Curator: The Museum Journal最新文献

This paper investigates the multiple architectural modernities in colonial and postindependence Nigeria. After examining the theoretical basis for multiple modernities and the use of architecture as a vehicle to study modernity, it identifies the colonial, tropical, and postcolonial modern as multiple architectural modernities that existed in colonial and postcolonial Nigeria. The criteria with which the multiple modernities were delineated were historical settings, key participants, distinguishing features, and meanings. This provides a plausible framework to understand modernities in other contexts beyond architecture and opens the possibility of elucidating various modernities and enriching the repository of modern heritage. Devising such broad definitions of modern heritage responds to the call of the Cape Town Document on Modern Heritage for expanded definitions of what constitutes the modern, while enabling the accounting for and stratification of multiple memories and narratives, and the inclusion of many types of modern architecture in conservation conversations.

Considered for a long time by the art world as “primitive,” African art has always been used by Africans as a way of telling the story of their time, of establishing a connection between the visible and the invisible, the here and the hereafter. With colonization and then Independence, the notion and forms of African art have evolved through complex and diverse encounters with modernity to a contemporary art form that reflects the multiple identities of the continent and its diasporas. While the notion of modern art was initially strongly influenced by the West, as evidenced by the first schools of arts established on the continent, it gradually asserted its place and identity as both universal and specific to the continent and its history. This (r)evolution is taking place through two parallel movements, both within and outside Africa, supported by the organization of major international and regional events and the establishment of dedicated art spaces in Africa and globally.

The proposed construction of the controversial Amazon African headquarters at the River Club site in Cape Town encompasses several issues related to modern heritage, colonial practices, sustainable development, the nature-culture divide, and the Anthropocene. Although approved by the City of Cape Town and the provincial government of the Western Cape, with plans for residential and business units, activists, researchers, environmental organizations, workers' unions, and social justice coalitions associated with indigenous Khoe and San groups oppose the development on the grounds of the symbolic and historical importance of the site earmarked for development. The paper aims to explore the significance of the site, analyze the ensuing confrontations and contestations and examine how the site represents spaces of public history, urban spatial construction, and memory. The focus of the paper will be the complex interplay between social, cultural, ethical, and political forces, and their intersection with legal and institutional policy processes at different levels of the state and the local. Ultimately, the paper challenges the claim of the City of Cape Town, the provincial government, and the developers that their version of historical progress is equitable and fair, and raises a broader question about Eurocentric ideas of emancipation, aesthetics and notions of history, heritage and development.

Families of children with autism and other special educational needs may often feel excluded from social activities and/or report on lack of quality family time. Some museums offer individual booking times for families outside their regular public opening hours. Such relaxed openings in museums present opportunities for families to participate in leisure activities that suit their sensory and social needs. However, further exploration of the meaning of such programs to families is needed to enhance the inclusive offer of museums. This research study evaluated the feedback and reflection of creative workshops conducted in The National Museum of Computing during its relaxed openings for families with children with autism and other special educational needs. The findings of the project highlight the benefits of the creative workshops with sensory-friendly aspects, evidenced by the observed engagement of children and families in the activities and interpreted through data from child and parental questionnaires and facilitator reflective log.

Researchers have been documenting how museums used social networks during the COVID-19 global health emergency, however, to date there has been limited assessment of museums' uses of Instagram at that time. This article begins to address that gap with a case study of Philbrook Museum of Art's approach to that platform during the early months of the pandemic. We use a mixed-method inquiry featuring social media analysis and a series of interviews with staff at the museum to analyze the museum's use of Instagram to maintain a presence within followers' lives during this intensely challenging period. To frame our analysis we introduce Gibbs et al.'s (Information, Communication & Society, 2015, 18, 255) concept of “platform vernacular” to digital heritage studies, trialing its use to critically analyze the combination of affordances, practices, and communicative conventions that Instagram convenes for the museum. We find this approach to be both theoretically and practically insightful, with the potential to inform more meaningful, authentic, and transparent interactions between institutions and users within social networks.

