Welcome

Welcome to Museums (em)Power! This is the seventh conference organised by the PhD community at the University of Leicester’s School of Museum Studies. The conference takes place at the School’s Lecture Hall on 13 – 14 September 2018.

This PhD-led conference seeks to explore the power relations in the contemporary museum context. The term ‘museums’ in the title encompasses not only museums but all forms of cultural institutions where people, objects and other entities interact.

By putting ‘em’ in parenthesis, the term ‘(em)Power’ has two implications. Cultural institutions can own, share, give or withhold authority through the distribution of values and meanings. Whether empowering or not, cultural institutions are unquestionably political spaces where power negotiations between different bodies take place.

This conference therefore aims to encourage conversations between academics, artists and professionals from different sectors about how cultural institutions react to the dynamics of power happening around them.

Museums (em)Power is accompanied by the photographic exhibition (em)Powering Images. The selected images are the responses to the key question of this exhibition: How would you represent the link between power, museums, objects, people, and society through a still image?

During the conference, you are encouraged to vote for your favourite presentation and image as part of the Routledge Prizes for Best Presentation and Image. The results will be announced during the closing remarks.

We hope you enjoy the Museums (em)Power conference and the (em)Powering Images exhibition!

Organising Committee

Contents

Programme 1

Keynote Speakers 5

Presentation Abstracts 7

(em)Powering Images: Exhibition Guide 33

ProgrammeDay One: Thursday, 13th September 2018

08:30 – 09:30 Registration and Refreshments09:30 – 10:00 Opening Remarks

• Professor Sandra H. Dudley, Head of School, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester

10:00 – 11:45 Session 1: Power & Ideas10:00 – 10:15 Revealing and Forgetting: Learning from Histories of ‘New

Institutionalism’ • Jennifer Warren, University of Arts London

10:15 – 10:30 Tracing the Emergent: Collaborative Arts; Social Enterprise and the Regeneration of the Urban • Kristian Gath, Birmingham City University

10:30 – 10:45 Museum-Making Processes: Subject to Power, Tool to Empower • Aikaterini Vlachaki, University of Leicester

10:45 – 11:00 Cities, Museums and Development: Cultural Policy, Governmentality and the Urban Revitalization of the Recife Neighborhood (Recife, Brazil) • Glauber Guedes Ferreira de Lima, Federal University of Goiás

11:00 – 11:15 What are Korean Museums Doing with Intangible Heritage? • Gee Sun Hahn, University of Leicester

11:15 – 11:45 Questions and Discussion with All Presenters11:45 – 12:00 Break12:00 – 13:00 Keynote Address

Museums and the Power to Effect Change • Professor Richard Sandell, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

1

ProgrammeDay One: Thursday, 13th September 2018

14:00 – 15:45 Session 2: Power & Communities14:00 – 14:15 Our_Objects: Disability, Museums and Social Media

• Jenni Hunt, University of Leicester14:15 – 14:30 Narrative Meaning-Making in the Museum: Empowering

Young Children through Social, Self-Initiated Learning • Danielle Carter, Tangible Education

14:30 – 14:45 IPOP: A New Pattern Shift for Audience Research to Empathize & Empower Audiences • Siyi Wang, Zhejiang University / George Washington University

14:45 – 15:00 The Power of Material Culture: Challenging Neutrality through Museum Artefacts • Cesare Cuzzola, University of Leicester

15:00 – 15:30 Questions and Discussion with All Presenters15:30 – 15:45 Break15:45 – 17:30 Session 3: Power & Audiences15:45 – 16:00 Visitor Voices: Audience Research as a Tool for the

Transforming Museum • Inge Kalle-den Oudsten, University of Amsterdam

16:00 – 16:15 Inclusive Memory: Museum Education to Promote the Creation of A New Shared Memory • Antonella Poce and Maria Rosaria Re, University of Roma TRE

16:15 – 16:30 Engaging Diverse Audiences Online through An International Language • Chiara Bartolini, University of Bologna

16:30 – 16:45 (Online) Digital Storytelling for Self-Directed Museum Learning: Why Empower the Voice Of the International Student-Visitor to the Ethnographic Museum? • Zoi Tsiviltidou, University of Leicester

16:45 – 17:00 (Online) Diversion and Inclusion in the Museum • Denisse Brito, Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block

17:00 – 17:30 Questions and Discussion with All Presenters

2

ProgrammeDay Two: Friday, 14th September 2018

09:30 – 10:00 Registration and Refreshments10:00 – 11:45 Session 4: Power & Space10:00 – 10:15 Differentiating Between Decisions and Non-Decisions:

Implications for Museums • Sean Blinn, Jacobus Vanderveer House and Museum

10:15 – 10:30 The Fame Game: America’s Fascination with Hall of Fame Museums • Harriet Reed, Victoria and Albert Museum

10:30 – 10:45 The “Urbex” Exhibition at the City Museums of Pavia, Italy: A Photographic Journey around Dismissed Areas • Silvia Salvaneschi, Decumano Est cultural association, Pavia (Italy)

10:45 – 11:00 The Musée de l’Homme Has Lost Touch with Its History: Rewriting Colonial History in Paris • Dr Angela Stienne, University of Leicester

11:00 – 11:15 Power, Place, and Plasters: How Does Museum Space Affect Our Attitudes towards Casts? • Abbey Ellis, University of Leicester / Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

11:15 – 11:45 Questions and Discussion with All Presenters11:45 – 12:00 Break12:00 – 13:00 Keynote Address

Balancing Power: Users and Museums • Dr Zahava Doering, Senior Social Scientist, Thinc Design, Editor Emerita, Curator: The Museum Journal

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch

3

ProgrammeDay Two: Friday, 14th September 2018

14:00 – 15:30 Session 5: Power & Collections14:00 – 14:15 Make It Relevant: A Case Study of Muybridge Week Festival

at Kingston Museum • Seoyoung Kim, Kingston University / Kingston Museum

14:15 – 14:30 Challenging the Narrative through Art • Madeline Burkhardt, Rosa Parks Museum, Troy University Montgomery

14:30 – 14:45 (Online) Red de Museos Aysén: Towards a Museum Network That Brings People Closer (Aysén Region, Chile) • Anamaría Rojas-Múnera, Universidad Austral de Chile Campus Patagonia

14:45 – 15:00 (Online) ‘Porto M’ in Opposition to the Category of the ‘Migration Museum’: A Denial of the Museum in A Postcolonial Perspective • Martina Locorotondo, University of Leicester

15:00 – 15:30 Questions and Discussion with All Presenters15:30 – 15:45 Break15:45 – 16:00 Prizes for Best Presentations and Best Images16:00 – 16:30 Closing Remarks

4

Keynote Speaker

Professor Richard SandellProfessor of Museum StudiesSchool of Museum Studies, University of Leicester

Since joining the University of Leicester's School of Museum Studies in 2007, Professor Richard Sandell has been teaching, supervising, conducting research and collaborating with a wide range of museums and cultural institutions both in the UK and overseas. His research interests focus on the social agency of cultural institutions and especially their potential to overcome prejudice, to promote social justice and human rights.

His recently published book Museums, Moralities and Human Rights looks at museum practice as human right work and explores how sexuality and gender diversity is presented by cultural institutions.

Museums and the Power to Effect Change

Although recent decades have seen growing interest in the potential for museums to function as purposeful agents of progressive social change, thinking and practice is nevertheless still marked by caution and timidity. In this keynote presentation Richard Sandell attempts to make the case for a more ambitious, socially purposeful museum practice. Drawing on a suite of collaborative, socially engaged and values-led research projects he explores how we can shape museum narratives and craft museum experiences that function as a force for social good.

