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Embedding civil engagement in museums
Initiatives over the last decade on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond have sought to reposition museums at the heart of their communities as agents for civil engagement. This paper explores the principles involved in making the role possible, using the example of urban history museums. It argues that this will take time, commitment and careful planning, and will impact on every aspect of the museum's activities. It is an essential task however, reflecting the direction museums should be taking in society in the 21st century, but will only be achieved if there is a change of culture across the profession
Vernacular museum: communal bonding and ritual memory transfer among displaced communities
Eclectically curated and largely ignored by the mainstream museum sector, vernacular museums sit at the interstices between the nostalgic and the future-oriented, the private and the public, the personal and the communal. Eluding the danger of becoming trivialised or commercialised, they serve as powerful conduits of memory, which strengthen communal bonds in the face of the âflatteningâ effects of globalisation. The museum this paper deals with, a vernacular museum in VanjĂ€rvi in southern Finland, differs from the dominant type of the house museum, which celebrates masculinity and social elites. Rather, it aligns itself with the small amateur museums of everyday life called by Angela Jannelli Wild Museums (2012), by analogy with LĂ©vi-Straussâ concept of âpensĂ©e sauvageâ. The paper argues that, despite the present-day flurry of technologies of remembering and lavishly funded memory institutions, there is no doubt that the seemingly âephemeralâ institutions such as the vernacular museum, dependent so much on performance, oral storytelling, living bodies and intimate interaction, nevertheless play an important role in maintaining and invigorating memory communities
Evocative computing â creating meaningful lasting experiences in connecting with the past
We present an approach â evocative computing â that demonstrates how âat handâ technologies can be âpicked upâ and used by people to create meaningful and lasting experiences, through connecting and interacting with the past. The approach is instantiated here through a suite of interactive technologies configured for an indoor-outdoor setting that enables groups to explore, discover and research the history and background of a public cemetery. We report on a two-part study where different groups visited the cemetery and interacted with the digital tools and resources. During their activities serendipitous uses of the technology led to connections being made between personal memo-ries and ongoing activities. Furthermore, these experiences were found to be long-lasting; a follow-up study, one year later, showed them to be highly memorable, and in some cases leading participants to take up new directions in their work. We discuss the value of evocative computing for enriching user experiences and engagement with heritage practices
Nature Morte: Lynne Allen
This is the catalogue of the exhibition "Nature Morte" at Boston University Art Gallery
Displaying Lives: the Narrative of Objects in Biographical Exhibitions
Biographical exhibitions are a museum practice that asks for critical consideration. Grounding the argument in critical theory, social studies and museum theory, the article explores the narrative function of objects in biographical exhibitions by addressing the social significance of objects in relation to biography and their relevance when presented into an exhibition display. Central is the concept of objects as âbiographical relicsâ that are culturally fetishized in biographical narratives. This raises questions about biographical reliability and the cultural role that such objects plays in exhibition narratives as bearers of reality and as metonymical icons of the biographical subject. The article considers examples of biographical exhibitions of diverse figures such as Gregor Mendel, Madame de Pompadour and Roland Barthes, and the role that personal items, but also portraits and photographs, play in them
THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF METHODIST TICKETS, AND ASSOCIATED PRACTICES OF COLLECTING AND RECOLLECTING, 1741-2017
Among all the paper ephemera surviving from eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain, the humble Methodist ticket has attracted little attention from scholars and collectors. Issued quarterly to members as a testimonial to religious conduct, many still exist, reflecting the sheer quantity produced by 1850, and the significance of keeping practices, where Methodist habits were distinctive. This article explores first the origin and spread of tickets primarily within British Methodism, but also noting its trans-oceanic contexts. Apparently inconsequential objects, they shaped experience and knowledge, illuminating eighteenth-century religious life, female participation, and plebeian agency. Discussion then turns to patterns of saving and memorialization that from the 1740s preserved Methodistsâ tickets. Such practices extended the life-cycle of the individual ticket and created the accidents of its survival, giving it new uses as an institutional resource. In recovering the dead, it acquired nostalgic value, but other capacities were lost and forgotten. The ticketâs origins, uses, and preservation intersect with major historical and historiographical currents to complicate established narratives of print, urban association, and commerce, and to present alternative understandings of collecting.Peer reviewe
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