Abstract
How can the production of and engagement with audio guides to a museum’s collection of Baroque and Enlightenment art support community engagement? Further, how can audio guides produced as a curricular project by graduate students, and engaged by college students as listeners, support learning? We take up these questions with the purpose of considering the effectiveness of these collaboratively-produced audio guides as pedagogical tools to address key thematics of peace and social justice, raise awareness about the complexity of achieving and maintaining peace, and prompt critical self-reflection through guided encounters with artworks. We use a case study analysis of two audio guides using a museum visit, post-visit class discussion, and short questionnaire, the research focuses on college students’ experience of the audio works, created through a partnership between Concordia University and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to launch the new Pavilion for Peace. The paper also includes discussion of methods of collaboratively-produced research-creation, since the audio guides were positioned as artists’ interventions, oriented to inclusion, and developed by students under the creative direction of the primary researcher, also an artist-scholar of socially engaged art and public pedagogies. The research considers what goes into the making of museum audio guides; reflects on the social role of art museums, and explores the possible roles of artists in ‘speaking back to’ or ‘speaking with’ museum collections to add contemporary relevance and engagement. These considerations are of particular relevance given the current moment of increased museum activism, political polarization, and ecological uncertainties.
Presenters
Kathleen VaughanUniversity Research Chair in Art + Education for Sustainable and Just Futures, and Professor, Art Education, Concordia University, Quebec, Canada Emily Grace Keenlyside
Lecturer, Art History / Museum and Curatorial Studies, Mount Allison University, New Brunswick, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Audioguides, Justice, Peace, Learning, Interventions, Polyvocality