5

Keynote Speaker

Dr Zahava DoeringSenior Social ScientistThinc DesignEditor Emerita, Curator: The Museum Journal

Dr Zahava Doering, a University of Chicago trained sociologist and ethnographer, has extensive experience in social science research and visitor studies in museums. Before recently joining Thinc Design, she worked as a social scientist at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, for three decades and served as Editor of Curator: The Museum Journal for fifteen years. She also publishes extensively, lectures, consults, lead seminars and workshops for museums and other institution across the US and internationally.

Balancing Power: Users and Museums

In this keynote presentation, Zahava Doering proposes an ethical, inclusive, and more balanced relationship between museums users and the institutions they frequent. It recognises that users are active and often quite expert in the knowledge and experience that they bring.

It is based on research grounded in the reality that individuals come to cultural institutions with different entrance narratives, or internal storylines about objects and subject matter, as well as a varied range of perspectives and expectations specifically towards the experience of being a museum. The presentation suggests how museums can move towards new relationships and strengthen their links to communities.

6

Presentation AbstractsSession 1: Power & Ideas

Revealing and Forgetting: Learning from Histories of ‘New Institutionalism’

From the late 1990s to the mid 2000s a concerted attempt to transform European art institutions from within took place, now known under the term ‘New Institutionalism.’ This project aimed to restore institutions to their role as truly democratic public spheres through replacing the passive and consumerist understandings of ‘audience’ with that of the politicised notion of ‘publics.’ Arguably this resulted in the emergence of a new category of curatorial practice, that of ‘public programming,’ but it was considered by many of its actors to have failed in its goals and declared by Nina Montmann to have definitively ended in 2007, precipitated by the retraction of the financial support that underpinned many ‘new’ institutions.

Now a decade on, the work of historicising this moment is underway, with an issue of On Curating dedicated to the topic in 2014. This was followed by James Voorhies Whatever Happened to New Institutionalism (2016). Beginning by analysing these two examples, this paper will address the ways in which the history of this moment has begun to be told, and suggest that these attempts are valuable in that they enable us to see beyond New Institutionalism’s own self-understanding. It will also argue that significant gaps remain in these histories and that far from ending in 2007, the legacy of these practices is operative in our arts institutions. Therefore, continued and sustained analysis of ‘New Institutionalism’ is vitally necessary if we are to achieve the aims of this radical project.

Jennifer WarrenIndependent Researcher and Academic Support Lecturer at University of the Arts London(Graduated in 2017 from the MRes in Exhibition Studies at Central Saint Martins, UAL)

Jennifer Warren is an independent researcher with an interest in critical institutional practices and their intersections with theory and social movements. Recent research projects have involved working with Afterall to make available archive material related to the Hayward Gallery’s 1989

7

exhibition ‘The Other Story.’ She is currently working with The Arts Catalyst to produce a podcast contextualising the 2004 exhibition ‘Artists Airshow.’ Jennifer has been selected to take part in Wolverhampton College of Art’s 2018 residency and conference ‘The Art School Today: Who Cares?’ and in 2017 she took part in Vessel’s Curatorial Workshop on the theme of para-institutional models.

Tracing the Emergent: Collaborative Arts; Social Enterprise and the Regeneration of the Urban

Reflecting on the first year of researching towards my PhD, this paper shall trace what I identify to be the emergent practice of collaborative and socially-engaged arts as social enterprise. This paper shall emphasise the historical and social contexts of this emergent practice in the context of collaborative dialectics and participatory institutionalism. Via the exploration of select case studies and archive material, this paper shall pose significant questions regarding the instrumentalisation of collaborative and socially-engaged practices that (em)powers the constituents of organisations, institutions and collectives to adapt, resist or perhaps conversely become appropriated by neoliberal pressures. This research will question whether this emergent practice is the ‘Golden Thread’ of neoliberalism that offers our constituents mechanisms for wider effective participation within urban regeneration, as well as acknowledging some of the ethical issues that impact its application. My thesis: The Visual Arts in Urban Regeneration: A Tale of Two Cities – Comparative Analyses of Birmingham and Liverpool poses three significant questions to the field, namely: How have the socio-economic and socio-political conditions within Birmingham and Liverpool shaped the practice of urban regeneration and its relation to arts policy, practice and provision? How has the practice of community and participatory arts transitioned towards collaborative and socially-engaged arts as social enterprise in respect to this? And how can an ecological critique of collaborative and socially engaged art as social enterprise develop a model of participatory institutionalism within urban regeneration via processes of consultation and direct engagement?

Kristian GathPhD Student, School of Art, Birmingham City University

Kristian is a PhD candidate in art and design for the School of Art at Birmingham City University working in collaboration on his research with Tate

8

Liverpool. Previous academic engagements include presentations at the International Conference on the Inclusive Museum 2017 and 2018; a printed publication in the PhD led Intellect Books publication: Journal of Arts Writing by Students and the European-funded project: Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme.

Museum-Making Processes: Subject to Power, Tool to Empower

Architectural, museum-making processes are an ideal backdrop for discussing how museums are caught in power structures but also explore museum space as a social space, museum-making practice as both a field of practice and a battlefield and museum as an agent of social change.

The presentation will refer to two tangible examples of institutions who reacted to the dynamics of power around them and discovered opportunities for creatively altering their practice to fulfil their social role and empower their communities. The Derby Silk Mill Museum (UK) and the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art (USA) are two innovative but also untypical museum-making projects, created according to Participatory Design principles. In an era dominated by capital projects of iconic museum architecture linked with certain political and economic agendas, the two institutions mentioned above, adopted a highly democratic, alternative museum-making practice, based on the principle of end-users’ active participation in decision-making processes.

Echoing an architectural and museum discourse that has conceptualised museum buildings as a social space and architecture-making as a political act, has discussed architecture’s potential as a tool for fulfilling the museum’s social mission, has examined museum architecture’s autonomy and has advocated for the benefits of participation for both the individual and the institution, the two projects will vividly illustrate museums’ potential to empower their communities and act as agents of social change even before their establishment as physical entities.

Aikaterini VlachakiPhD Student, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, Scholar of the Onassis Foundation

Aikaterini Vlachaki is a PhD candidate at the University of Leicester, School of Museum Studies. She has an interdisciplinary academic background in

9

Architectural Engineering (BA) and Museum Studies (MA). Her research investigates the application of Participatory Design (PD) principles in large-scale architectural projects of museum making. She explores how such participatory initiatives could be realised, which are their challenges and how they could contribute towards museums’ mission for social sustainability and community empowerment by focusing on two exceptional case-studies of museums created through PD in UK and USA.

