Toward a Critical Children’s Museology: The Anything Goes Exhibition at the National Museum in Warsaw

For decades, Museum Studies scholars have called for a new ‘critical museology’ with greater inclusion of marginalized communities and diversification of exhibition content, but children have been largely ignored in these efforts. This paper explores the possibilities for what I call a new ‘Critical Children’s Museology’ through in-depth analysis of the Anything Goes exhibition at the National Museum in Warsaw, Poland in 2016. Curated by 69 children, this ground-breaking exhibition radically broke from current and traditional museological practice by offering prominent institutional space and professional support for children’s cultural production in the form of curated exhibition galleries and programming. I analyze the exhibition, its production process, and its strengths and limitations to consider the possibilities and challenges of bringing child-centred praxis into museology. This work contributes to the larger charge of democratizing museum and curatorial practice by upending the patronizing view of children as passive recipients of museum offerings, focusing instead on their capacities for cultural production, critical interpretation, and curatorial innovation.

New technology in Museums: AR and VR video games are coming

Museums have gone through a modernization process which has seen the adoption of new technologies in what they offer visitors. Within the framework of the new critical museology, these organizations have been transformed into places of encounter and experience, the key tools in this change being socialization and play. Gamification are now intrinsic to collections and are a way of inviting visitors to share new museum experiences through the latest technology such as AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality). In this way, the museum becomes a playground and a space for creativity (Borja-Villel et al., 2014). In this research, we focus on what we consider to be an important link between the three central aspects of museum change: sociability, gamificaction and virtualization; and the growing interest in museums for videogames. Our aim is to reach a better understanding of the AR and VR video games developed for museums and how these technologies can not only motivate visitors’ interest but also improve their learning skills. Our analysis focuses of literature published between 2015 to 2018 and follows the analytic structure established by Connolly et al. (2012) with additional features related to learning experience, platforms, and the use of technologies (VR and AR). The general aim is to map the interest of the research community in the field of museum-developed video games, more specifically those that use augmented and virtual reality.

Museum Education and the Epistemological Turn

Education has been part of museum identity since its inception. However, in the second half of the 20th century, the educational role gradually became the main goal: the museum has become a social institution whose educational nature legitimizes its social relevance and secures its survival in the 21st century. The spread of education to all areas of the museum, commonly called the “educational turn,” is the reason behind the conceptual change that is taking place in the postmodern museum, which has its origin in educational theory. In the last decades of the 20th century, the concept of learning as the transmission of information from an informed source to a passive receiver was replaced by the constructivist notion that learning is an active process dependent on the learner’s previous knowledge and experiences. At about the same time, critical pedagogy—as critical museology—brought a critical attitude within the museum, directed to identify structures of power and authority in order to give voice to traditionally excluded communities, and postmodernism added the idea of knowledge as something unstable and skepticism about the Western metanarratives of modernity. Constructivism, critical pedagogy, and postmodern theory contributed to the epistemological turn that the 21st-century museum faces. The change in learning theories and communication models in the postmodern museum, as a result of the epistemological turn, threatens the role of the institution as the only interpretive authority, by turning its message—previously considered a universal truth—into a point of view. The museum faces the challenge of becoming a meaning-making scenario where visitors can make connections and design their own learning experiences. The museum of the 21st century has forged a more egalitarian relationship with society.

Avant-garde art display recreations historised: Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź as a referential case?

Museums can no longer pretend to be mere containers of art or other cultural treasures; their fascinating legacy for posterity is definitely not just the respective collection, but also its idiosyncratic articulation and ulterior resignification. This essay surveys sifting trends in the re-staging of modern museographies; but instead of using New York’s MoMA as the obvious paradigm, pride of place is given here to the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź (Poland). Its original Neoplastic Hall survived only from June 1948 until October 1950; but it was reconstructed ten years later, prefiguring other museographical remakes of avant-garde art displays. Thereafter, it also became, in many ways, a typical example characterising postmodern museological trends. All in all, it could perhaps be discussed nowadays in the light of critical museology as a referential case in the history of heritagised museographies

