What Are Exhibitions For? An Anthropological Approach PDF
Preview What Are Exhibitions For? An Anthropological Approach
What are Exhibitions for? ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BLOOMSBURY: The Inbetweenness of Things , edited by Paul Basu The Japanese House , Inge Daniels Micromuseology , Fiona Candlin What are Exhibitions for? An Anthropological Approach Inge Daniels With photography by Susan Andrews BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2019 Paperback edition published 2020 Copyright © Inge Daniels, 2020 Inge Daniels has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Author of this work. Cover design by Maria Bazhanova Cover image © Laura Haapio-Kirk All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third- party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-6535-2 PB: 978-1-3500-6539-0 ePDF: 978-1-3500-6536-9 ePub: 978-1-3500-6537-6 T ypeset by Refi neCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk To fi nd out more about our authors and books visit w ww.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our n ewsletters In memory of Yutaka Kagemori and Seiichi Takahashi, two intellectual giants and big- hearted friends, who are tremendously missed. All reasonable attempts have been made to trace copyright holders of images and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in copyright acknowledgement and would be grateful if notifi ed of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book. Contents Acknowledgements viii Introduction: What are Exhibitions for? 1 SPREAD 1: The AHJ booklet – A practical tool to study exhibition visitors 25 1 Representational and Performative Knowledge 31 SPREAD 2: Mike – ‘There is a connecting memory in my feet’ 57 2 Photography, Exhibition Design and Atmosphere 63 SPREAD 3: Sue – ‘Photography students have been very surprised to learn that what appears to be an actual window is in fact an illusion’ 85 3 Similarities and Stereotypes 91 SPREAD 4: Jen – ‘I was very interested in anime and manga’ 125 4 To Learn or not to Learn? 131 SPREAD 5: Natasha – ‘And I have been putting them in the dishwasher!’ 159 SPREAD 6: Natalia – ‘It is in our shower because it’s very useful’; Molly – ‘It is something I found and can’t give away’ 165 5 Photography, Performance and Play 171 SPREAD 7: Ali – ‘I never found England a very interesting place’ 195 Conclusion: Exhibitions as Technologies of the Imagination 201 Notes 211 References 217 vii Acknowledgements My warmest thanks go to my friends in Japan who have generously supported me over the past twenty years. I am deeply grateful to Yutaka, Noriko and Shigeko Kagemori without whom I would never have been able to produce the exhibition that is the focus of this book. They not only gave us permission to use their home as a template for the show, but they went out of their way to assist me in collecting objects, transformed a whole room in their tiny fl at into a storage space, and organized the transport of the objects back to London. Noriko and Yutaka were also the only participants from my original 2003 research who travelled to London to see the exhibition and throughout this book I will draw on their frank comments, and on their performative engagements with the displays. Other Japanese friends who played a key role in the success of this project are the Takahashis, the Matsuis, the Tsumuras, the Nishikis, and the Nittas: we employed life-s ize photos of their homes and they donated a variety of items of domestic material culture to the show. Finally, special thanks go to Kema(ke), whose effort in sending an endless stream of postal packages from Yokohama, containing a myriad of treasures that make up the fabric of banal everyday life in Japan, has been truly heroic. Her quirky insights have also brought a much- needed humorous touch to the exhibition. Huge thanks go to Susan (Sue) Andrews, who co- curated the show with me. She has been responsible for much of the visual experimentation that was central to the exhibition, and she was also instrumental in the visual study we conducted in the homes of participants in our raffl e study. I am also very grateful for the time and effort she has put into the selection and preparation of all the photographs that feature in this book. I would also like to thank Danny Miller for being a tremendously inspirational and supportive mentor, whose generosity I will never be able to repay. Professor Akiko Mori invited me to present my research at a conference at the Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku) in Osaka and the participants in this event were instrumental in helping me to fi ne-t une the overall ideas expressed in this book. A generous grant from this museum also allowed me to spent two months to familiarize myself with museological debates pertaining to this project. I also want to thank Laura Haapio-Kirk and Rosanna Blakeley for collecting such high-q uality data. Laura also created the beautiful maps that have added another dimension to this book. I also want to thank Charlie Crook, Chris Laver and Maria Bazhanova for producing the mock-u ps that were used as templates for the book as well as my PhD students, but especially Julien Dugnoille, Maria Salaru, Alex Donnelly and Mayanka Mukherji, for providing me with much-n eeded intellectual stimulation and humorous (and alcoholic) relief. Without the support, trust and generosity of the Geffrye Museum in London this book would not have been possible. I would particularly like to express my gratitude to Eleanor John and Alex Godard, two visionary curators, whose patience, I am sure, I have tested to the limits. I owe special thanks to both the Geffrye Museum and the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford for viii Acknowledgements ix funding my visitor study, while a Sasakawa travel grant made it possible for me to transport many of the objects from Osaka to London. My deepest gratitude also goes to those visitors to the exhibition, who have happily shared their experiences of, and thoughts about, the displays with us. I also wish to thank the nine participants in our raffl e study (Ali, Jen, Mike, Molly, Natalia, Natasha, the O’Donnells, the Waghorns and Steven) as well as the Kosaka family, who have all welcomed us into their homes, patiently answered questions and allowed us to take photographs. Above all, I am grateful to my brother Johan for his continuous support and to my sister Linde for her special brand of ‘Skype Therapy’. Finally, the person who, without a doubt, has ‘suffered’ most, while patiently enduring the many ups and downs of this project, is my husband and companion, Shaun. His boundless love and care – as well as endless supplies of sushi! – have carried me through the joys and diffi culties of writing. I thank him last because he really knows how much these pages mean.
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