Cities, Museums and Development: Cultural Policy, Governmentality and the Urban Revitalization of the Recife Neighborhood (Recife, Brazil)

This paper presents a critical analysis of two popular museums located in Recife, Brazil. Its focus is on the relationships the museums have with the urban space, its heritage and development, and with projects of regulation of the population. My analysis can be understood as a study of the processes of governmentality (Foucault, 1991) and of cultural commodification in which the Museum “Paço do Frevo” and the Museum of “Sertão” are engaged in the settings they inhabit. These institutions were developed as parts of a cultural policy endeavour aimed at mobilizing diversity and popular culture in order to produce, for touristic and marketing purposes, special identities attached to specific spaces. Sources for my analysis will be some aspects of museological policies and bureaucracy, where this cultural policy are tangible and available. The argument I propose is that these museums operate as instruments of a policy interested in producing legitimacy and regulating the conduct of subjects in the interest of a global project for the city. This entails investigating the role of museums as articulations of power relations, acknowledging their role as dipositifs rather than neutral inventories (Agamben, 2005); seeing them as spheres of intervention where communities are regulated rather than empowered (Cruikshank, 1999); understanding bureaucracy as a producer of meaning and not a disinterested instrument (Miller, 2002). Ultimately, I will investigate a context where the political rationality of the museums reflects a hegemonic understanding of culture that values its expedience in the pursuit of projects of neoliberal development (Yúdice, 2006).

AGAMBEN, Giorgio. O que é um dispositivo? Outra travessia, 2005.CRUIKSHANK, Barbara. The will to empower: Democratic citizens and other subjects. Cornell University Press, 1999.FOUCAULT, Michel. The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality. University of Chicago Press, 1991.

10

MILLER, Toby; YÚDICE, George. Cultural policy. Sage, 2002.YÚDICE, George. The expediency of culture: Uses of culture in the global era. Duke University Press, 2003.

Glauber Guedes Ferreira de Lima

Lecture of Museology in the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Federal University of Goiás - UFG, Brazil, and PhD Student in the Institute of Media and Creative Industries, Loughborough University London. Currently, I am working on a research project about cultural policy, social inclusion and museums in Brazil with a Cultural Studies approach.

What are Korean museums doing with intangible heritage?

Heritage is mainly regarded as a major emblem of nationhood in Korea and as an important idea that develops the national identity. Heritage consists of both tangible and intangible heritage elements, and particularly, intangible heritage is significantly valued as shared national memory in Korea. Intangible heritage is regarded as an essential element of national representation, traditional values, and social norms. It is maintained by the ‘living human treasures’ who are the heritage holders possesses specific traditional skills and knowledge.

However, the realistic range of intangible heritage is wider than the definition and because of its continuously changing form, it has ‘unconventional relationship’ with museums. Museums mainly focused on tangible objects, and intangible heritage became a challenge to museum’s traditional approach to recording and documenting of the past. In Korea, while living human treasures are responsible to transmit their practical skills and knowledge, museums are known as a protectors and a supporter of protecting those skills by opening exhibitions and public events to visitors at the same time. Since museums are increasing their role in connecting peoples together in the society, museum’s practices are challenged by influencing on the continuity of the value of Korean traditional culture to the contemporary society. Intangible heritage in museum became an opportunity to enlarge visitor’s understanding of Korean heritage, also an alternative framework to negotiate ideas of identity and contemporary engagement with the past.

Accordingly, this presentation will discover how Korean museums works with intangible heritage by developing the connection to the past.

11

Gee Sun HahnPhD Student, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester

Gee Sun Hahn is currently a PhD Researcher in the University of Leicester, School of Museum Studies. Researching about the social role of Korean museum with particular reference to the role and place of intangible heritage in national identity formation. BA at Korean National University of Cultural Heritage major Traditional Arts and Crafts and studied MA at University of Leicester, School of Museum Studies.

Session 2: Power & Communities

Our_Objects: Disability, Museums and Social Media

The digital revolution has enabled new opportunities for museums to engage with diverse audiences, while also creating new and exciting possibilities for audiences to engage with museums in return.

Use of social media, especially when connected to further information, can encourage wider participation and involvement, and requires museums to reconsider their understandings of interacting with the public. Choosing particular objects to highlight can provoke personal reflections alongside increasing curiosity, and enabling museums to explain the decisions behind their work.

By examining my own use of social media within the museums’ Twittersphere, I will consider a number of reactions and show how museums are working with their audiences.

The Our Objects Twitter account was begun in July 2016 to “bring objects connected to individuals with disabilities and their treatment from the back of museum collections to the foreground”. Initially created out of the belief that many museums do not understand the extent of their disability collections, while the public is often unaware that they exist, the account aimed to identify the presence of disabled people throughout history and to explore the evidence that they have left behind.

12

With disabled people often marginalised and ignored, or examined from a purely medical standpoint, this ongoing project aims to reveal the range of objects connected to disability and the variety of ways that they have shaped people’s lives.

In the process, I have found myself presented with numerous opportunities to engage with both disabled individuals and museum staff, and enable interactions which otherwise would not be happening. Jenni HuntPhD Student, School of Museum Studies, University of Liecester

Jenni Hunt is a first year PhD student in the Museum Studies department of the University of Leicester, examining how museums present narratives of disability. She is interested in media representations of illness and disability, and in hidden histories including sexuality and gender diversity and mental and physical difference.

Narrative Meaning-Making in the Museum: Empowering Young Children through Social, Self-Initiated Learning

Museums have often been portrayed as storytellers, with little to no attention given to visitor agency and their roles as “story makers”, but this museum-centric focus has been rejected in recent decades as museums have sought to become more reactive to and inclusive of their audiences in recent decades.

Collaborative and interactive learning emphasize culture as a process1 and the significance of viewers’ situated, respective experiences.2 One of the most widely discussed theories of the situated nature of learning is the Contextual Model of Learning conceived by John Falk and Lynn Dierking. According to this model, learning is a complex process, including the personal, sociocultural, and physical as the three primary contexts within which learning takes place.

Narrative research allows researchers to understand the complex, rich nature of visitors’ learning. Narrative and hermeneutic theory - most importantly - shed light on the diachronic, social, and personal contexts of the learning experience, meaning that the context within which visitors learn, the

13

embedded and situated nature of their learning processes, as well as the social aspects of their learning can be made evident through the use of narrative in museum educational research.

This presentation will review two case studies3 in which young (preschool) children took the lead in their own learning processes in the museum context. Narrative is used to understand the social, collaborative aspects of this meaning-making as well as to explain how social, childinitiated, and co-creative learning empowers children in the museum context.

1 Jacquelien Vroemen (2018), “Erfgoed is een werkwoord,” LKCA https://www.lkca.nl/cultureel-kapitaal/erfgoed-iseen-werkwoord?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=LKCA-18-05-29&utm_content=kunst-encultuur&utm_term=CK-Vroemen-erfgoed&utm_source=nieuwsbrief, accessed 11 June 2018.2 John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Penguin, 1980), 1.3 Tarja Karlsson Häikö (2018), “Cultural participation for, by and with children: Enhancing children’s agency andlearning through art education and visual knowledge-building,” Nordic Journal of Art and Research, 7(1), pp. 1-19 and Danielle Carter (2018) “Narrative Learning as

Theory and Method in Arts and Museum Education,” Studies in Art Education, 59(2): pp. 1-18.

Danielle CarterTangible Education

Danielle Carter is an ambitious and creative cultural educator and researcher. With her well-rounded background in art, art history, and museum/arts education, Danielle explores cultural learning from various viewpoints. She has presented her research at the Inclusive Museum conference (2016), the Maastricht Centre for Arts and Culture, Conservation and Heritage conference (2017), and at the Stedelijk Museum (2017); and she has published her research in Acta Academiae Vilnensis (2018), Journal of Visual Literacy (2018), and Studies in Art Education (2018). On her days off, you can find Danielle drinking coffee, reading heaps of books, and admiring others’ dogs.

