Museums of the Living Dead: Performance, Body and Memory at Living History Museums

Abstract

Living display articulates a practice generated at the intersection of the body and exhibition. At root is the recognition that corporeality serves a complex site for the inscription of knowledge and the enactment of cultural processes. Human exhibition raises fundamental questions about the dynamics of display, the porous division between art and life, the conventions of aesthetic engagement, and the problematics and possibilities of presence. As can be seen by the range of articles in this issue (7.2) and the next (8.1) of the Journal of Curatorial Studies, living displays can be located in multiple historical and geographical locations, and can convey a heterogeneity of significations. The quality of the framing may vary greatly, yet living displays share the aspect of emphatic bodily presence. Exhibitions of living people may involve simple pedestals or platforms upon which people are singled out for public viewing, as in the conventions of a circus sideshow. Or they may entail more elaborate installations such as in the construction of villages that simulate particular cultures or historical eras. Whether occupying department store windows, museums, arenas, architectural niches, living room parlours or street corners, these practices of self-exhibition strategically frame the body for compelling meaning and affect. Given the diversity and range of living display practices, the articles in these two special issues resonate with complementary thematics and dynamics. Considering human exhibitions through the lens of curatorial studies elaborates their contextual specificity, theoretical problematics and praxical interrogations.