New Directions
Museum Utopia: The Revolution Museums May or May Not Need
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Katarzyna Baranska
In my paper, I deal with some issues concerning the relationship between museums and political power. I am researching to find out if museums can and should be independent from the current political direction pursued by authorities at various levels. Should museums stay in an apolitical autonomy or rather be tools of exercising authority? If they are treated as tools of this kind (and an evidence of this can be seen throughout history) they can lose their credibility and could betray the ideal of searching for the truth and displaying the results of museum activities falsing reality, in a way. It is incompatible with the museum mission implied in the ICOM’s definition of the museum, but also with people’s expectations. The empirical base for the study consist of interviews with retired and active directors of museums in Poland, where relationships between museum institutions and political authorities are often the reason for conflicts and friction. Unfortunately, in such situations (examples of Polish museums will be given), museums become the cause of exclusion rather than inclusion and fostering the development of creative relationships.
Diversifying Museum Representation in Northern Ireland Museums: New Approaches for an Intercultural Community
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Mairead Quinn
Politically, socially, and culturally, Northern Ireland is a complex place. Traditionally viewed as a two community space, our history has been documented within local museums with a particular focus on providing equality of representation and engagement to both Nationalist and Unionist communities. Examples exist which highlight the drive to provide a dual perspective on our historical narrative. Internationally acclaimed exhibitions such as the ‘Road to Northern Ireland’ in the Tower Museum, Derry, demonstrate a long term commitment to presenting the history of the conflict in ways that foster a sense of shared identity and experience within the divided community. The myth of Northern Ireland as a two community space has long been exposed as an untruth. Eclipsed by a continual narrative that focused on the nationalist/unionist conflict, the long settled migrant communities have received little recognition concerning their longevity or role in Northern Irish history. The voices of these communities remain absent from ‘the troubles’ narrative, while new migrant communities have generally been represented through tokenistic forms of engagement. However, with an increased focus on the diversity of population, and a commitment to addressing growing issues around race relations, museums have recognised the need to provide greater representation of the whole community. Drawing upon original doctoral research, this study explores how museums in Northern Ireland have adapted new forms of representation and engagement with minority communities and how the cultural and arts sector is renegotiating the relationship between the local and migrant populations through new forms of intercultural practice.
Different Levels of Mixed Reality in Museum Environments as a Tool to Change the Visitor's Experience in the Museum
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Hector Valverde
In this study, the application possibilities of developments in mixed realities are explored as an element within the museographic space that affects the visitor-museum relationship to satisfy the needs -both of knowledge and recreation- that visitors have and in this way, to improve the experience. The emphasis points out the way in which it is thinking from the digital to understand the possibilities in the design of museum experiences. Some of the strategies used inside and outside the museum space are exemplified from the use of mixed realities and their impact on the visitor's experience to reach different levels of depth of knowledge in an exhibition; the exploration of limits in the creation of atmospheres that allow visitors to feel immersed in a completely different reality from the one they live to better understand the topics addressed in the exhibition. Strategies that can be used to encourage museum audiences to actively participate and extend the experience of the museum beyond its walls are analyzed, such as the gamification of the museum experience and the portability of the experience, are explored.
Authenticity Reconsidered: Ideas about Originality and Duplication in the Cast Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Chiara Marabelli
My doctorate questions the significance of copies in museums. Three-dimensional and digital surrogates are becoming more and more present in the museum experience. Could this trend inform us about the fluidity and, to some extents, ambiguity of the ideas around authenticity? In the varied world of reproductions, I focus on plaster casts of archaeological subject, traditionally conceived as ‘replicas’ of famous masterpieces of Antiquity. My case study is the Cast Gallery of the Ashmolean Museum, one of the oldest and best preserved collections in the UK. Its inception began at the end of the nineteenth century, when casts were acquired to support the development of Classical archaeology at Oxford University. The educational purpose is the raison d’être of such collection still today, being casts widely employed in lectures, drawing classes and museum activities, during which sculptures are deliberately treated as if they were the originals. Labels in the gallery refer to the ancient artworks, too. However, the distinctive features of plaster casts are not straightforward to a general audience visiting the gallery, people with diverse social, cultural and geographical backgrounds. Confusion arises as colouring - the brownish and greenish patinations of some pieces - foster the ambivalence of considering casts as real, “auratic” marbles or bronzes. Excerpts of interviews with visitors and museum staff will show the complex interrelations between originality and reproducibility in art and museums, but will also prove the potential such traditional antithesis can offer if we rethink about it more inclusively.
