Intercultural Dialogues in Third Spaces: A Study of Learning Experiences of Museum Visitors

Bodo (2012) called for the need of museum exhibitions to create “third spaces” where individuals can cross the boundaries of belonging (both physical and psychological) to engage in intercultural dialogues. The imaginary cultural space of museum has propelled us into a realization that we are in an era where interculturality, transculturalism, and the eventual prospect of identifying a cosmopolitan citizenship can become a reality. Predicated on a five-month ethnography work at a provincial museum in British Columbia, Canada, this research explores the following questions: how have cultural and historical museum exhibitions put us in contact with the other and foster an understanding of the other? And how has transculturalism led to the establishment of a cosmopolitan citizenship? This study lends support to the potentiality of a cultural and historical museum transforming into “third spaces” where visitors may actively engage in exploration of complex multitudes of cultural identities and cosmopolitan citizenship. The findings of this study contribute to the literature on “third spaces” and transculturalism by providing an empirical study of learning experiences of visitors in museums. It reaffirms the notion of transculturalism by proposing a new humanism in recognition of the other, and in expressing oneself in a conscious subjective manner with cultural empathy. From a practical perspective, it suggests that in order to encourage international visitors to cross the cultural and psychological boundaries and engage in dialogues, the museum professionals may design interactive programs in a creative manner. It also suggests that museum administrators improve their services to more diverse groups of visitors to enhance inclusiveness.

Thoughts and Highlights Involving an Urban Museum Education Partnership and a University

This chapter examines the partnership between an urban art museum and a university. It involves museum educators, art education faculty, and undergraduate students. It specifically explores the development of hands-on museum activities for elementary students created by the university participants. The chapter is written from a higher education perspective. It provides a description of all facets of the partnership from its planning to the completion of the museum activities. The partnership provided the university students authentic museum experiences and ways to make professional connections with museum professionals. Recommendations for those who wish to develop university/museum partnerships are shared.

Jason Rhoades’s SLOTO

This chapter is dedicated to Jason Rhoades’s SLOTO. The Secret Life of the Onion (2003), a complex, multilayered, site-specific installation artwork in the collection of the Van Abbemuseum. [Figure 20] It introduces the problem of perpetuating a site-specific installation that includes processes of growth and transformation, not only in content but also in form. Museum professionals are often confronted with profound questions in order to keep processual artworks alive and sometimes need to make radical decisions when reinstalling the work in different contexts than foreseen by the artist. Comparative examples are Dieter Roth’s Garden Sculpture (1968–1996) and Jason Rhoades’s P.I.G. (Piece in Ghent) (1994).

Staging the Past: The Period Room in New Zealand

<p>Before 1940, few of the nation’s museums actively collected or displayed artefacts associated with the history of European settlement in New Zealand. Over the following three decades, an interest in ‘colonial history’ blossomed and collections grew rapidly. Faced with the challenge of displaying material associated with the homes of early settlers, museums adopted the period room as a strategy of display. The period room subsequently remained popular with museum professionals until the 1980s, when the type of history that it had traditionally been used to represent was increasingly brought into question. Filling a gap in the literature that surrounds museums and their practices in New Zealand, this thesis attempts to chart the meteoric rise and fall of the period room in New Zealand. Taking the two period rooms that were created for the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition in 1939 as its starting point, the thesis begins by considering the role that the centennials, jubilees and other milestones celebrated around New Zealand in the 1940s and 1950s played in the development of period rooms in this country, unpacking the factors that fuelled the popularity of this display mode among exhibition organisers and museum professionals. The thesis then charts the history of the period room in the context of three metropolitan museums – the Otago Early Settlers Museum, the Canterbury Museum, and the Dominion Museum – looking at the physical changes that were made to these displays over time, the attitudes that informed these changes, and the role that period rooms play in these institutions today.</p>

