Posts tagged museums

Erfassen, erschließen, ergründen: Forschung an Museen

Forschung an Museen, 13.06.-14.06.2013 .

Two day, free conference in Vienna about research in museums. Sign up now and I’ll see you there!

burnedshoes:

© Horace Nicholls / IWM, ca. 1918, WWI soldier facial reconstruction, UK

In London and Paris, professional sculptors were responsible for the provision of cosmetic masks to be worn by soldiers badly disfigured during World War I: their results are recorded in the photographs of British home front photographer Horace Nicholls and in a silent film of Anna Coleman Ladd at work in her American Red Cross studio in Paris.

Both sources document the artistry of prosthetic repair, and Nicholls’ images dramatize the psychological impact of facial mutilation – regarded by many to be the most dehumanizing of injuries. Paradoxically, though, the juxtaposition of human face and portrait mask disturbs the equation of identity and appearance on which traditional portraiture depends. (+)

[ IMAGE SOURCES: 1, 4, 2-3, 5-7 ]

» find more war & conflict photography here «

'Racism' of early colour photography explored in art exhibition

“Can the camera be racist? The question is explored in an exhibition that reflects on how Polaroid built an efficient tool for South Africa’s apartheid regime to photograph and police black people.

“The London-based artists Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin spent a month in South Africa taking pictures on decades-old film that had been engineered with only white faces in mind. They used Polaroid’s vintage ID-2 camera, which had a “boost” button to increase the flash – enabling it to be used to photograph black people for the notorious passbooks, or “dompas”, that allowed the state to control their movements.

“The result was raw snaps of some of the country’s most beautiful flora and fauna from regions such as the Garden Route and the Karoo, an attempt by the artists to subvert what they say was the camera’s original, sinister intent.”

Click the link for the full article.

The Jewish Museum in Prague has a some online exhibitions on their website, including the one above that explains the documents they hold relating to the Terezín Ghetto (Theresienstadt) during WWII. 

Furthermore, their collections are searchable online, with many documents catalogued, scanned and plotted on a map showing relevant places down to the barrack within the ghetto. The photo above shows the 844 results when searching for a particular department within the administrative structure in the ghetto, plotted on a map and linking directly to the relevant archival material. 

“You might have seen one of our objects, even if you have never visited us - our loans are all over the country” - @HornimanMuseum on twitter The Horniman Museum has tracked all their object loans on a google map to show how their collections travel. Click to visit the map and see which objects are in which museums. 

“You might have seen one of our objects, even if you have never visited us - our loans are all over the country” - @HornimanMuseum on twitter

The Horniman Museum has tracked all their object loans on a google map to show how their collections travel. Click to visit the map and see which objects are in which museums. 

The Louvre risks losing its magic with Lens move

British art museums must avoid the mistake the palatial Paris gallery is making in sending its treasures to the provinces

[…]

Big museums that are global destinations are not elitist. They are exciting, rich and truly educational. They have a glamour that stops them feeling like school, a scale that lifts the spirits. Diffusing this rare magic is illogical. The Louvre-Lens looks like a clumsy idea to me, self-hating move by an institution that should be proud of its palatial magnificence

I disagree. 

Nina Simon of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History describes eloquently how she thinks museums can contribute to the communities in which they are embedded by encouraging participation from visitors and using objects as vehicles to facilitate conversation, exchange and the breaking down of barriers.  

For more information and background, Nina’s book “The Participatory Museum” i available to read free online. A great feature of reading the book online, is that each section is presented alongside comments and discussion by readers too, including Nina’s responses to comments. She walks the walk. 

Holocaust Museums in Israel Evolve

It isn’t only the history of the Holocaust that you see on display in Israel’s Holocaust museums. It’s also the history of the history of the Holocaust. There is an archaeology of trauma to be found if you look closely, and in its layers and transmutations you see how a nation has wrestled with the burden of one of history’s immense horrors.

The New York Times

Brooklyn Museum's Latest Crowd-Curated Show Tells Visitors to Move Beyond the "Like" Button

“For its upcoming exhibition “GO: a community-curated open studio project,” the Brooklyn Museum is asking the public to play curator. On the weekend of September 8-9, over 1,860 registered studios across Brooklyn will open their doors to scores of intrepid amateur critics. Those who visit at least five studios can vote for their favorites online; Brooklyn Museum curators will select the final works from the 10 most popular artists’ studios.”