IPOP: A New Pattern Shift for Audience Research to Empathize & Empower Audiences

When speaking of curating from the perspectives of audiences or crowds whom an exhibition talks about, especially marginalised and vulnerable communities, it requires curators to have empathy with them, namely,

14

empathy fuels connection. However, it is very difficult to achieve empathy for most people, due to that they are lack of personal experience or making comments from their own views; on the contrary, it is easy to generate sympathy that drives an exhibition’s perspective to deviate from the original intention, which is referred to as sympathy drives disconnection.

I think audience research is an effective means for realising empathy. Understand your audiences, listen and attempt to accept their opinions, and feel with them; then work out to attract them and make them engaged; finally allow their experience to flip, so as to gain a new experience beyond their expectations. That is the real value of experience, and simultaneously what museum exhibitions desire to reach.

In this paper, a relevance study between audiences’ visit motivations and overall experience was conducted by using the audience experiential classification method based on IPOP1. Specifically, five museums in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China were investigated, which are Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Hangzhou Museum, Zhejiang Art Museum, Zhejiang Natural history museum, and Hangzhou Arts and Crafts Museum. A total of 2,000 questionnaires from the experiences classification for audiences were performed without presupposition.

I will argue that the relevance among IPOP experiential classification, motivations and overall experience can play a role in behaviour prediction to some extent. For many years, outcome-based approach has been a popular tool, whilst the museum audience research is far beyond that. Museum learning is more inclined to develop abilities to grow and explore independently in life, which are often absent in pre-defined outcome framework mainly for measurement. The method of this paper does not presuppose the outcomes but starts from audience experiences in order to offer them a boarder space.

A museum can be considered as an environment where audiences acquire an opportunity for personal growth (no matter intellectually, emotionally or spiritually). Imagine that if these possibilities were limited by the so-called outcomes, would museum experience be diversified, or meet the various needs of different audiences? It’s time to make changes in the pattern of museum audience research to exactly empower visitors.

15

Siyi WangPhD Student, Zhejiang University / George Washington UniversitySiyi Wang (1992) is a PhD student majoring in Museum Studies at Zhejiang University of China and a joint-PhD student at George Washington University. She is a curator and her research interests include how multi-senses used in museum exhibitions engage with visitors, visitor studies, and exhibition planning & design.

The Power of Material Culture: Challenging Neutrality through Museum Artefacts

Since their inception, museums have used their cultural power and authority to generate ideologies, to establish and promote certain ideas about the state, and to impose a certain degree of social control. Now, as museums move towards non-neutral and socially, politically and morally charged positions in the cultural panorama, their role is changing. Their power to shape knowledge is often paired with the objective to promote values of equality and empathy, to foster diversity, and combat prejudice.

The aim of this presentation is two-fold: first, I will argue that, as museums start to engage with current social issues, their power to affect their audience is changing; secondly, I will shift my focus on museum collections specifically, showing examples of how material culture holds the power to affect audiences.

'The Past is Now', a 2017–18 temporary exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, epitomises both parts of this presentation. The exhibition tried to challenge traditional colonial narratives often used in museums, and presented the painful history of colonialism and its consequences. These difficult stories were told through powerful objects, that represented and conveyed the message of the exhibition. My analysis of 'The Past is Now' will demonstrate how the power of museums is changing, and it will show how objects in particular might hold the power to affect the public’s perspective on contemporary social issues and potentially empower communities that have been consistently misrepresented or marginalised by cultural institutions.

Cesare CuzzolaPhD Student, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester

16

Cesare Cuzzola is a Museum Studies PhD student at University of Leicester, supervised by Prof Richard Sandell and Prof Sandra Dudley. His current research focuses on the role of artefacts in socially engaged practice, exploring how material culture affects audiences in the context of museum projects that focus on contemporary social issues. Cesare’s academic background is in material culture studies and museum anthropology. He has undertaken several voluntary and research roles in a number of institutions such as UCL Museums, the Jewish Museum London, the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Ashmolean Museum.

Session 3: Power & Audiences

Visitor Voices: Audience Research as a Tool for the Transforming Museum

Museum and visitor. Powerful and powerless. Active and passive. These oppositions, traditionally at the core of the museum, are finally being challenged and questioned. Museums are transforming from modernist to post-museum institutions, and this wave of change includes the empowerment of the visitor. One of the ways through which the voice of the visitor may be heard is through audience research.

Originating in a positivist framework, visitor research has traditionally seen the visitor as a passive recipient. In this transmission model of communication, quantitative research focused on whether visitors ‘successfully’ received the meaning of the museum.

Enter postmodernism. Whether you call it the cognitive revolution or the interpretive turn, there is no ignoring its impact on museums: The Death of the Author opened up museums to a multiplicity of visitor meanings.The contemporary museum is still struggling with this postmodern legacy, and the field of visitor studies seems to be one of the battle sites. How can we reconcile a multiplicity of meanings with closed-ended questionnaires? A new way of looking at visitor meanings requires a new way of studying visitor meanings.

In this paper, I will explore two types of visitor-led interview methods as

17

examples of this new approach. I conducted about 30 accompanied visits and photography-led exit interviews in the context of two case-studies: temporary exhibition 'Crossroads' at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam, and the permanent collection of the Riverside Museum in Glasgow. These interviews highlight the ways through which individual visitors make meaning, which move beyond the expectations and the frame of the museum.I will argue that these types of visitor-led interview methods allow for discovering unexpected visitor meanings. Creating a space where such alternative visitor meanings may be explored will ultimately empower museums to truly become post-museums by empowering their visitors.

Inge Kalle-den OudstenPhD Student, University of Amsterdam

Inge Kalle-den Oudsten (1992) is a PhD Student at the University of Amsterdam. Her research is a part of the EU-funded CEMEC (Connecting Early Medieval European Collections) project, and focuses on visitor meaning making processes in museums. Specifically, she is working on formulating a critical approach to digital technologies in the museum context, looking at how (if?) digital media can be employed to achieve Eilean Hooper-Greenhill's concept of the 'post-museum'.

Inge did a bachelor in Liberal Arts and Sciences at University College Roosevelt in Middelburg. She received her MA in Museum Studies from the University of Amsterdam in 2015.

Inclusive Memory: Museum Education to Promote the Creation of A New Shared Memory

This paper describes the design and implementation by CDM (Centre for Museum Studies – Roma TRE University) of a museum teaching and learning project, 'Inclusive Memory', aimed at supporting disadvantaged categories inclusion processes, through shared memory development, in contexts of cultural heritage fruition within the city of Rome. In the first phase of the project pupils from a secondary school based in Rome participated in the activities proposed. The group was characterised by a high rate of immigrant, disabled or disadvantaged pupils. Specific learning paths have been designed at the Museum of Rome - Palazzo Braschi to reach the project objectives. The city of Rome and its representations were the starting point for guided

18

and in-depth discussion activities on issues such as social differences, urban and cultural transformations of the city, social aggregation, the relationship between the city and the countryside, the politics of consensus, with a view of promoting the participants’ critical thinking skills. Ad hoc assessment procedures were carried out in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the Inclusive Memory project.

Antonella Poce Associate Professor, Department of Education, University of Roma TRE

Antonella Poce is Associate Professor in Experimental Pedagogy at the University of Roma TRE – Department of Education. She chairs the Centre for Museum Studies (Dept. Education) and the two year post graduate course Advanced Studies in Museum Education. Her research concerns innovative teaching practices in higher education at national and international level. She is a member of the EDEN – European Distance and E-Learning Network (since 2009) and has been elected Chair of NAP SC in 2017 and she is EDEN Executive Committee member since then. She is member of ICOM–CECA (Committee for Education and Cultural Action) (since 2006). She coordinated 4 departmental projects and 4 Erasmus+ projects. She chairs the two year post graduate course Advanced Studies in Museum Education.

