The Thing about Museums: Objects and Experience, Representation and Contestation

417 Pages·2012·4.626 MB·English

by  Sandra Dudley, Amy Jane Barnes, Jennifer Binnie, Julia Petrov and Jennifer Walklate

THE
THING
ABOUT
MUSEUMS
OBJECTS AND EXPERIENCE,
REPRESENTATION AND CONTESTATION
EDITED BY SANDRA DUDLEY, AMY JANE BARNES,
JENNIFER BINNIE, JULIA PETROV AND JENNIFER WALKLATE
The Thing about Museums
The Thing about Museums constitutes a unique, highly diverse collection of essays
unprecedented in existing books in either museum and heritage studies or mate-
rial culture studies. Taking varied perspectives and presenting a range of case
studies, the chapters all address objects in the context of museums, galleries and/
or the heritage sector more broadly. Specifically, the book deals with how objects
are constructed in museums, the ways in which visitors may directly experience
those objects, how objects are utilised within particular representational strategies
and forms, and the challenges and opportunities presented by using objects to
communicate difficult and contested matters. Topics and approaches examined
in the book are diverse, but include the objectification of natural history specimens
and museum registers; materiality, immateriality, transience and absence; subject/
object boundaries; sensory, phenomenological perspectives; the museumisation
of objects and collections; and the dangers inherent in assuming that objects,
interpretation and heritage are ‘good’ for us.
Sandra Dudley is Senior Lecturer in the School of Museum Studies, University
of Leicester, UK. Recent books include Materialising Exile: material culture and embodied
experience among Karenni refugees in Thailand (2010) and Museum Materialities (Routledge
2010).
Amy Jane Barnes has recently completed doctoral research on the collection,
interpretation and display of visual culture of the Chinese Cultural Revolution
in contemporary British museums (University of Leicester 2009).
Jennifer Binnie, University of Leicester, UK, is looking at the impact which
art within museums and galleries may have upon well-being.
Julia Petrov, University of Leicester, UK. Her current project traces the develop-
ment of dress exhibitions in museums in England and North America over the
twentieth century.
Jennifer Walklate, University of Leicester, UK. Her Arts and Humanities
Research Council-funded research explores and compares the production of
temporal experiences in museums and works of literature.

The Thing about Museums
Objects and Experience, Representation
and Contestation
Essays in Honour of Professor
Susan M. Pearce
Edited by Sandra Dudley, Amy Jane
Barnes, Jennifer Binnie, Julia Petrov
and Jennifer Walklate
First published 2012
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 Sandra Dudley, Amy Jane Barnes, Jennifer Binnie, Julia Petrov and Jennifer
Walklate for selection and editorial matter; individual contributions, the contributors.
The right of Sandra Dudley, Amy Jane Barnes, Jennifer Binnie, Julia Petrov and Jennifer
Walklate to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for
their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
The thing about museums : objects and experience, representation and contestation : essays
in honour of professor Susan M. Pearce / edited by Sandra Dudley . . . [et al.].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Museum exhibits–Case studies. 2. Museum techniques–Case studies.
3. Museums–Philosophy. I. Dudley, Sandra H. II. Pearce, Susan M.
AM151.T55 2011
069′.5–dc22
2011011489
ISBN: 978-0-415-67904-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-80352-3 (ebk)
Typeset in 10/12pt Baskerville
by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong
For Susan Pearce

Contents
List of illustrations xi
List of contributors xv
Preface xx
1 Introduction: museums and things 1
SANDRA DUDLEY
PART I
Objects and their creation in the museum 13
Introduction 15
JENNIFER WALKLATE
2 Romancing the stones: earth science objects as
material culture 18
HANNAH-LEE CHALK
3 What do we know about what we know?
The museum ‘register’ as museum object 31
GEOFFREY N. SWINNEY
4 Emblematic museum objects of national
significance: in search of their multiple
meanings and values 47
MARLEN MOULIOU AND DESPINA KALESSOPOULOU
5 Musealisation processes in the realm of art 69
MARIA LUCIA DE NIEMEYER MATHEUS LOUREIRO
viii Contents
6 Photography – museum: on posing, imageness
and the punctum 79
KLAUS WEHNER
PART II
Visitors’ engagements with museum objects 95
Introduction 97
JENNIFER BINNIE
7 Things and theories: the unstable presence of
exhibited objects 100
CHRIS DORSETT
8 Inexperienced museum visitors and how they
negotiate contemporary art: a comparative study
of two visitor-driven visual art presentations 117
MARIJKE VAN EECKHAUT
9 Illuminating narratives: period rooms and
tableaux vivants 131
MICHAEL KATZBERG
10 Magic objects/modern objects: heroes’ house
museums 143
LINDA YOUNG
11 ‘Do not touch’: a discussion on the problems
of a limited sensory experience with objects in
a gallery or museum context 159
HELEN SAUNDERSON
12 Living objects: a theory of museological objecthood 171
WING YAN VIVIAN TING
13 The poetic triangle of objects, people and writing
creatively: using museum collections to inspire
linguistic creativity and poetic understanding 182
NIKKI CLAYTON AND MARK GOODWIN
Contents ix
14 Location and intervention: visual practice enabling
a synchronic view of artefacts and sites 199
SHIRLEY CHUBB
PART III
The uses of objects in museum representations 215
Introduction 217
AMY JANE BARNES
15 Spectacle and archive in two contemporary art
museums in Spain 219
ROGER SANSI
16 Playing dress-up: inhabiting imagined spaces
through museum objects 230
JULIA PETROV
17 Material object and immaterial collector: is there
room for the collector-donor discourse in the
museal space? 242
CAROLINE BERGERON
18 Exhibiting absence in the museum 250
HELEN REES LEAHY
19 Arctic ‘relics’: the construction of history, memory
and narratives at the National Maritime Museum 263
CLAIRE WARRIOR
PART IV
Objects and difficult subjects 277
Introduction 279
JULIA PETROV
20 Challenged pasts and the museum: the case of
Ghanaian kente 282
MALIKA KRAAMER