Exhibitions as Research: Experimental Methods in Museums

✍ Scribed by Peter Bjerregaard (editor)

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 210
• Series: Routledge Research in Museum Studies 29
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

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

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
List of figures
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Exhibitions as research • Peter Bjerregaard
Part I: Cross- disciplinary collaboration
1 Sketches for a methodology on exhibition research • Henrik Treimo
2 Joining transdisciplinary forces to revive the past: Establishing a Viking Garden at the Natural History Museum, Oslo • Anneleen Kool and Axel Dalberg Poulsen
3 Ethnography, exhibition practices and undisciplined encounters: The generative work of amulets in London • Nathalia Brichet and Frida Hastrup
Part II: Sensing knowledge
4 Exhibitions as philosophical carpentry: On object-oriented exhibition-making • Adam Bencard
5 Museum objects in the marketplace • Kari K. Aarrestad
6 Exhibition-making as aesthetic inquiry • Peter Bjerregaard
7 Object-spaces? Sensory engagements and museum experiments • Elizabeth Hallam
Part III: Collaborating with audiences
8 Exhibitions, engagement and provocation: From Future Animals to Guerilla Archaeology • Jacqui Mulville
9 Developing and promoting research in a museum thirdspace: Breaking barriers where people walk • Ellen T. Bøe, Hege I. Hollund, Grete Lillehammer, Bente Ruud and Paula U. Sandvik
10 Visitor dialogue and participation as knowledge generating practices in exhibition work: What can museum experts learn from it? • Guro Jørgensen
11 How the exhibition became co- produced: Attunement and participatory ontologies for museums • Helen Graham
Index