welcome book 2021/2022
TRANSCRIPT
School of Museum Studies
MA/PG Dip - Art Museum & Gallery Studies (AMAGS)
Welcome Book 2021/2022
www.le.ac.uk/museumstudies
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Welcome to the School of Museum Studies Welcome to the School of Museum Studies. We are delighted that you have decided to come to Leicester for the 2021/2022 academic year. You should feel very proud to have secured a place on such a competitive programme of study. The School is a dynamic and exciting place to study museums, galleries and heritage and I’m sure the year ahead will be no exception.
Undoubtedly, you will have questions about the year and about being in Leicester. In this Welcome Book you will find sections on:
• Key Contacts
• Our School
• Our Students
• What to Expect
• Practicalities
• Advance Preparation
• Who We Are
Please remember that we are here to help and if you have any queries whatsoever, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Best wishes – we look forward to meeting you in person on 27th September.
Sandra Dudley Head of School
[Cover image: Detail from Wassily Kandinsky, Ein Zentrum, 1924, oil on canvas, 140 x 99cm, Guggenheim Museum, New York.]
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Key Contacts Your principal point of contact for any enquiries related to your application to study with us is the Postgraduate Admissions Office. This is the office that will confirm your offer of a place on the course and it is to them that you should send any outstanding supporting documents that may be required in order for an unconditional offer to be made. Once you have been given a conditional or unconditional offer, it is essential that you inform the Postgraduate Admissions Office that you wish to accept the offer as soon as possible. Competition for places on our courses is great, so if you do not accept the offer that we make it is possible that your place may go to another applicant.
It is also essential that you inform the office if you change your e-mail address, postal address or other contact details prior to arriving in Leicester. We will be contacting you with further information before the course starts so please make sure that we always have your most up to date contact details.
You can contact the Postgraduate Admissions Office in the following ways:
e-mail: [email protected]
Post: Admissions Office University of Leicester University Road Leicester LE1 7RH United Kingdom
Other information about what to do after you have applied is available on this web page: www2.le.ac.uk/study/postgrad/how-to-apply/after-applying
Other offices of the University are well placed to deal with any specific queries you may have on a range of issues that are not directly related to your studies in the School. These include the Accommodation Office (University owned accommodation), Student and Academic Services (central registration procedures), the International Office (visa enquiries, recognition of international awards).
Accommodation Office: www.le.ac.uk/offices/accommodation
Student and Academic Services: www2.le.ac.uk/offices/sas2
International Office: www2.le.ac.uk/offices/international
Finally, Gurpreet (Bob) Ahluwalia is the Course Administrator for your course and is happy to answer any general enquiries you may have regarding your studies within the School. If you have a more complex query Gurpreet may refer you to the programme director for the particular course you are interested in.
You can contact Gurpreet (Bob) Ahluwalia in the following ways:
e-mail: [email protected]
Phone: +44 (0)116 252 3972
Post: School of Museum Studies University of Leicester Museum Studies Building 19 University Road Leicester LE1 7RF
www.le.ac.uk/museumstudies
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Our School The School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester was the first museum studies department in the world, and it remains one of the few autonomous ones. The School has an outstanding international reputation for its teaching and research. The School’s role is to develop and nurture bright, innovative thinkers who are capable of leading change within museums and galleries.
The School building hosts all of its teaching and support staff, in addition to three purpose built teaching spaces and exhibition and display areas. Most teaching takes place within the School, alongside study visits to art museums and galleries.
In addition to the Art Museum and Gallery Studies Programme (AMAGS) and other campus-based Masters programmes, the School offers PhD programmes and distance learning Masters Programmes. It is also home to CRÍA, a critical forum for scholars and postgraduate students who focus on different aspects of art institutions.
Over the past 50 years the University of Leicester has acquired a global reputation for its leading-edge thinking and experimental practice both in the field of museum studies and amongst cultural institutions of all types. Today, the School of Museum Studies is a place where researchers, practitioners and postgraduate students from around the world come together to push at the boundaries of the discipline and the institution; to build a museum culture that is more creative, inclusive and essential.