Maria Rosaria Re PhD Student, University of Roma TRE

Maria Rosaria Re is a PhD Student in Education, Culture and Communication at the University of Roma TRE. She used to be Temporary researcher in the academic year 2015/2016, Department of Education – University of Roma TRE, carrying out research work in interactive teaching and learning online with specific reference to MOOC (Massive Online Open Courses) employment in education. She has been cooperating with Laboratory of Experimental Research and Centre for Museum Studies (University of Roma TRE) since 2013 and took part in national and European research projects.

Engaging Diverse Audiences Online through An International Language

Museums strive to be a platform open to multilingual audiences, both to accommodate international tourism and to situate themselves in a linguistically diverse society. In this scenario, the web may be an ideal medium to

19

promote their collections and activities more broadly and reach new, diverse audiences.

European university museums mainly use English on their institutional websites to engage with an international audience, so the contents provided in English are expected to cater for a culturally-unspecified readership. A question arises on the extent to which those materials “translate” for and are felt as readable and “inclusive” by a broad range of users, including people who may not consider English as their first language. Although a large body of literature has investigated communication on the web focusing on how to improve readability, little research has considered how to make online texts in English readable, accessible and appealing to a multicultural audience.

This study seeks to investigate how university museums in Europe use the English language on their websites to cater for audiences with different language skills. First, semi-structured interviews with some members of the staff of a selection of museums reveal processes and strategies behind the production of website texts in English. Second, a sample of texts are analysed by drawing on readability and web writing theories. Results provide insights on the extent to which monolingual online texts are written to be appropriate and appealing to a diversified multilingual audience.

Chiara Bartolini PhD Student, Department of Interpreting and Translation, University of Bologna

(Online) Digital Storytelling for Self-Directed Museum Learning: Why Empower the Voice Of the International Student-Visitor to the Ethnographic Museum?

The paper presents findings of a study of mobile-supported digital storytelling used for self-directed museum learning. The objective was to find methodologically sound ways to integrate digital stories in the programs designed for school visits to museums, and to illuminate the international students’ investigatory and authoring choices in an attempt to better understand how they engage with the museum content and make the most of the learning experience. The first in a series of trials involved 26 13-14 years old students of an international school as part of the Art History course and a trip to the Folklife and Ethnology Museum in Thessaloniki (Greece). The museum was treated as a multi-narrative learning environment and

20

the student as the author of the museum experience. The students worked in groups to collect story materials based on personally-relevant questions and used smartphones and tablets to craft digital stories about the answers. The findings revealed ways to effectively employ mobile-supported digital storytelling for self-directed learning and diversify the museum’s engagement agenda by empowering the student-visitor to tell his/her own story of heritage interpretation. The discussion exposes the role digital storytelling could play in the re-appraisal of the meanings connoted to the international students’ contribution to the cross-cultural understanding of shared histories.

Zoi TsiviltidouPhD Student, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester

Zoi Tsiviltidou is a full-time EFL teacher and a part-time PhD student in Museum Education (United Kingdom), holder of an MA in Cultural Policy and Management (Serbia and France) and a BA in English Language and Literature (Greece). Her research is about the educational uses of digital storytelling for inquiry-based learning in the programs designed for international school visits to museums. The public outreach and publications of her work have received award-winning recognition and numerous grants.

Diversion and Inclusion in the Museum

During the past few years, museums have been changing how they perceive themselves as institutions. “Today, the country’s museums are increasingly taking up the charge to be more inclusive… Employment pipeline programs and leadership development initiatives are helping to address long-standing barriers to entry.”1 Over the past decade, museum professionals have been trying to transform institutions from elitist to inclusive by understanding the challenges people encounter in museums,2 making it a safe space for everyone. However, museum’s current collections are predominantly Western, with Eurocentric values attached to them.3 One could argue that with such a high value placed on Western heritage, museums reinforce a primarily white visitor demographic. Tucson, Arizona’s demographic according to the census consists of 45.5% white and 42.6% Hispanic.4 Given that the Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block (TMA) is Southern Arizona’s premier presenter of fine art and art education programs, it is essential that the museum recognizes all their audiences and how they can best engage current, as well as potential visitors to the museum. TMA has seen a drastic change in its numbers

21

and people, especially in their monthly free programming event First Free Thursday. Changing the way the museum has created programming has reflected a variation in the audiences. The way the museum fosters partners and collaborates with other organizations shows that the museum needs its community in order to build a stronger community. 1 Facing Change - Insight from the American Alliance of Museums' Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Working Group. (2018). Retrieved June 15, 2018, from https://www.aam-us.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/AAM-DEAI-Working-Group-Full-Report-2018.pdf 2 Taylor, C. (2017, May 08). From Systemic Exclusion to Systemic Inclusion: A Critical Look at Museums. Retrieved July 08, 2018, from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10598650.2017.1305864?src=recsys&3 T. (2016, February 15). Why Think about Equity and Museums? Retrieved August 06, 2018, from https://incluseum.com/2015/03/23/why-think-about-equity-and-museums/ 4 U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Tucson city, Arizona. (2017). Retrieved June 15, 2018, from

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/tucsoncityarizona/RHI225216#viewtop

Denisse BritoTucson Museum of Art and Historic Block

Denisse Brito obtained her BFA from the Division of Art and Visual Culture Education with an emphasis in Community and Museums from the University of Arizona in 2014. In 2017, she received her MA from the University of Leicester in Museum Studies. Denisse has a wide range of experience teaching individuals of different age and nationalities. She has been teaching in a museum setting for five years. Currently, she works at the Tucson Museum of Art as the Assistant of Community Engagement.

Session 4: Power & Space

Differentiating Between Decisions and Non-Decisions: Implications for Museums

Discussions of power and related concepts of influence and authority in museums are often centered on the ability to structure and influence outcomes that differ from a given status quo, along with why and how this is accomplished. Receiving less attention, but equally important, is the role

22

of power in maintenance of the status quo. This can be an active, visible decision that a given state is acceptable, based on a conscious choice between a current situation and at least one alternative. More subtly, this exercise of power can be a largely invisible limiting of the agenda in such a way that alternatives are either discounted or not even discussed. Many factors could account for this, including the fear of addressing topics that might upset part of a museum’s audience, desire to avoid offending sponsors, maintaining control over the visitor experience, or having an interest in continuing institutional authority. Awareness of this hidden side of power holds implications for organizational structures and patterns of decision-making affecting many important museum activities, including educational and collecting practices. Understanding this difference could help groups and individuals understand resistance to proposed changes and more effectively advocate for them. Questions for future research are suggested, including development of a more structured analytical framework and case studies to be examined.

Sean BlinnTrustee, Jacobus Vanderveer House and Museum, Bedminster, New Jersey, USA

Sean Blinn is trustee and former president of the Jacobus Vanderveer House, a historic house museum in Bedminster, New Jersey, USA, and consults with other cultural institutions in New Jersey and Washington, DC. His practice areas include museum management and planning, evaluation, and community engagement. Mr. Blinn also serves on municipal and county government commissions with responsibility for cultural affairs and historic preservation. He holds an MA in Museum Studies, and an MA and BA in Political Science.