Interruptions: Challenges and Innovations in Exhibition-Making

Anthropology and its institutions have come under increased pressure to focus critical attention on the way they produce, steward, and manage cultural knowledge. However, in spite of the discipline’s reflexive turn, many museums remain encumbered by Enlightenment-derived legitimating conventions. Although anthropological critiques and critical museology have not sufficiently disrupted the majority paradigm, certain exhibitionary projects have served to break with established theory and practice. The workshop described in this article takes these nonconforming “interruptions” as a point of departure to consider how paradigm shifts and local museologies can galvanize the museum sector to promote intercultural understanding and dialogue in the context of right-wing populism, systemic racism, and neoliberal culture wars.

A museologia pós-crítica segundo os Tate Encounters

Neste artigo, discutimos o conceito e o posicionamento da museologia pós-crítica, tal como elaborados pelo projeto de pesquisa e programa público Tate Encounters: Britishness and Visual Culture (2007-2010), em relação à museologia crítica. Para tanto, analisamos os argumentos registrados na principal publicação resultante do projeto, intitulada Post-critical Museology: Theory and Practice in the Art Museum (2013), assim como alguns títulos dos museum studies, assinados por Tony Bennett (1995), Carol Duncan (1995) e Eilean Hooper-Greenhill (1992). O resultado é um quadro comparativo mais nuançado, a partir do qual se pode notar remissões e intersecções, mais do que rupturas definitivas entre essas diferentes perspectivas. Por certo, adotamos essa estratégia na expectativa de melhor registrarmos a especificidade do pós-crítico. Nossa compreensão de que o pós-crítico propõe uma reformulação da crítica, mais do que seu abandono ou superação, levou-nos a destacá-lo como um empreendimento metodológico. Todavia, trata-se de um método que não pode se autoproclamar como tal.

Un museo casa para la cultura viva

ResumenMedellín es una ciudad de contrastes. Durante décadas ha sido afectada por diversas manifestaciones de violencia, que han mantenido activo el legado y poder del narcotráfico, la corrupción y el conflicto armado. Al mismo tiempo, sus habitantes han sobrevivido desde la resiliencia, mediante movimientos, organizaciones y personas que han defendido la vida y la paz. El Museo Casa de la Memoria nace en Medellín en el año 2011, en medio de un conflicto vivo, pensado como un museo participativo e incluyente, con el objetivo de propiciar una plataforma educativa, de diálogo, reflexión y construcción de memorias plurales. A partir de entonces, ha trabajado en la creación e implementación de una museología viva, mediante la construcción de memorias participativas con víctimas, personas en proceso de reintegración, excombatientes, sociedad civil, líderes sociales, fuerzas militares del Estado y organizaciones no gubernamentales. Sus manifestaciones constituyen un acervo que motivael vínculo con los públicos desde una relación de reciprocidad que permite la resignificación de lo vivido a partir de la deconstrucción o afirmación de lo pasado, incluso lo presente, interpelando lo acontecido, afianzando la identidad y la posibilidad de reconstruir el complejo tejido social haciamejores horizontes. Palabras clave: memoria, museología crítica, memoria viva, resignificación, resiliencia. AbstractMedellín is a city of contrasts. For decades it has been affected by various demonstrations of violence, which have kept active the legacy and power of drug trafficking, corruption and armed conflict. At the same time, its inhabitants have survived from resilience, through movements, organizations and people who have defended life and peace. The Casa de la Memoria Museum was born in Medellín in 2011, in the midst of a living conflict. Conceived as a participatory and inclusive museum, with the aim of promoting an educational platform, dialogue, reflection and construction of plural memories. Since then, it has worked on the creation and implementation of a living museology, through theconstruction of participatory memories with victims, people in the process of reintegration, former combatants, civil society, social leaders, state military forces and non-governmental organizations. Their demonstrations constitute a collection that motivates the link with the public from a relationship of reciprocity that allows the resignification of the lived thing from the deconstruction or affirmation of the past, including the present, questioning what has happened, strengthening the identity and the possibility of rebuilding the complex social fabric towards better horizons. Keywords: memory, critical museology, living memory, resignification, resilience.