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Our Students We recognise that one of the most rewarding aspects of your studies will be the opportunity to meet and study with some fantastic students.
The age range of our students varies, from those coming straight from an undergraduate degree to more mature students with professional experience. Our students typically come from the UK and a range of other countries in continental Europe, East Asia (China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea) and North America (USA, Canada).
All of our students bring with them a wealth and variety of knowledge, ideas and opinions which make studying at Leicester a truly enriching experience. Your fellow students will become life-long professional contacts.
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What to Expect In addition to full-time Masters programmes, the School also runs distance learning programmes that cater for around 250 Masters students and 80 PhD students. You will come into contact with some of these students at various points during the course, particularly during the optional Researching the Art Institution sessions.
The School has 18 members of full-time academic staff. All members of the academic staff are engaged in their own leading edge research, which results in many of the publications you will be using on your course. Although the academic staff are often very busy, we operate an open door policy in the School and you are welcome to contact any member of staff.
We believe that the relationship between students and staff is important and should be mutually respectful but informal; all staff prefer to be addressed by their first names.
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Teaching Methods The School accommodates wonderful teaching spaces designed for different learning experiences.
Whole group lectures take place in our Lecture Hall when traditional lecture style is the most appropriate means of delivery for the subject. Lectures are often supported by supplementary learning materials available via the Programme’s Blackboard site. Slides and lecture capture recordings are uploaded which can give you the opportunity to catch up on any details from the lecture that you may have missed, or to follow up on any suggested reading.
Most visiting speakers from the museum and art gallery sector present group lectures. In 2020/21, visiting speakers included Fiona Bradley (Director, Fruitmarket Gallery Edinburgh), Spike Buckley (Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge), Anjalie Dalal-Clayton (Decolonising Arts Institute, UAL) and Dorcas Leung (HART, Hong Kong). We also worked closely with staff at the Fruitmarket Gallery.
When the style of teaching requires smaller group work and more interactive and collaborative exchanges, the Learning Studio is used. Where the teaching is of a more practical hands on style, such as in the care of collections teaching, the Collections Room is used for practical workshops. At various points in the course and most extensively during the curatorial project, you will be involved in group work using one of the spaces around the School building. The individual and specialised nature of the research project consists of individual tutorials with your supervisor.
In addition to traditional teaching methods, each module contains at least one study visit where all students travel to a museum or gallery to explore ideas and issues related to the module curriculum. In 2020/21 students took part in study visits to: Thomas Dane Gallery, Tate Modern and Tate Britain, London; Nottingham Contemporary and Primary, Nottingham; Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Additional study visits take place in May.
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Student Support Shortly after you arrive here in Leicester you will be allocated a ‘Personal Tutor’ from amongst the academic staff. Your tutor has responsibility for ensuring your smooth academic progress throughout the course. In addition to the five scheduled tutorials that take place at key points throughout the year, your tutor is available for further appointments should you need them to talk about essay feedback, option selection, dissertation topics, work placement choice or any other academic matters.
The School’s Museum Liaison and Employability Officers – Sarah Allard and Ginny Copley have responsibility for ensuring that students access any academic support necessary throughout their time on the course. They convene the Student/Staff Committee and Museum Society and are available to assist students with any issue that may have an impact upon their studies.
English Language Support We are delighted to welcome a number of students on the course each year from a variety of different countries and value the interesting and unique contributions they can make to the course. We recognise that a good proportion of these students are not native English speakers and may be using English as a second or even third language, we therefore work very hard to provide any additional language support they may require.
In term one and two the university’s English Language Teaching Unit (ELTU) provides a course in Academic Writing for Museum Studies that is available to all students who are not native English speakers. These sessions are specific to the course curriculum, integrated in the timetable, and are provided at no additional cost. Other classes and online language resources are available through the ELTU and the University’s virtual learning environment - Blackboard.