The Fame Game: America’s Fascination with Hall of Fame Museums

The first Hall of Fame museums were European: Westminster Abbey, the Panthéon in Paris, and the Walhalla and Ruhmeshalle in Germany. In the 20th century however, it has been the preoccupation of the USA to adopt this model to celebrate the achievements of predominantly music and sports, popularising ‘Hall of Fame’ as its moniker.

As part of a research visit to five halls of fame in the USA (‘Baseball’, ‘Pro Football’, ‘Rock and Roll’, ‘Country Music’ and ‘Musicians’) exploring the collecting and display of performance, I discovered both surprising assets

23

and drawbacks to this museum model in its governance and curatorial responsibility.

The museums’ myth-making and almost religious curation of their subjects makes them sites of both internal and external power struggles. Within each institution, a negotiation of power exists between museum and the hall of induction itself, often operating completely distinct but unavoidably reliant on each other. The induction into a hall of fame, most often dictated by the governing organisation of the genre or subject, acts within its own commercial interests, to the detriment of the museum’s integrity and operation.

However, halls of fame hold enormous power within their communities, and can in some cases sustain an entire city economically through tourism, investment and local development. They are intrinsically nationalistic, and therefore inevitably tied to political ideologies.

While traditionally denounced as theme-park sites of culture, halls of fame are becoming increasingly engaged with the wider museum world, achieving AAM (American Alliance of Museums) Accreditation, and introducing inclusive and interrogative display spaces. In this paper I will explore each of these aspects, within the context of a continuing American phenomenon.

Harriet ReedAssistant Curator of Theatre and Performance, V&A Museum London

Harriet Reed is an Assistant Curator in the Theatre and Performance Department at the V&A. She is currently researching the collecting and display of popular music in the UK and USA. Harriet is also the Annual Lecture Series Coordinator for the UK Society for Theatre Research and Council Member of SIBMAS (International Association of Libraries, Museums, Archives and Documentation Centres of the Performing Arts).

The “Urbex” Exhibition at the City Museums of Pavia, Italy: A Photographic Journey around Dismissed Areas

My proposed paper will focus on the presentation and analysis of the photographic exhibition 'Urbex Pavia Rewind: Viaggio Fotografico nelle Aree Dismesse' ('Urbex Pavia Rewind: a Photographic Journey Around Dismissed Areas'), currently hosted at the City Museums of Pavia, Italy.

24

This case study is particularly intriguing as an example of interrelated power relations coming from different bodies. In fact, the City Museums constitute the institutional framework, within which authority is expressed: the Director of the Museums, dependent on the City Council, authorised the hosting of the photographic solo exhibition of local artist and news reporter Marcella Milani, which has a specific political cut. Its purpose, in fact, is to raise awareness amongst the public, through 150 black and white pictures, of now forgotten buildings of Pavia - such as hangars, factories, hospitals, and military bases. However, in the 19th century, those very places were of pivotal importance, the nerve centres promoting the industrial, commercial and military development of the city.

Starting inside the museum walls, visitors are also offered the opportunity to go to some of the buildings during guided tours. Visiting the real places turned out to be a powerful catalyst in eliciting emotions and sharing collective memories, as many of the people participating in the tours were former workers of or had relatives connected to those premises.

Finally, 'Urbex' also triggered a lot of debate regarding the possible renovation of the buildings and the surrounding areas, whose future is yet uncertain.

Silvia SalvaneschiArt historian and collaborator, Decumano Est cultural association, Pavia (Italy)

I graduated with a MA in History of Art from the University of Milan (Italy). During my University time, I started to collaborate with the City Museums of Pavia, both in voluntary and working capacities. The experience I gained allowed me to take part in several projects, including the opening of the Classical and Modern sections of the Cast Gallery. On a regular basis, I deliver guided tours and conferences. At present, I work in a cultural association in Pavia, with the main role of planning and managing projects, privately and publicly funded, devoted to the promotion of local tourism, culture, environment.

The Musée de l’Homme Has Lost Touch with Its History: Rewriting Colonial History in Paris

When the Musée de l’Homme in Paris reopened in 2015, its intention was

25

to be a contemporary museum, with an equally contemporary design. By focusing on looking right, the museum overlooked doing right and erased from display the complex collecting histories behind its founding collection. The Musée de l’Homme is heir to the Musée du Trocadéro, recipient of the human remains collections of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris (MNHN); between 1793 and 1878, the MNHN was the theatre of the study, collecting and dissemination of knowledge on the natural world, both animal and human. It was also the theatre of the collecting of ‘races’. Skulls of Egyptian mummies and bodies of black Africans were collected to support theories of racial differentiation, with the aim to prove the superiority of a white race in a strong colonial context. Yet, the history of these collecting activities that were at the origin of the creation of the Musée du Trocadéro, have been erased from the new Musée de l’Homme.

This paper will explore the problematic narratives at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris in relation to the museum’s colonial history of human remains collecting, asking: how is power and colonial history negotiated in the new museum space? In which way has display – in particular, the bust display (pictured) – distorted the complex history of this museum, in an attempt to emphasize ‘mankind’ as a universal concept.

Dr Angela StienneHonorary Research Fellow, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester

Dr Angela Stienne is Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. Her research focuses on human remains collections and concealed narratives of race in the museum. She completed her PhD in Museum Studies in 2018 (School of Museum Studies, Leicester) on engagements with Egyptian mummies in Paris and London between 1753 and 1858. She is the founder of Mummy Stories, the first global participatory project on human remains in museums.

Power, Place, and Plasters: How Does Museum Space Affect Our Attitudes towards Casts?

Space wields a great deal of power over the museum experience. It determines what we see, how we see it and what we feel when we get there. An object’s position in the hierarchy of importance can be established and perpetuated by its position within museum space. Important, valuable

26

objects accrue even more significance through their display in well-integrated, easily accessible spaces, whereas objects of lesser importance, exhibited in segregated space, have their lowly status confirmed by this position. In this talk I will consider precisely this interplay between space and power. Firstly I will outline Hillier and Tzortzi’s method for identifying integrated and segregated museum space. I will then concentrate specifically on the spatial display of archaeological plaster casts. These casts, exact replicas of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, executed in Plaster of Paris, are often considered to be valueless copies of ancient masterpieces, manufactured in a substandard material. Applying and extending the approach of Hillier and Tzortzi, I will present case studies of the spaces in which various museums have chosen to house their cast collection, analysing the likely implications of the use of these spaces on visitor attitudes towards casts.

Abbey EllisPhD Student, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester / Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Abbey graduated from Merton College, Oxford in 2016 with a first class BA in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, followed in 2017 by a distinction in MSt Classical Archaeology, also at Merton. Her current AHRC-funded project is a collaborative doctoral award, split between the University of Leicester and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Her work is set in the Museum's Cast Gallery and focuses on archaeological plaster casts. She seeks to investigate new ways of defining authenticity for plaster casts and examine visitor perceptions of and experiences with the objects.

