Analysing Museum Display

by Christopher Whitehead
Analysing Museum Display
Author: Christopher Whitehead
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2024-09-30
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1351001620
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Analysing Museum Display is the first comprehensive book to bring together approaches to studying museum displays. Drawing on global examples, it reviews different theoretical frameworks and methods, charting major contributions to the field and exploring their potentials and limitations. How and why should we study museum display, and what is its nature as a complex form of representation? The book argues that display is at once material, experiential, and political in producing knowledge and that analysis requires rigorous conceptualisation and careful methodologies. It provides a critical guide to existing concepts and methods, exploring how museum display can be understood using semiotic, narrative, cartographic, and spatial analyses, assemblage theory, new materialist and multisensory approaches, and theories of affect, emotion, and historical positioning. Alongside this, Whitehead presents key orientations for research practice relating to objectivity and subjectivity, historical and contextual awareness, and mixing methods. Analysing Museum Display will be essential reading for scholars and students of museology at all levels. The book will also appeal to museum curators and professionals who are involved in the production of displays and wish to develop a more theorised and reflective perspective on their own practice.

Exhibitions as Research

by Peter Bjerregaard
Exhibitions as Research
Author: Peter Bjerregaard
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 427
Release: 2019-08-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1317239032
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Exhibitions as Research contends that museums would be more attractive to both researchers and audiences if we consider exhibitions as knowledge-in-the-making rather than platforms for disseminating already-established insights. Analysing the theoretical underpinnings and practical challenges of such an approach, the book questions whether it is possible to exhibit knowledge that is still in the making, whilst also considering which concepts of "knowledge" apply to such a format. The book also considers what the role of audience might be if research is extended into the exhibition itself. Providing concrete case studies of projects where museum professionals have approached exhibition making as a knowledge-generating process, the book considers tools of application and the challenges that might emerge from pursuing such an approach. Theoretically, the volume analyses the emergence of exhibitions as research as part of recent developments within materiality theories, object-oriented ontology and participatory approaches to exhibition-making. Exhibitions as Research will be of interest to academics and students engaged in the study of museology, material culture, anthropology and archaeology. It will also appeal to museum professionals with an interest in current trends in exhibition-making.

Interpreting Art in Museums and Galleries

by Christopher Whitehead
Interpreting Art in Museums and Galleries
Author: Christopher Whitehead
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2011-12-02
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1136506136
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In this pioneering book, Christopher Whitehead provides an overview and critique of art interpretation practices in museums and galleries. Covering the philosophy and sociology of art, traditions in art history and art display, the psychology of the aesthetic experience and ideas about learning and communication, Whitehead advances major theoretical frameworks for understanding interpretation from curators’ and visitors’ perspectives. Although not a manual, the book is deeply practical. It presents extensively researched European and North American case studies involving interviews with professionals engaged in significant cutting-edge interpretation projects. Finally, it sets out the ethical and political responsibilities of institutions and professionals engaged in art interpretation. Exploring the theoretical and practical dimensions of art interpretation in accessible language, this book covers: The construction of art by museums and galleries, in the form of collections, displays, exhibition and discourse; The historical and political dimensions of art interpretation; The functioning of narrative, categories and chronologies in art displays; Practices, discourses and problems surrounding the interpretation of historical and contemporary art; Visitor experiences and questions of authorship and accessibility; The role of exhibition texts, new interpretive technologies and live interpretation in art museum and gallery contexts. Thoroughly researched with immediately practical applications, Interpreting Art in Museums and Galleries will inform the practices of art curators and those studying the subject.

Museums, Migration and Identity in Europe

by Christopher Whitehead
Museums, Migration and Identity in Europe
Author: Christopher Whitehead
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2016-03-09
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1317092686
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The imperatives surrounding museum representations of place have shifted from the late eighteenth century to today. The political significance of place itself has changed and continues to change at all scales, from local, civic, regional to national and supranational. At the same time, changes in population flows, migration patterns and demographic movement now underscore both cultural and political practice, be it in the accommodation of ’diversity’ in cultural and social policy, scholarly explorations of hybridity or in state immigration controls. This book investigates the historical and contemporary relationships between museums, places and identities. It brings together contributions from international scholars, academics, practitioners from museums and public institutions, policymakers, and representatives of associations and migrant communities to explore all these issues.

