Rethinking Practice (Asynchronous Session)
Challenges and Opportunities in Regards to Research Questions During the Pandemic: Developing Children's Social Development and Inclusion Strategies View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ivi Papaioannou
This study focuses on the need to re-imagine inclusive museum education during the pandemic crisis. Doing PhD research is a challenge in itself, let alone during the restrictions imposed to it because of the pandemic. Having to perform data collection in the field was heavily impaired by health restrictions. However, it is in these stressful times that innovative museo - pedagogical methodologies can surface. Mainly because alternative modes of doing research were considered in order to investigate the research questions. How can we finally offer equal learning opportunities within a mixed school group which may include children with special educational needs? How inclusive museum education strategies contribute to the social development and social awareness of children? The paper discusses the challenges and opportunities that arose and how the research actually aimed to resolve the research questions being feasible and meaningful for the children who participated in the research.
Transgender Dysphoria Bronzes: Centering Black Transgender Agency in Artistic, Curatorial, and Scholarly Practice View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gray Golding
I propose an analysis of anti-racist, queer, and feminist art historical scholarship in order to inform a case study of white cis man/artist Frank Benson’s 2014 sculpture, “Juliana” (portraying poet/artist/DJ/Black trans woman Juliana Huxtable reclining and nude) and displays thereof both in museums and on social media. This case study focuses the analyzed scholarship around two primary themes: misogynistic objectification in artistic representation – especially the trope of the reclining female nude – and white supremacist pseudo-science that pathologizes anti-normative races and genders. An examination of scholarship on these themes with an eye towards their reliance on Freudian/psychoanalytic presuppositions, in tandem with “Juliana,” makes it abundantly clear how art history as it spans artistic practice, curation, institutionally legitimized theory, and popular imagination has persistently obscured Black transgender subjectivities and continues to do so.
The Museum as Curatorial Apparatus: Social Media and the Reconfiguring of Museums View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jennifer Eickelmann
Since the corona-related museum closures, museums have increasingly shifted to digital spaces, especially social media platforms. In particular, the discussion about the Chinese short-video-platform TikTok has shown that this development is accompanied by numerous questions. For example, the TikTok account of the Uffizi caused a furor, as some critical voices feared the decline of high culture. However, the platform was able to reach visitor groups that are otherwise more difficult to reach: young people up to the age of 25. Moreover, with the staging of exhibits on TikTok and other platforms, digital aesthetics and practices are increasingly inscribing themselves into the practices of exhibiting, mediating, and curating. For example, digital apps (MyHeritage) bring visual art to life and makes it sing and dance; users remediate and remix this content to gain visibility; museum guards create dance videos of themselves that are also shared by many users; and (especially female) influencers come into museums to work as mediators. Moreover, the visibility of museum content is fundamentally dependent on platform-specific algorithms. The paper is firstly interested in the emergence of new museum practices and forms of participation in the context of an increasing platformization of museums. And second, it raises the question of the extent to which historical understandings of curating and mediating are challenged by social media platforms. With the help of media theoretical extensions and with approaches from the field of Science and Technology Studies, the research aims at reformulating the museum as a mobile ‘curatorial apparatus’.
Inclusion as Tangible Community Development: The Museum of Popular Culture View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ximena Varela
The Museum of Popular Culture in Heredia, Costa Rica, was founded in an innovative collaboration between community participants, university lecturers from multiple departments, students, elders, and local leaders. Collaborative and inclusive from even before its inception (its architecture, for example, was co-created), it evolved into a productive and sustainable museums that not only recorded popular culture for its audiences, but served as an engine of food security, skill development, and expression for its community. This paper describes the process and philosophy behind the museum, and outlines key programs that have tangible, observable impacts on its community and on the field of Latin American museology.
Sensorial Inclusion: Multi-sensory Exhibition Strategies at Institutions of Contemporary Art in Canada View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ellen Belshaw
While the prevalence of ocularcentrism – the prioritization of sight above the other senses – has been addressed by scholars regarding anthropology and history museums, it remains a central issue in many museums of art and similar cultural heritage institutions. Experiencing art with senses other than sight are often discouraged in contemporary exhibition spaces, excluding many different modes of creation and participation for both artists and visitors; often this means excluding artists working in multimedia or non-ocular media, as well as Disabled people and people of less ocularcentric cultures (i.e., communities who prioritize oral traditions). Concurrently, many institutions are trying to improve the range of artists they exhibit and the demographics of visitors who attend their spaces but are facing many barriers. This exploratory research is guided by the hypothesis that there is a correlation between the inclusion of non-normative perspectives in institutions of cultural heritage and the ocularcentric tendencies of those institutions. By surveying and interviewing professionals working in contemporary art institutions in Canada and using grounded theory methods, this research aims to parse out the factors that have led to the positive inclusion of multi-sensory works of art and/or multi-sensory ways of experiencing art, and what barriers there are for inclusion where this is not standard. By analyzing the levels of ocularcentrism of contemporary art institutions, this research can be used to the benefit of cultural heritage professionals to better understand and represent a wider range of demographics in the artists they exhibit and the visitors they attract.