Unlike other University Schools we also require that students possess a good level of spoken English in order to take part in the placement module. If appropriate we may also suggest sources of support within the University to improve your spoken English.
Support for Students with Specific Learning Difficulties and/or Disabilities The School and the University are committed to supporting students with specific learning difficulties and/or disabilities throughout their studies. If you know you have a specific learning difficulty (e.g. dyslexia) and/or a disability that may affect your studies, and would like to tell us about this, please contact Sarah Allard ([email protected]) as soon as possible before you start your studies. Sarah is the School’s AccessAbility Tutor and can liaise with the University’s AccessAbility Centre to ensure that appropriate support provision is in place before you start your studies.
Details of the services provided by the University’s AccessAbility Centre are available here: www.le.ac.uk/offices/ssds/accessability
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Practicalities
The Academic Year: Modules and Topics The academic year consists of three terms:
Term 1: 27 September 2021 - 17 December 2021
Term 2: 10 January 2022 – 1 April 2022
Term 3: 2 May 2022* - 10 June 2022 *2nd May is a Bank Holiday and so teaching will start on the 3rd of May
Some of your work on the Research Project and Practice modules takes place outside of this period. Course end date: 09/09/2022
Module 1: Locating the Art Institution. Topics: Considers art museums, their agency and art history; curatorial orthodoxies and ‘curation-ism’; national galleries and national art; exhibitions that shaped art history; art culture; biennials and networks; non-collecting contemporary art platforms; art museums in the digital world.
Module 2: Becoming Expert. Topics: Examines canon formation in art history and its relationship to art museums, artists and artistic practice; considers approaches to art history and exhibition histories, institutional histories and the practice of undertaking studio visits. Module 4 (occurs before Module 3 in 2021/22): Managing Art Collections. Topics: Considers artworks and historic artefacts in museum collections as both cultural objects with social lives and specific histories, and as vulnerable material objects which require appropriate handling techniques, specific environmental storage and display conditions, documentation systems, and forms of security and insurance. Module 3: Curating Now. Topics: Covers the stages of curating and forms of exhibitions, critical practice in exhibition planning and artwork selection, from research and development to installation and interpretation; critical practice in developing engagement and learning programmes, and exhibition programming in institutions. Module 5: Designing for Creative Lives. Topics: Museum space, architecture and experience; building museums and structuring experiences; organisational vision, values and leadership; human rights, social justice and the art museum; activism, politics and protest; engaging audiences and interpretation; marketing the art museum. Module 6: Entering the Field. This module consists of 1) study visits and 2) a curatorial project. The study visits involve a study of the art ecology -- the creative, historical, geographical, political, economic and social fabric -- of a city or cities through visits to a group of museums and galleries and this usually takes place in May. Curatorial project work develops over the course of the academic year. We have regularly organised displays of artworks on loan from the Arts Council Collection. Module 7: The Research Project usually begins at the start of the Easter holidays and continues with meetings with your project supervisor and throughout term 3 until the due date in July. The project of up to 8,000 words or equivalent (100%) can take the form of a paper notionally written for publication, a critical study and report relating to a professional issue or a piece that demonstrates your media skills. Those who wish to obtain the Postgraduate Diploma do not complete the dissertation.
Module 8: Practice The Museum/Gallery Experience is the final element of the course and takes place in the last eight weeks of the course, from July to September.
In addition to these taught modules, a Career Development Programme runs in parallel with the taught curriculum to help you develop the kind of professional skills and knowledge necessary to give yourself the best possible chance of gaining employment after graduation.
