and efforts to reconcile these sometimes disparate accounts.
This unique and important directory incorporates some 3,200 entries. It covers all types and sizes of museums; galleries of paintings, sculpture and photography; and buildings and sites of particular historic interest. It also provides an extensive index listing over 3,200 subjects. The directory covers national collections and major buildings, but also the more unusual, less well-known and local exhibits and sites. The Directory of Museums, Galleries and Buildings of Historic Interest in the United Kingdom is an indispensable reference source for any library, an ideal companion for researcher and enthusiast alike, and an essential purchase for anyone with an interest in the cultural and historical collections of the UK. Features include: * Alphabetically listed entries, which are also indexed by subject for ease of reference * Entries include the name and address of the organization, telephone and fax numbers, email and internet addresses, a point of contact, times of opening and facilities for visitors * A breakdown of the collections held by each organization, giving a broad overview of the main collection as a whole * Details of special collections are provided and include the period covered as well as the number of items held.
Fully updated to include the many changes that have occurred in the last decade, this second edition provides a basic guide to all aspects of museum work and staff experience from museum organization, through collections management and conservation, to audience development and education.
The ABC of the projectariat contributes new thinking on and practical responses to the widespread problem of precarious labour in the field of contemporary art. It works as both a critical analysis and a practical handbook, speaking to and about the vast cohort of artistic freelancers worldwide. In an accessible ABC format, the book strikes a unique balance between the practical and the theoretical: the analysis is backed up by lived experience, the arguments are rooted in concrete examples and there are suggestions for constructive action. Roughly half of the entries expose the structural underpinnings of projects and circulation, isolating traits such as opportunism, neoliberalism, inequality, fear and cynicism at the root of the condition of the projectariat. This discussion is paired with a practical account of different modes of action, such as art strikes, productive withdrawals, political struggles and better social time machines. Just as proletarians had nothing to lose but their chains, the projectarians have nothing to miss but their deadlines.
The Manual of Museum Management presents a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the principles of museum organization, the ways in which people work together to accomplish museum objectives, and the ways in which museums, large and small, can function most effectively. This new edition offers updated information on management practices to satisfy the current needs of museum professionals. All new contemporary case studies provided by practitioners from museums and galleries around the world bring the principles to life with first-hand accounts of challenges and achievements in the operation of museums today.
