Diverse Discourse
Evaluation as Exhibition: Sharing Authority through the Vision Lab View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Victoria Eudy
In and outside of the museum community we often hear how the principles of shared authority and accountability can help create space for everyone. In theory these ideas promote the welcoming of multiple perspectives, the empowerment of communities, and help organizations shed impressions of elitism and exclusion that continue to plague the public’s perception of museums - but what do they look like in practice? Find out in this session where you’ll learn how the Missouri Historical Society explored the idea of shared authority to strengthen the museum’s accountability to its community by launching Vision Lab -- an exhibition dedicated entirely to gathering visitor feedback through interactive, fun, and unique ways. You’ll hear testimony on how departments from across the museum sat down at the same table to figure out how to best get visitor-driven data and insight on some of the museum’s biggest projects, get a first-hand look at the community’s initial response to the exhibition, and hear reflections on the process so far.
Featured New Perspectives on the Objects of the Gran Chaco’s Collection from the Museo de La Plata (Argentina): The Elaboration of a Participative Catalogue and the Resignification of Artifacts through a Collaborative Ethnographic Experience View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ana Inés Canzani
The Museo de La Plata first opened in 1889 and, since then, has become an emblem of decimononic museums. Mainly dedicated to the collection, research and exposition of its natural sciences repertorium, it enjoys an important area of Anthropology, along an Ethnography Division boasting approximately five thousand artifacts from diverse regions of the world. This paper brings forward the appraisal of an inclusive experience set at the Museo de La Plata with artifacts from the Gran Chaco ethnographic collection. Through a heritage appropriation practice framed within the methodology of collaborative ethnography, the objects of the Gran Chaco collection are brought to a toba/qom community leader, permitting access to narratives associated to them. Themes as spirituality, nature, the elder, the connection to other communities, among others, appear in an ensemble of discursive associations linking the materiality of the artifacts with memories and ancestral practices. As a result of the experience, a participative catalogue was elaborated connecting scientific and communitary knowledge, as well as generating bridges between past and present in the context of the museum. A novelty at the regional museum level, this type of initiative allows us to reflect upon the possibilities of recontextualization of artifacts by the opening of the collection to new discourses, strengthening the role of the museum as a place of intercultural dialogue.
Houses of Art(s): Collection(s) and Transgression(s) as Participation at the Springfield Art Museum View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gerard Nadeau
Between 2013 and 2016, the Springfield Art Museum, a municipal institution in Springfield Missouri, collaborated with Art of Space, a participatory design practice now active in Northwest Ohio, on two temporary outdoor installations--the first large scale additions to the museum grounds in 40 years. The initial structure, called Rhizomatic Grotto, was a variation on means and methods popularized by Art of Space in the Center City districts of Springfield. Following the success of the Grotto, museum curator Sarah Buhr invited Art of Space to create a project inspired by objects in the museum’s vaults, a template currently utilized by Ms. Buhr “to connect disparate works in the Museum’s collection with a wide range of community members.” Instead of drawing from the formal or material qualities of a singular object, Art of Space seized on the curatorial role of the community Museum as the subject of the new installation. For over a year, the House of Art(S)—a 24 hour, participatory outdoor gallery--became an active site of rich exploration and inquiry into the role and purpose of the municipal museum, the role of the museum grounds as a field of discourse, and the identification of community members with the city itself. This paper correlates the design intent and execution of these two AoS/SAM collaborations to outcomes recorded in photographs, social media posts, and interviews with a full range of observers and participants, illuminating powerful techniques for building inclusivity through participatory installation, with implications radiating well beyond the space of the museum.