For further information, visit https://le.ac.uk/courses/art-museum-and-gallery-studies-ma
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Timetable and Attendance A timetable for the first week of term (27/09/21-1/10/21) will be e-mailed to you before September so that you can plan your attendance in the first week and make appropriate travel arrangements. You will be provided with access to a full timetable when you arrive on the first day of term – Monday 27th September. Taught sessions are usually programmed between 9:00am – 5:00pm, Monday - Friday, and it is therefore essential that you are available during these times. Occasionally students will be required to attend the University slightly earlier or later, in particular for study visits which sometimes depart as early as 8:00am and may return after 7:00pm. The timetable allows plenty of time for you to engage in private study, library research and essay writing in between taught sessions. On average, you can expect to attend in the region of 10-14 hours of taught sessions per week. Attendance at all taught sessions is compulsory and regular registers will be taken. Please be aware that placement interviews will take place during April and May. Please do not plan extended holidays (more than two weeks) during this time. When choosing accommodation and signing contracts please note that there is a very high possibility that you will be living outside Leicester during the Museum/Gallery Experience work placement from 18/07/2022 – 09/09/2022. A very small number of work placements are within Leicester or within commuting distance of Leicester, but the vast majority are not. Do not commit to accommodation in Leicester for this period unless you are very sure that you will be staying here.
Registration Registration with the University takes place online from mid-September onwards. The online registration process involves the checking of your academic entry requirements and the payment of fees. If you have been given a conditional offer and/or are unable to pay your fees online you may be asked to contact the University Registry directly. If for any reason you have a problem with registering online, we can direct you to the Registry when you arrive on the first day of term.
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Museum and Gallery Experience As you know, you will undertake an eight week work placement as part of your course, known as ’Practice’. Over many years we have created an extensive network of museums, galleries and related organisations with whom we work closely on providing interesting, challenging and worthwhile work placements. Our contacts will be sending us details of the projects they would like Leicester students to undertake in 2021/2022 and these will be available for your consultation in semester 2 via a dedicated WordPress site. Please note that the work placement is unpaid and students must find and pay for their own accommodation during this period, as well as any associated travel costs. There is no need for you to do anything now; you will be given full details of the placement opportunities in due course.
You can however begin to acquaint yourself with some of the museums and galleries which form part of the network, as listed below. Remember this is just a selection of our network members, and opportunities do vary from year to year.
Abergavenny Museum Headland Exhibition Design Oxford University Museum of Natural History
Ashmolean Museum Herbert Art Gallery & Museum Pitt Rivers Museum
Attenborough Arts Horniman Museum Reading Museum Service
Beamish Museum Limited Hospitalfield Arts, Arbroath Redbridge Museum
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery Ikon Gallery Roman Baths Museum
Brighton & Hove Museums Kelham Island Museum Royal Albert Memorial Museum
Bristol’s Museums Galleries & Archives Kettering Museum & Art Gallery Royal Collection Trust
Black Country Living Museum Kettle’s Yard Royal College of Physicians
British Museum Lakeland Arts Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain
Buckingham Palace Leicester City Museum Service Royal Pump Room Museum
Cardiff Story Museum LifeSpace Dundee Rugby Art Gallery & Museum
Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art London Transport Museum Science Museum
Clarence House Manchester Museum of Science & Industry Sheffield Galleries & Museum Trust
Collections Trust Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology
Staffordshire County Arts & Museum Service
Coventry Heritage & Arts Trust Museum of London Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust
Coventry Transport Museum Museums Luton Tate Britain
Edinburgh Museum Museums Sheffield Tatton Park
FACT Liverpool National Gallery The Bowes Museum
Falmouth Art Gallery National Museum Wales The British Library
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Firing Line: Cardiff Castle Museum National Museums of Scotland The Hepworth Wakefield
Galleries of Justice National Museums, Liverpool The Lakeland Arts Trust
Gallery of Modern Art National Railway Museum The McManus, Dundee's Art Gallery and Museum
Geffrye Museum National Trust The Royal Artillery Museum, Firepower
Glasgow Museums National Waterfront Museum Swansea The World Rugby Museum
Hackney Museum Natural History Museum Touchstones Rochdale
Hampton Court Palace NEoN Digital Arts Festival V&A Museum of Childhood
Harewood House Trust New Art Gallery Walsall Victoria & Albert Museum
Hull Museums North of England Zoological Society, Chester Zoo William Morris Gallery
Imperial War Museum Nottingham City Museums & Galleries
Wolverhampton Art Gallery & Museum
Imperial War Museum, Duxford Airfield Nottingham Contemporary Worcester City Museum and Art
Gallery
Haslemere Educational Museum Open Eye Gallery Liverpool York Museums Trust, York Art Gallery
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Advance Preparation Before the course begins, you may find it helpful to prepare in the following ways:
• Think about the art collections, exhibitions and public programmes at art museums and galleries you have visited. Think about their missions and practices, their sources of funding and relationships with artists and audiences. What are art institutions doing or not doing right now?