The project is designed in such a way that people have to actively engage in order to vote in order to weed out “passive observers and careless voters”, their reaction cannot be an instant one as they must first consider several examples. The project is based on a previous exhibition which asked people to rate photographs online. Statistics showed that participation by some people went beyond a passing engagement of a few minutes. Some people were spending up to three hours rating photographs and investing their time. 

How to survive a Long Night of Museums

Jenni Fuchs’ blog offers some vital tips and tricks for making the most of the Long Night of Museums events that are held the world over. Whilst the information is based on the Berlin version, many of the tips are transferable to other cities. Add you comments and supplementary advice in the comments section!

Austria’s “Lange Nacht der Museen” will be on October 6th this year. The information is available in English and in German. 

Required Reading: "The Participatory Museum" by Nina Simon

Nina Simon’s book is described as “a practical guide to working with community members and visitors to make cultural institutions more dynamic, relevant, essential places”, and is available either to buy, or as a free online resource. 

Elaine Heumann Gurian reviewed it, writing:

“In concentrating on the practical, this book makes implementation possible in most museums.  More importantly, in describing the philosophy and rationale behind participatory activity, it makes clear that action does not always require new technology or machinery.  Museums need to change, are changing, and will change further in the future.  This book is a helpful and thoughtful road map for speeding such transformation.”

If you want a short introduction to what Nina Simon means by “Participatory Museum”, there is a video on her YouTube channel. 

Conference: Disturbing Pasts: Memories, Controversies and Creativity

Traumatic pasts have complex and often dramatic influences on the present. In many countries, legacies of war, colonialism, genocide and oppression return again and again to dominate contemporary politics, culture and society. The controversies surrounding traumatic pasts can shape policy, make or break governments, trigger mass demonstrations, and even spark violent confrontation. These pasts also inspire rich visual and creative responses, through which the past is remembered, remade and challenged, and the public space of the modern museum is the primary venue for these responses.

Museum of Ethnology, Vienna, on the 20th to 22nd November, 2012

Sending a registration email now, see you there? 

attic-museumstudies.blogspot.co.at

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The Jewish Museum, New York takes a nice approach to rules in their gallery. Rather than explicitly forbidding things, they use some friendly humour to emphasise what visitors can do.  We know visiting museums can really work up an appetite, but eating and drinking in the galleries just isn’t kosher. Fortunately, our cafe is! Visit Lox on B level when hunger strikes you. The artists in our exhibitions use every kind of media—ink, paint, charcoal, gouache, etc. If you’re feeling inspired while you’re here, please write or sketch in pencil! Museums don’t need to be intimidating or stick-in-the-mud. Another nice example I’ve seen was at The National Trust’s Speke Hall property in Liverpool. Instead of having signs on the furniture saying “Do not sit” or roping things off, they had a small bunch of holly to discourage visitors from plonking themselves down on objects meant only for decoration. 

The Jewish Museum, New York takes a nice approach to rules in their gallery. Rather than explicitly forbidding things, they use some friendly humour to emphasise what visitors can do. 

We know visiting museums can really work up an appetite, but eating and drinking in the galleries just isn’t kosher. Fortunately, our cafe is! 
Visit Lox on B level when hunger strikes you.
The artists in our exhibitions use every kind of media—ink, paint, charcoal, gouache, etc. If you’re feeling inspired while you’re here, please write or sketch in pencil!

Museums don’t need to be intimidating or stick-in-the-mud. Another nice example I’ve seen was at The National Trust’s Speke Hall property in Liverpool. Instead of having signs on the furniture saying “Do not sit” or roping things off, they had a small bunch of holly to discourage visitors from plonking themselves down on objects meant only for decoration. 

Zuma calls for the decolonising of museums

“Our museums must be transformed to become centres of heritage and expertise which respect all peoples and cultures,” Zuma said in a speech prepared for delivery at the reburial of Klaas and Trooi Pienaar in Kuruman.

The bodies of the couple, who were Khoisan descendants, were dug up and sent to Vienna by Austrian scientist Rudolph Pöch in 1909. They were workers on the farm Pienaarsputs, and died of malaria fever in May and June that year. Their bodies were dug up in October 1909, wrapped in linen and forced into a large barrel, which was filled with salt to preserve them.