Staging the Past: The Period Room in New Zealand

<p>Before 1940, few of the nation’s museums actively collected or displayed artefacts associated with the history of European settlement in New Zealand. Over the following three decades, an interest in ‘colonial history’ blossomed and collections grew rapidly. Faced with the challenge of displaying material associated with the homes of early settlers, museums adopted the period room as a strategy of display. The period room subsequently remained popular with museum professionals until the 1980s, when the type of history that it had traditionally been used to represent was increasingly brought into question. Filling a gap in the literature that surrounds museums and their practices in New Zealand, this thesis attempts to chart the meteoric rise and fall of the period room in New Zealand. Taking the two period rooms that were created for the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition in 1939 as its starting point, the thesis begins by considering the role that the centennials, jubilees and other milestones celebrated around New Zealand in the 1940s and 1950s played in the development of period rooms in this country, unpacking the factors that fuelled the popularity of this display mode among exhibition organisers and museum professionals. The thesis then charts the history of the period room in the context of three metropolitan museums – the Otago Early Settlers Museum, the Canterbury Museum, and the Dominion Museum – looking at the physical changes that were made to these displays over time, the attitudes that informed these changes, and the role that period rooms play in these institutions today.</p>

Learning from each other: Reciprocity in description between Wikipedians and librarians

Librarians, archivists, and museum professionals are increasingly realizing the value of using and contributing information to Wikipedia through projects such as edit-a-thons and the 1Lib1Ref project. As the amount of knowledge in Wikipedia and Wikidata grows, the benefits to libraries in partnering with Wikimedia projects to enhance their own bibliographic records and catalog search results also increase. Conversely, librarians have created an immense number of bibliographic and authority records that Wikipedia and Wikidata editors can use both as resources in and of themselves and as examples of various approaches to metadata and knowledge creation. Despite some challenges there are numerous benefits for working to integrate library data with Wikipedia more closely. This chapter will serve to highlight differences between Wikipedia resources and library catalog records, and how librarians and Wikipedians can learn from each other to improve description and discoverability in both Wikipedia and library catalogs for their respective users. It will also illustrate differences between these two systems in order to reduce confusion and errors when data are merged uncritically. The discussion draws on experience gained from a previous Illinois State University Research Grant-funded project that used the Wikipedia List of African-American writers to enhance library catalog records.

Digitization of Museum Collections

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina Antiquities Museum (BAAM) has been involved in many digitization-related projects. Part of them were external projects where the museum played a secondary part, while in others the BAAM team was a main player. Abdelfattah analyses some of these projects and discusses the lessons learnt from each of them. He also highlights the role of museum professionals in formulating clear objectives for digitization, and the subsequent strategies formulated to achieve them. Finally, the paper presents some of the digitization advantages, opportunities, difficulties, and challenges based on the BAAM experiences.

Bridging art viewing and making: Constructivist museum tour and workshop programmes

The purpose of this study is to investigate how constructivist approaches are conceptualized and implemented in ‘gallery tour and studio workshop’ educational programmes at art museums, and the relationship that exists between the gallery and studio learning for children. A qualitative multi-case study was employed, and three art museums were involved. Data collection methods included programme observations, participant interviews, photos and museum documents. The findings of the study offer examples of educators’ teaching approaches, which reflect constructivist tenets, as well as factors that might strengthen the connection across gallery and studio learning. An inviting learning environment, consideration of students’ prior knowledge and experience, use of themes and motivating questions and facilitation of reflections, as well as educators’ collaboration all promoted well-connected tour and workshop programmes. This study offers insights and strategies to interested museum professionals and educators who aim to provide children with meaningful and well-connected art-viewing and art-making programmes.

Strażnik, badacz, popularyzator? Problemy tożsamościowe muzealników w dobie przemian zachodzących w muzealnictwie

The article discusses identity issues affecting museum professionals (museologists) facing the current changes that take place in museums. The paper is based on ethnographic research and its main purpose is to present an analysis of the evolution, current situation and future challenges faced by museum professionals. The article also explores some practical aspects and particularities of the museum profession in Poland.

Zining as artful method: Facilitating zines as participatory action research within art museums

‘DIY’ publications called zines have long been a way for marginalized communities to record their stories, spread information and organize. However, this article presents zines as a potential research tool for action researchers who are working within organisational contexts. The authors, both museum professionals, action researchers and zinesters, use examples from their research within art museums to examine the value of zines as a methodology. Though the research projects take place within art organisations, using the four themes of aesthetics, communities of practice, counter-narratives and plurality it considers how zines could be used more broadly as a research tool in other knowledge-based settings. The authors provide a recommendation for practitioners to explore zining to engender dialogic cultures in their organisations as well as their potential in shaping ‘major’ and ‘minor’ organisational change.