Session 5: Power & Collections

Make It Relevant: A Case Study of Muybridge Week Festival at Kingston Museum

Kingston Museum holds one of four pre-eminent collections of Eadweard Muybridge, a Kingston-born Victorian photographer who pioneered studies of movement and motion picture projection. The Collection has a distinctive local connection since it was donated by Muybridge himself in 1904. However, considering the international influence and legacy of Muybridge's works

27

throughout modern culture, Muybridge and his work have a relatively low local public profile and recognition, and the Collection has not been fully utilised and connected with contemporary local audiences. A need for the new presentation and interpretation of the Collection was identified to provide the audiences much needed contemporary relevance. Creative and engaging events around the Muybridge Collection have been hosted at Kingston Museum since 2017, often with limited resources. One of the main events is ‘Muybridge Week’ festival which the Museum hosts annually to promote the Museum’s Muybridge Collection and to better engage audience (both users and non-users). Muybridge Week provides a platform to showcase different presentations of arts and culture, such as contemporary arts, films, poetry, animation, play etc, which are inspired by the life and work of Muybridge. The Museum has successfully hosted the second ‘Muybridge Week’ in June 2018. My presentation will discuss the lessons learnt from the last two ‘Muybridge Week’ festival and look into ways of making better impact on audiences with historic collections.

Seoyoung KimCurator, Kingston Museum

Seoyoung Kim has worked as a curator at Kingston Museum since 2014, where she oversees all aspects of Museum activities and collections management. Prior to her current role as a curator, Seoyoung worked as a conservator for over 12 years for various museums, including the Wallace Collection, Glasgow Museums and St. Louis Art Museum (USA). Seoyoung also works as a freelance curator and has recently curated various contemporary art exhibitions.

Seoyoung is currently undertaking a PhD research (part-time) at Kingston University. Her research subject is the presentation and reinterpretation of Kingston Museum’s Muybridge Collection for contemporary audiences.

Challenging the Narrative through Art

History has always been written by the privileged. Museum professionals typically represent those who belong in the majority and those perspectives can dominate programs and exhibitions; even more so, the institutions themselves may feel challenged by this shift. Even with the shifting narratives and focus on inclusion, the question remains: How can we, as museum

28

professionals, tell a story that does not belong to us? As a white, middle-class female working in the birthplace of Civil Rights, I will explore how empathy can be irreplaceable in tours and how it can be found within your exhibitions. Since I began at the museum, I have brought in art installations on racial terror lynchings, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the violent misuse of words by hate groups in America that are still allowed to practice freely, specifically the Ku Klux Klan. Through these exhibitions I have seen student’s eyes open to history in a new way because rather than text, they can see the pain of a human through sculpture or twodimensional objects. How is it that art has this transformative power? What obstacles do we face when creating these challenging exhibitions? With different learning styles, information should be presented in an inclusive, equitable way if others are to learn. While there needs to be a shift in telling the stories of those whose voices are not heard, we also need to focus on how the majority who work in museums can display empathy to help those with no knowledge of the past have a better understanding.

Madeline BurkhardtAdult Education Coordinator, Rosa Parks Museum, Troy University Montgomery

Madeline Burkhardt is the current adult education coordinator and honorary curator at the Rosa Parks Museum at Troy University Montgomery. She is a recent graduate of the Master of Arts program in Museum Studies at Johns Hopkins University and her Bachelor of Arts is in Art History with a minor in Italian Studies from Auburn University. Madeline is involved in various local organizations and committees throughout Montgomery to help the city move forward. She is passionate about retelling history through the lens of visual culture and making personal connections.

Red de Museos Aysén: Towards a Museum Network That Brings People Closer (Aysén Region, Chile)

Aysén is a sparsely populated region located in Southern Chile (Patagonia). There, museums, their staff and particular collectors have worked independently for decades. Much of this disassociation steams from geographic distances, lack of training opportunities and paucity of funds, resulting in a sector which is unaware of the variety of museum offers. In addition, the loss and damage of different types of collections has raised concern on how heritage institutions and individuals are managing material

29

culture, especially collections protected by Law and relevant to some communities. Moreover, the undervaluation of museum leaders’ work, predominantly consisting of women.

In this context, the purpose of Red de Museos Aysén (Aysén Museums Network) is to empower and support museum leaders and communities in overcoming those difficulties with different strategies based on collaboration, on the practice of museum theories and collections management. It was launched in January 2018 by the Universidad Austral de Chile in its Patagonia Campus and funded by the regional government of Aysén. Overall, the project comprises: registry and assessment of museums and collections in the region; training workshops on museum theories and collections management; the establishment of national and regional partnerships; and development of the network foundations.

So far, the assessment on Aysén museums outlines that about 39 community-based institutions, collectors and museum-related initiatives are promoting local history and heritage. In the long run, collaborative relations between museum leaders, stakeholders and experts will turn the network into a strong decision-making body where negotiation with community occurs, as well as into a platform for project development, which is able to propose alternative funding sources and solutions, contributing to the social development of Aysén.

Anamaría Rojas-MúneraUniversidad Austral de Chile Campus Patagonia

After working in Quibdó, Colombia, promoting heritage and museum’s collections at the classroom with afro-descendants youths, Anamaría moves to Coyhaique, Chile, to work as the museologist for the project to create the Red de Museos Aysén. She earned her MA degree in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester, and her BA degree in International Relations from the Universidad del Norte, Colombia. As a museum consultant, she has worked for education and accessibility projects in archaeological and Human Rights museums. Anamaría is member of the independent editorial board of Revista de Aysenología, the journal of Aysén Regional Museum.

30

‘Porto M’ in Opposition to the Category of the ‘Migration Museum’: A denial of the Museum in A Postcolonial Perspective

‘Porto M’ is a ‘place’ in Lampedusa where the Collective ‘Askavusa’ collects since 2009 objects landed on the Island, which have belonged to migrant people. Despite many elements (a collection, a venue, the exhibition) would suggest the existence of a museum, such medium seems to be deliberately denied in relation to migration issue and in a postcolonial perspective. In a cave (which used to be a boats deposit) facing the sea, the objects are exhibited without a definitive order. Avoiding cases, pedestals, labels, and a traditional museum’s threshold, those objects are free to communicate each others, with the visitors, and more importantly with the territory in a space continuum. Such museological choices are not dropped from the above, but lay on two elements, which distinguish ‘Porto M’ from the European model of the ‘Migration Museum’.

The first one are the practices profoundly rooted in the territory. Just think that the collection developed from and within the territory in a natural path, having been found by the members of the Collective in the local dump or on the coast – initially without a purpose or a clear idea, rather than being created according to a predetermined idea of ‘migration’ and ‘museum’.

The second one is the political activity with ‘migrant’ people passing by the islands, which precedes - both chronologically and for order of importance - the exhibition of the objects, and which takes place on an equal level. These two important elements produce a horizontality which is elsewhere difficult to realize, and which interrogates the usual power relations between the Museum and the exhibited culture.

If such practices seem to lead to a denial of the Museum in a post-colonial perspective, this still passes through a museum form, where the most colonialist elements are seen in backlight and de-constructed.

Martina LocorotondoPostgraduate Student, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester

Martina Locorotondo studied Art History at the University of Naples ‘Federico II’ and then specialized in Contemporary Art History at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’, with a specific attention on Museum Education. She gained some experiences in the Contemporary Art field, such as working with the

31

Learning Department of the MAXXI of Rome and as an assistant of the Italian artist Maurizio Mochetti. In September 2017, she was awarded a Region Lazio scholarship, with a study project about the challenges museums are facing today in relation to learning, inclusiveness and social issues. For this reason, she moved in Leicester in September to attend the MA in Museum Studies.

32

(em)Powering ImagesExhibition Guide

Sound

This captures a moment with a multilingual group in the Newarke Houses Museum. They stop to listen to the Guajarati lullabies on the listen post. Only one of the group speaks Gujarati but he is encouraging the others to listen and share his experience. The group then shared their childhood stories and lullabies with each other after this moment. I drew this image to engage further with the emotions of the moment. By drawing out the people involved I gain further understanding of their experience. This image is partially finished as the next step in the process is to get the people pictured to add their interpretations to mine though drawing and writing.

