Interpreting Display (Alison Hess and Elena Miles)
Applying key geographical methods, such as discourse analysis and ethnography, this section involves exploring the ways that museums construct narratives through the use of material culture. Visitors encounter objects in an exhibition as a result of the extensive work that goes on behind the scenes at the museum, including collection, acquisition, selection, conservation and installation. To look at this process in more detail we will be spending a day visiting the Science Museum and the Museum of London. Through discussions with staff and students working at these two institutions, we will investigate the ways that museum displays can be analyzed. During the visits we will identify key ‘case’ studies, looking in detail at their narratives, intentions, interpretation and reception.
Reading:
- Alpers, S.,1990. ‘The Museum as a Way of Seeing’ in Karp, I. and Lavine, S. (1990) Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution and Press
- Hooper-Greenhill, E. (1994) Museums and Their Visitors London: Routledge
- MacDonald, S., 2002 Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum Oxford: Berg
- Mason, R., 2006. ‘Cultural Theory and Museum Studies’ in MacDonald, S. (ed) (2006) A Companion to Museum Studies Oxford: Blackwell
- McLean, K., 1999. ‘Museum Exhibitions and the Dynamics of Dialogue’ in Daedalus Vol 128, No. 3, America’s Museums (Summer, 1999), pp. 83-107
