heritage-based arts and models of engagement and learning emily dawson [email protected] art,...
TRANSCRIPT
Heritage-based arts and models of engagement and learning
Emily [email protected]
Art, Culture & Education
Session outline
• Introductions • Small group discussions of readings• Emerging models of engagement: Learning,
Civic space, Collective memory, Participation• Pop-up museum• Opportunities and tensions for participatory
learning practices in cultural settings• Further resources
In small groups….Discuss the 3 readings & then we will feedback• Lynch, B. (2011). Whose cake is it anyway? A collaborative investigation into
engagement and participation in 12 museums and galleries in the UK. London: Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Accessed http://www.phf.org.uk/page.asp?id=1417
• Simon, N. (2010.). The Participatory Museum. Santa Cruz: Museum 2.0. Chapter 1. Principles of participation.
• Gurian, E. (2006). Civilizing the museum: the collected writings of Elaine Heumann Gurian. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Chapter 19: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: History or metaphor.
Questions to discuss1) What values are they suggesting?2) What practices are being described?3) What models of engagement do they discuss?4) Which of these values/practices/models do you subscribe to?5) Are there any that you disagree with?
Emerging models of engagement:• Historically Heritage and Arts
institutions have invoked mixed values ranging from elitism and status (the collections of the aristocracy) to learning (the early V&A) and democracy (the early Louvre)
• Today: Learning, Collective memory, Civic space, ParticipationThese are all concepts with long histories but also operate within the cultural sector as contemporary trends
• Learning…what do you remember from Jen’s sessions?
Learning• Dominant models in Heritage-based arts is constructivist
model of learning• Falk and Dierking’s three part contextual model • Problem: often underdeveloped as concept & practice
Collective memory & 3rd/Civic SpaceValues:• Shared cultural heritage (s)?• Remembering and honouring the
past, whether positive (arts) or negative (genocide)
• Community building
Tensions• Spoils of war? (British Museum)• Exclusivity and cultural heritage,
‘them and us’• Exclusion: rhetoric of ‘culture for all’,
but actually, ‘culture for the few’
Pics/examples
Participation as current ‘trend’
• Participation = buzzword• Can be found in funding
documents, institutional policies, academic research and heritage-based arts practice
• Currently seems to be cross sector (i.e. science, arts, politics etc)
• Anyone seen/heard of any particularly interesting participatory projects?
ParticipationValues:• Constructivist learning + participatory
democracy ideal = participatory cultural practices (Freire, Cruickshank)
• Community building• Inclusive practice breaks down
institutional, curatorial, professional and audience barriers
Tensions:• Tokenism in power sharing (who makes
‘real’ decisions, and who gets paid?) (Lynch)
• ‘using’ people for institutional ends• Thin veneer of ‘participation’• Assumes participation is what people
want (Simon, p. 9)
Pics examples
Participatory PitfallsQuestions• How could you design a
participatory project?• What indicators would tell
you it had been participatory?• Why would a participatory
project be worth pursuing?• Does participatory work
devalue the professionalism and expertise of those in the heritage and arts sectors?
Further resourcesVisit:
– The Grant Museum, UCL– Museum of London (various galleries)– The Imperial War Museum (any gallery, and then the peace garden)– South London Gallery
Read:• Bourdieu, P., Darbel, A., & Schnapper, D. (1990). The love of art: European art museums and
their public. Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press.• Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1990). Reproduction in education, society and culture (R. Nice,
Trans. Second ed.). London, Newbury Park CA, New Delhi: Sage.• Duncan, C. (1993). The aesthetics of power: essays in the critical art history. Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press.• Gurian, E. (2006). Civilizing the museum: the collected writings of Elaine Heumann Gurian.
Abingdon and New York: Routledge.• Lavine, S. D., & Karp, I. (1991). Introduction: Museums and multiculturalism. In I. Karp & S.
Lavine, D (Eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The poetics and politics of museum display (pp. 1-10). Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
• Lynch, B. T., & Alberti, S. J. M. M. (2010). Legacies of prejudice: Racism, co-production and radical trust in the museum. Museum Management and Curatorship, 25(1), 13-35.
• Simon, N. (2010.). The Participatory Museum. Santa Cruz: Museum 2.0.