Charlotte BarrattPart-time PhD student and Widening Participation Officer, University of LeicesterI am currently nearly four years through my part-time PhD at the University of Leicester. I work full time in the Widening Participation Team at the University while I study. I have a BA (hons) Art History, MA Museum Studies and MRes Labour Market Studies. I am exploring using creative methods with an ESOL group to uncover their experiences in the Newarke Houses Museum in Leicester. In this case my method is to illustrate a moment captured from the museum visit and ask the group to add to this, thinking about how they felt and focusing on the senses depicted.

33

Colours of the Ancient World

The picture portrais a coloured plaster cast of the Roman Emperor Augustus (63 BCE - 14 CE), hosted at the Cast Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford. It was part of a travelling exhibition called “Gods in Color: Painted Sculptures of Classical Antiquity” conceived and staged by German academic Vinzenz Brinkmann. Combining archaeological evidence with infrared and ultraviolet photography, his aim was to show the effect of polychromy in ancient sculpture. Antiquity, in fact, was a world dominated by colour in art, specifically in sculpture; yet, this aspect was often ignored amongst scholars, and largely unfamiliar to the public. Lasting from 2003 to 2015, it took place in several venues around the world.

Chiara MarabelliPhD student, School of Museum Studies, University of LeicesterI am a first-year AHRC Midlands3Cities funded doctoral student from the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. With a background in Classical art, and a specific interest in sculpture, my research focuses on cast collections of Graeco-Roman subject, generally regarded as second-class materials, following their status of copies of ancient masterpieces. It explores the concept of authenticity in art and museums, and aims at fostering emotions and sensory engagement between people and objects in the museum context.34

The Collection of Plaster Cast Sculptures in City Museum of Pavia

The Classical and Modern sections of the cast collection are hosted on the second floor of the 14th-century Visconteo Castle of Pavia. The collection comprise 200 some sculptures dating back from the 19th and 20th centuries: there are plaster casts after the Antique, scale models and works in their own right made by local artists. Those casts formerly belonged to the city Schools of Drawing, Engraving and Painting (open from 1838 to 1934) and they were used as models for the study of Classical statuary, including subjects such as the Laocöon group, the Belvedere Torso, the Dancing Faun and the Medici Venus. The Modern section, moreover, includes bronze and marble statues by well-known Lombard artists. By organising drawing classes, the museum tries to keep the collection “alive” and accessible to the community it belongs.

Silvia SalvaneschiArt historian and collaborator, Decumano Est cultural association, Pavia (Italy)I graduated with a MA in History of Art from the University of Milan (Italy). During my University time, I started to collaborate with the City Museums of Pavia, both in voluntary and working capacities. The experience I gained allowed me to take part in several projects, including the opening of the Classical and Modern sections of the Cast Gallery. On a regular basis, I deliver guided tours and conferences. At present, I work in a cultural association in Pavia, with the main role of planning and managing projects, privately and publicly funded, devoted to the promotion of local tourism, culture, environment.

35

Activist Act!

In 1970, the Guerilla Art Action Group were already known within the art field and banned from various art institutions due to their different contest works. However, the director of the MoMA proposed them to re-perform one of their unannounced protest pieces in the main entrance of the museum. This offer was immediately rejected by the group. From their view, the MoMA merely wanted to embrace their critiques as an attempt to be in accordance with progressive art practices of the time. This image exemplifies the current rhetoric of such practices as nowadays they are being exhibited in big institutions. Therefore, their autonomy toward the institutionality of art has been grabbed in as co-option of the work.

Blanca JovePhD Student, School of Museum Studies, University of LeicesterI am a PhD student at the University of Leicester interested in the potential for art institutions to create public spaces for socio-political discussions within. Accordingly, my actual research focuses on how non-collecting institutions use discursive programming in order to sustain an active and critically engaged public sphere.

36

“Io sono l’Imperatore” (I am the Emperor) - Roman amphiteatre, Castelleone di Suasa (Italy)

The museum, in my picture, is an archaeological site. The Roman amphiteatre and annexed museum of Castelleone di Suasa is managed by Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage. However, due to lack of funds, it is partially closed to the public… The same site was chosen by Stefano Conti, author of Io sono l’Imperatore (“I am the Emperor”), a historical novel published in 2017, as setting for the shooting of his book trailer. By endorsing the writer to do so, the national authority wants to promote the area, otherwise unknown or forgotten. Still, this very same authority does not have the power to keep it open and available to the comminities it belongs.

Valeria FlorenzanoAdministrative Officer, Bologna City Council After having graduated in Law at the University of Siena (Italy), I specialised in Conservation and Management of Cultural Heritage. Since 2017 I work in the public sector for the local council of Bologna. I really enjoy visiting new places; I am also fond of books and photography.

37

The World as We Know It?

I took this picture at the Archaeological Museum of Elche, a town close to Alicante, Spain. It depicts the bust of a warrior. What stroke me mostly about it is the actual reconstruction of the figure of the man, started from a single, and - to me, at a first glance - quite impersonal fragment. It is made of plaster, and scientifically rigorous. This sculpture made me reflect on how little is preserved from our past, but also how much, thanks to scientific research, we discover everyday, although, maybe, something will always be missing. I find archaeology fascinating, and I am glad I saw this piece in the museum. It ignited my curiosity, encouraging to find out more about people who were living the place I consider mine today.

Rafael LeonísOwner and Director of Landl Formación, Alicante (Spain)My name is Rafael Leonís. I graduated with a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Alicante, the city I come from in Spain. After having gained experience for many years at various levels in the private education and counseling sectors, I started my own business in 2013. Teaching is not only a job: my academy is most of all a place where people can meet, discuss, enquire, challenge themselves, and make friends.

38

They Walk Not in Dark, But in Understanding.

This picture shows visitors follow a tour guide visiting the cells part in Chia-Yi Old Prison, locating in Chia-Yi City, Taiwan. Chia-Yi Old Prison was constructed when Taiwan was colonised by Japanese government since 1895; it was later assigned as a national historical site in 2005 and carefully conserved and open for the public to visit. In one way, this Old Prison could represent the great authority of Japanese colonial government over Taiwan in the past, and its nature of being a prison also scruples its visitors and makes them worried. However, in another way, after visiting and being explained, visitors do not feel so fearful to a certain extent, which the ‘fearful’ can be towards the prison itself or even the unclear matters and history of Japanese colonisation. It is unknown what visitors take away after visiting, but hopefully it could be better understanding of their past and themselves.

Wen-Yi Liu PhD Student, School of Museum Studies, University of LeicesterI am currently a 3rd year PhD student in School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. The heritage site showing in the picture, Chia-Yi Old Prison, is one of my case studies; with the Old Prison and another memorial park, also locating in Taiwan, I explore how diverse historical backgrounds and accompanying conflicts with different groups of people, which these topics are displayed and conveyed in heritage sites, would affect and influence present Taiwanese people’s identity and its formation. I also have interests in history, dark tourism, negative heritage sites and their interpretation.

39

Note

40

Note

41

Note

42

Email: phd-conference@leicester.ac.uk

Website: https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/museumstudies/museums-

empower

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1024176481056600/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Attic_MS

Blogger: http://attic-museumstudies.blogspot.co.uk/