• Visit as many art museums and galleries as you can, even museums and galleries you might not ordinarily visit. If you are a contemporary art curator - visit a science museum. If you have only ever visited national museums, visit small artist-run spaces.
• If you don’t have a fine art or art history degree or background, familiarise yourself with art and its histories. See as much art as you can, and read about it. Good starting points include Art History: A Critical Introduction to Its Methods (Hatt and Klonk, 2006) and any book in the Whitechapel Art Gallery’s Documents of Contemporary Art series.
• Think about joining the Museums Association, or an equivalent organisation which informs its members about current issues in museums and galleries and the job market.
Introductory Reading Although the list below is not required reading, consulting even just one or two will help to prepare you for the AMAGS course. Several of the authors lead course modules.
Art History
Hatt, Michael and Charlotte Klonk (eds), Art History: A Critical Introduction to Its Methods (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006).
O’Brien, Elaine et al. (eds), Modern Art in Africa, Asia and Latin America: An Introduction to Global Modernisms (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).
Shirley, Rosemary, Rural Modernity, Everyday Life and Visual Cultures (Farnham: Routledge, 2015).
Art Museums
Knell, Simon (ed.), The Contemporary Museum (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019).
Knell, Simon, National Galleries: The Art of Making Nations (London: Routledge, 2016).
Leahy, Helen Rees, Museum Bodies: The Politics and Practices of Visiting and Viewing (London: Routledge, 2012).
Curating
Cook, Sarah and Beryl Graham, Rethinking Curating: Art after New Media (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2010).
Green, Alison, When Artists Curate: Contemporary Art and the Exhibition as Medium (London: Reaktion, 2018).
Steeds, Lucy (ed.), Exhibition (Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press/Whitechapel, 2014).
Isobel Whitelegg, ‘The São Paulo Bienal Complex: MAM-BSP-MAC’ in Michelle Greet and Gina McDaniel Tarver (eds), Museums of Latin America: Structuring Representation (New York: Routledge, 2018).
Museum Studies: Objects, Architectures, Management, Communities
Dudley, Sandra (ed.), Museum Objects: Experiencing the Properties of Things (London: Routledge, 2012).
MacLeod, Suzanne, L. Hanks and J. Hale (eds), Museum Making: Narratives, Architectures, Exhibitions (London and New York: Routledge, 2012).
Sandell, Richard and R.R. Janes (eds), Museum Management and Marketing (London: Routledge, 2007).
Watson, Sheila (ed.), Museums and their Communities (London: Routledge, 2007).
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Museums and the Digital
Parry, Ross, Ruth Page and Alex Moseley (eds), Museum Thresholds: The Design and Media of Arrival (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019).
Parry, Ross (ed.), Museums in a Digital Age (London: Routledge, 2010).
Museums, Access, Ethics and Repatriation
Hicks, Dan, The Brutish Museums (London: Pluto Press, 2020).
Marstine, Janet, Critical Practice: Artists, Museums, Ethics (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2017).
Procter, Alice, The Whole Picture (London: Hachette, 2020).