The relationship between heritage and waste in the context of the Anthropocene has always been intricate. Historically, heritage and waste were viewed as opposing concepts, but in the Anthropocene, they are inextricably linked and interwoven, resulting in the creation of in situ and ex situ productions that leave deep imprints on their territories. How we deal with these landscapes of waste, or wastescapes, as a form of modern heritage is increasingly a concern for museums, which have a potentially pivotal role in addressing the phenomenon of global waste and educating the public about responsible consumption. The review of diverse exhibitions and artworks explores the cultural and social dimensions of waste, considering it as a form of modern heritage derived from and shaped by human activities that have become a planetary phenomenon in the twenty-first century. It also unveils the connections between economic power, waste management, and environmental impact. In conclusion, current museum practice responds to a reevaluation of what is considered material culture, understanding it as testimonies of the present, with the aim of highlighting the role of museums as platforms for critically examining complex issues related to waste, enabling diverse ways of addressing the environmental and social injustices associated with waste management.

The museum field currently and historically has centered on the needs of White, educated, privileged, and affluent people, and changing that reality requires new ways of conceptualizing, organizing, and assessing our core practices. Practice-based models—including specific stories of how museums and communities work together—are still needed in our field, both as guidance for structuring future projects and as inspiration for what is possible. We share a case study of a 10-year makerspace design process and identify key features for sustaining community–museum relationships over an extended period of work, which we call community-informed design. We describe five key aspects that promote sustainability in terms of community–museum relationships and the creation of high-quality experiences: naming values and assumptions, emergent planning, flexible and distributed staffing, organization-to-organization relationships, and layered data.

We do carry an impression of the places where we grow up or the places we touch in our daily life—somehow it gets mapped in our minds. That is how we create a sensory bonding with the place via our perception; how it smells, how it tastes, or what kind of a phonic place it is. But somehow, with the rapid pace of urbanization and mechanization of age-old occupations, these senses are being lost to the citizens in an urban area which we get to hear from our fore generations. “Tracing the everyday Sensory Heritage of Kolkata Streets”—“Sohorer Songbedon” is an attempt in a form of an exhibition from a group of enthusiastic geographers for the city of Kolkata (Calcutta) to bring back some iconic hereditary sounds and smells of the city to the mass. While visiting the exhibition, we interacted with the organizers and a group of visitors through some semi-structured interviews, and simultaneously some observations were also made. The purpose of the visit lied in experiencing how our city and its various pockets can emerge through its sensory scape without one being physically present there and also let the people know about such an initiative which was staged for the first time in the city. The aim was also to witness if these sensory components from the city perceptible could evoke any repercussions among the visitors or not. In museology, with the gaining importance of intangible expressions of heritage objects and interpretation of the visitors of the flowing information in the event, this one could have been used as a profound example of such kind in the future.

How do art museums illuminate patriarchal ideologies for the general public? In this article I share my experiences with critical pedagogies developed for the exhibition Like Betzy (2019–2020) by Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (Northern Norway Art Museum). The art museum intervened in its exhibition and monuments in public spaces to attract engagement with local communities, critically question, and instigate dialogue and debate on the persistence of gender inequality. Using institutional critique as a theoretical and methodological framework, this analysis demonstrates a case of art museum activism. Additionally, I address the implications of transgression in the art museum's normative modus operandi. Although this case study is specific to a local context, I argue that monuments can serve as a site for public vulnerability, a place where museums step beyond their walls and outside their echo chambers to incite positive social justice-oriented changes in communities.

Invented by journalists, the “Bilbao effect” label has no clear meaning, but it undoubtedly refers to outwardly radiating waves of influence beyond the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Its architecture and urban impact, with trickle down economic returns, has drawn international attention and many emulators. Its museological novelties have inspired great changes in Spanish museums and in Basque cultural policies. However, the external effect of this institution beyond its headquarters should be tracked most particularly along the Abandoibarra district, which is now a thriving curatorial landscape, typifying an outdoors version of Svetlana Alpers's “museum effect.” Are we experiencing a paradigm shift? Outliving all sort of setbacks, the epitome of postmodern museums remains faithful to itself and new kinds of cultural clusters are being promoted beyond it. The current climate crisis has called into question previous assumptions of success based on massive international tourism, which is perhaps unsustainable. But the cultural district of Bilbao is booming and expanding down the Nervión river.