Museum Practice and Mediation: An Afterword

Shelton, Anthony

doi:10.1002/9781118829059.wbihms227

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The Amazonia area of the Ethnological Museum does to some extent, in drawing on the motif of the round house in its exhibition style. The Multiversity Galleries at the Museum of Anthropology of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, are a notable example elsewhere (Krämer 2015;and Shelton 2015). Macdonald 2020, Penny 2021, and Schorch et al 2020 make the case for tapping the potential of ethnological museums to open up alternative epistemologies and ontologies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

National Showing Off and Telling Off

Macdonald

2023

Museum Worlds

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This article considers the implications of using ethnological collections in the making of a national museum. It focuses on the case of the recently opened Ethnological Museum within the Humboldt Forum, Berlin, Germany, about which there has been much public debate and criticism, including about Germany's own colonialism. Through an analysis of the modes of display used by the Ethnological Museum, the article identifies how these variously engage in unreflexive “showing off” while others involve what is here called “telling off”— criticism directed at the German national self. The implications of the forms that these take, as well as their coexistence, are discussed, as is the case for replacing an ethnological approach with an anthropological one.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

National Showing Off and Telling Off

Macdonald

2023

Museum Worlds

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“…Gardner 2015), where recent contributions have provided detailed accounts of what happens in museums, situating practice in its institutional, political, economic and historical contexts. However, perhaps because of the perceived need to offer descriptive accounts informed by personal experience, there remains scope to consider how the 'detailed empirical picture of the contemporary museum' desired by several scholars (McCarthy 2015;Shelton 2015) can incorporate critical analysis. This is necessary, as this paper will demonstrate, because museum practice is shaped by specific texts, bodies and infrastructures unaccounted for by umbrella terms such as 'power relations' or 'context'.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Relations to Documents and Documentary Infrastructures: The Case of Museum Management After Austerity

Rex

2018

Mus. Soc.

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Interaction with documents and documentary infrastructure is part of the day to day reality of museum work. However, their constitutive and mediatory role is rarely foregrounded in empirical studies of museums. In part, this is because a defined theoretical and methodological framework for such an investigation has yet to be developed. This article outlines what a conceptualisation of documents as more-than-text informed by actor-network theory offers to studies of museums, particularly the potential of this method for investigating how documentary infrastructures influence daily practice and inform notions of possible action amongst museum staff. The insight that institutional practices operate ‘on the field of possibilities’ is Foucault’s ([1982] 2000: 341). However, as I outline in this article, actor-network theory took up this insight and developed it, drawing out its methodological and analytical consequences. Empirical material exploring the influence of Arts Council England’s Accreditation Scheme on someone new to museum work, drawn from a study of community asset transfer, a process whereby people new to museum work become responsible for the operation and management of museums previously run by local authorities, is used to demonstrate the potential of this approach.

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“…Such categorizations may be in line with a broader social trend, one recognizing that the "public for art is diverse and divided by interests and levels of knowledge, confidence and class, not to mention race, ethnicity, and gender" (McClellan 2003, 2). For museums, this mindset change led to tangible developments in how they interpret art, as well as on their mediation practices and an increased awareness of democratic access (Shelton 2015).…”

Section: Background Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a More Inclusive Museum: Developing Multi-Sensory Approaches to the Visual Arts for Visually Impaired Audiences

Berube¹

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This thesis investigates the contribution of multi-sensoriality to the understanding and appreciation of two-dimensional artworks, such as drawings or paintings, by people with visual impairments. This exploratory study was conducted from a disability studies perspective, in which the researcher's role was that of a facilitator and the participants were experts of their own experience. This participatory action project draws on interdisciplinary research practices in several interrelated fields, including accessibility and disability studies, blindness studies, anthropology of the senses, tactile perception and haptics, and translation studies. Previous research focused primarily on initiatives to translate visual arts into tactile content to make them accessible to people with visual impairments. The present study contributes to multi-sensory initiatives for the low-vision and blind community, drawing on research findings of sensory museology and cognitive psychology to deepen our knowledge about multi-sensory translation.Data collected from three rounds of individual interviews and one co-design session with visually impaired participants was examined using a qualitative methodology. A thematic analysis was developed to inform design decisions and identify barriers to inclusion in art museums. The study also included the co-creation of multisensory translations of Franklin Carmichael's painting In the Nickel Belt (1928) and Outport Icon #2 (2001 by Duncan de Kergommeaux. The broader findings of this study provide evidence to support the notion that touch and hearing can play a valuable role in conveying the nature of art to visually impaired visitors, giving them greater autonomy in their interpretation.This study challenges the long-standing tradition of museums relying on vision as the only acceptable sense through which visitors can access visual arts. While further work may be needed to assess the degree of equivalence between experiencing a painting through sight and accessing it through touch and hearing, this project establishes a foundation for further research and initiatives pertaining to the implementation of antiocularcentric approaches in museums.

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Museum Practice and Mediation: An Afterword

Cited by 5 publications

References 6 publications

National Showing Off and Telling Off

National Showing Off and Telling Off

Exploring Relations to Documents and Documentary Infrastructures: The Case of Museum Management After Austerity

Towards a More Inclusive Museum: Developing Multi-Sensory Approaches to the Visual Arts for Visually Impaired Audiences

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