Sandell, Richard, Museums, Moralities and Human Rights (London: Routledge, 2017).
Sandell, Richard and Eithne Nightingale (eds), Museums, Equality and Social Justice (London: Routledge, 2012).
Museums, Contested Objects and Protest
Boldrick, Stacy, Iconoclasm and the Museum (London: Routledge, 2020).
D’Souza, Aruna, Whitewalling: Art, Race and Protest in 3 Acts (New York: Badlands Unlimited, 2018).
Sandell, Richard and R.R. Janes (eds), Museum Activism (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019).
Relevant Series
Whitechapel/MIT publish a great, affordable series of readers that introduce you to ideas and ‘isms’ in art in their series Documents of Contemporary Art. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/series/whitechapel-documents-contemporary-art
They all explore one concept or thing that relates to art: Lucy Steeds’s book Exhibition (above) is in this series. Others worth exploring include Claire Bishop’s Participation, Felicity Allen’s Education and Lars Bang Larssen’s Networks.
Routledge publishes on a wide range of museum studies subjects, including the following series:
Museums in Focus https://www.routledge.com/Museums-in-Focus/book-series/MIF
Leicester Readers in Museum Studies https://www.routledge.com/Leicester-Readers-in-Museum-Studies/book-series/SE0230
Research in Art Museums and Exhibitions https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Art-Museums-and-Exhibitions/book-series/RRAM
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard (CCS) publishes on curating contemporary art https://ccs.bard.edu/research-center/publications
Online publications (journals, blogs and other sources)
https://curatorjournal.org/
https://artandthepublicsphere.wordpress.com/
https://www.afterall.org/online/
https://curamagazine.com/
https://on-curating.org/issues.html
https://journals.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/mas
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Who We Are The main contributors to the AMAGS MA/PgDip programme include:
Name Position Professor Simon Knell Professor of Contemporary Museology Professor Suzanne MacLeod Professor of Museum Studies; Director of Flexible Learning Professor Richard Sandell Professor of Museum Studies Dr Stacy Boldrick Programme Director, Art Museum and Gallery Studies Professor Ross Parry Deputy Head of School; Professor of Museum Technology Dr Rosemary Shirley Dr Alice Tilche Dr Isobel Whitelegg
Associate Professor, Director of Education Lecturer in Anthropology and Museum Studies Director of Postgraduate Research
Staff in the School of Museum Studies include: Professor Sandra Dudley Director and Head of School Sarah Allard Museum Liaison and Employability Officer Dr Gemma Angel Programme Director, Campus-based Museum Studies; Lecturer in
Museum Studies Dr Jennifer Bergevin Programme Director, Socially Engaged Practice; Co-lead Distance
Learning Dr Katy Bunning Co-lead Distance Learning; Lecturer in Museum Studies Dr Yunci Cai Lecturer in Museum Studies Yvonne Lee Operations Manager Dr Nuala Morse Lecturer in Museum Studies Dr Sarah Plumb Research Associate, RCMG Dr David Unwin Senior Tutor (personal tutoring support); Associate Professor Dr Giasemi Vavoula Deputy Head of School; Research Director; Associate Professor Dr Sarina Wakefield Lecturer in Museum Studies Dr Sheila Watson Associate Professor; Programme Director, Heritage and
Interpretation
Further details can be found on our staff web pages: http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/museumstudies/about-the-school/people
Until September…. When you arrive you will be given access to a detailed timetable and handbook. Induction sessions in the first week provide information about every aspect of the programme.
We aim to provide you with a tremendous learning environment - lecturers who are passionate about their subjects, a wide range of challenging modules, facilities in which to explore ideas and arguments, and access to art museums and museum and gallery professionals through our visiting speaker programme and study trips. As a postgraduate student, we expect you to take the initiative in your own learning and to take responsibility for how much you are prepared to learn. We expect a high standard in all academic work and our students rarely disappoint us in this.
We look forward to seeing you in September for what will be a wonderful year.