Design History and Culture

by Javier Gimeno-Martínez
Design History and Culture
Author: Javier Gimeno-Martínez
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2024-07-26
Genre: Design
ISBN: 1040044573
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This student-friendly text provides a comprehensive exploration of the methods and approaches employed within design scholarship, drawing upon influences from history, art history, anthropology and interdisciplinary studies such as science and technology studies and material culture studies. Drawing connections between these methods and the evolving landscape of design, the book expands design culture beyond traditional outcomes to encompass areas like design for social innovation, digital design, critical design, design anthropology and craftivism. Additionally, the book introduces novel theoretical frameworks to facilitate discussions on contemporary designers’ work, including new materialism, object-oriented ontology and decolonization. This comprehensive overview of methods and approaches will enable students to select the most appropriate methodological tools for their own research. It is an ideal guide for both undergraduate and postgraduate students in design, design culture, design history, design studies and visual culture.

The Performance of Viking Identity in Museums

by Guðrún D. Whitehead
The Performance of Viking Identity in Museums
Author: Guðrún D. Whitehead
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2024-08-12
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1351036009
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The Performance of Viking Identity in Museums explores the representations and uses of Vikings in museums across Iceland, British Isles and Norway. Drawing on theories from history, philosophy, museology, and sociology, the book analyses how the Viking myth is used by visitors to make sense of present-day society, culture, and politics and the role of museums in this meaning-making process. Demonstrating that the Viking myth is present in collective memory and plays an important role in the construction and modification of collective, national, and personal identities, the book analyses this process through the framework of museums and their visitors. Identifying museums as places where heritage, identity and social norms are affirmed and reflected upon, Whitehead demonstrates that all countries use their Viking heritage to define their identity on a local and international level - through tourist attractions such as museums and other Viking-related monuments and merchandise. Providing readers with an insight into Vikings and their social relevance today, The Performance of Viking Identity in Museums will be of great interest to academics and researchers across the social and human sciences. It should also be essential reading for museum professionals working in museums around the world.

The Thing about Museums

by Sandra Dudley
The Thing about Museums
Author: Sandra Dudley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2011-08-26
Genre: Art
ISBN: 113663424X
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The Things about Museums constitutes a unique, highly diverse collection of essays discussing how objects are constructed in museums, the ways in which visitors may directly experience those objects, how objects are utilised within particular representational strategies and forms, and the challenges and opportunities presented by using objects to communicate difficult and contested matters.

Histories of Exhibition Design in the Museum

by Kate Guy
Histories of Exhibition Design in the Museum
Author: Kate Guy
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2023-11-30
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1000996743
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Histories of Exhibition Design in the Museum: Makers, Process, and Practice offers a new model for understanding exhibition design in museums as a human and material process. It presents diverse case studies from around the world, from the nineteenth century to the recent past. It moves beyond the power of the finished exhibition over both objects and visitors to highlight historic exhibition making as an ongoing task of adaptation, experimentation, and interaction that involves intellectual, creative, and technical choices. Attentive to hierarchies of ethnicity, race, class, gender, sexuality, and ableism that have informed exhibition design and its histories, the volume highlights the labour involved in making museum exhibitions. It presents design as filled with personal and professional demands on the body, senses, and emotions. Contributions from historians, anthropologists, and exhibition makers focus on histories of identity, collaboration, and hierarchy ‘behind the scenes’ of the museum. They argue for an emphasis on the everyday objects of museum design and the importance of a diverse range of actors within and beyond the museum, from carpenters and label writers to volunteers and local communities. Histories of Exhibition Design in the Museum offers scholars, students, and professionals working across the museum and design sectors insight into how past methods still influence museums today. Through a postcolonial and decolonial lens, it reveals the lineage of current processes and supports a more informed contemporary practice.