Architecture and Identity
Architecture has always highly contributed in shaping the museum experience, contents and identity; at the same time the museum architecture can bear its own meanings, and thus adding an additional level of significance. Whether the museum is located in a new building designed in relation to its collection or mission, or housed in a preexisting venue purposely restored, these interrelations could be enhanced to enrich and further layer the museums’ message and narrative. This is particularly evident, for example, when the museum’s venue is chosen because of its particular historical, social or architectural value, and the memory embedded in the building itself is integrated within the displayed narrative, as well as when the musealisation of a site is designed to contribute to unveil the trans-cultural and multi-layered traces embedded in its history, by acknowledging the different stories which have taken place there and contributing to build a more inclusive place representation.
Archive
The archive as an entity above all manages documentation, produced throughout the duration of an activity of a person or entity, conducts tasks that are fundamentally technical: describing, classifying, conserving, attending to researchers and various other actions related to administrating, coordinating, preserving and giving access to documents.
Throughout history, the concept of the archive has not only been dealt with from the point of view of the archivist – of professional management – but it has been studied and theorised within various fields of culture.
Different authors have treated the notion of the archive from the perspective of the philosophy and the cultural studies, such as Giorgio Agamben, Michel Foucault, Boris Groys, Jacques Derrida or Wolfgang Ernst. Also artists and curators have experimented with the archive as part of artistic projects.
Belonging
At its simplest, belonging is about emotional attachments that lead to feelings of being ‘at home’. Places can therefore be the ‘sources of belonging’ through which people construct identities, and they can do this on an individual basis or on behalf of others, as we see in curatorial representations of places in museums. Belonging exists in representational form in museum displays as implicit or explicit projections of group identity. Museums may represent and even foster senses of belonging. However, they may create boundaries of belonging and therefore foster the exclusion of certain peoples or histories. By stressing the connections between places, museums can enable multi-geographical perspectives that constructively open up, problematize and render the complexity of place identities, identity objects and place histories, potentially contributing to the development of the kind of ‘extroverted’ and ‘progressive’ sense of place.
Citizenship
States provide the matrix for the obligations and prerogatives of citizenship as well as its denial, determining both full juridical and political membership and conditions of depoliticisation and statelessness. The criteria by which States exercise their power of inclusion-exclusion, and their relation to the non-citizen migrants, should be opened up to include a different form of citizenship, propelling us beyond the given institutional dimension of rights. This clue highlights how participatory practices (such as contemporary forms of collective public art, music making and literary pratices) may enhance active processes of social recognition and empowerment. They produce a wider and more flexible, though concrete, sense of one own's "belonging here", concerning both de jure and de facto citizens.
Constitution moments
Constitution moments are historicized identities are constituted in museum representations in relation to ‘moments’ of greater or lesser duration selected as being somehow pivotal for and emblematic of those identities. They may include which include: purges; civil unrest; killings (including those presented as ‘genocides’ or denied as being such); the foundation, expansion and break-up of geopolitical units (countries, regions etc.); moments of loss, crisis and recovery; moments of response to Others, moments of constitutional change; moments of suppression and authoritarian rule; of independence; and of denying or being denied the agency for self-determination. A key component of such moments is their symbolic durability and capacity to connect situated historical events to contemporary places and identity work.
Cultural cooperation
Cultural cooperation represents a crossroad of policy strategies, legislative frameworks, funding programmes and partnerships between museums, libraries and public cultural institutions. To support cultural dialogue and cultural management, it is important to understand how cultural cooperation is created and works, how to assess it and monitor it, and how to support it in the context of changing dynamics between diverse actors across local, national and transnational contexts, in an age of migration. As noted by the Council of Europe within the Compendium of Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe, ‘The dynamics of trans-national mobility have led to fundamental changes in the way governments address cultural cooperation in general and exchanges between artists and other cultural professionals in particular.' (Council of Europe/ERICarts, 2012). UNESCO further noted that ‘International cultural co-operation shall cover all aspects of intellectual and creative activities relating to education, science and culture’ (Article III, in UNESCO, Declaration of Principles of International Cultural Co-operation, 4 November 1996). Finally, cultural cooperation is also one of the key concepts for the creation of a European cultural area, as defined by the European Parliament in its 2001 resolution on cultural cooperation in Europe.
Cultural cooperation policy
The idea of a network or system of cooperation, based on a non-territorial approach between cultural institutions engaged with cultural dialogue activities is an appealing way of breaking through Europe’s geographic, sociological and political borders. Cultural networks, at local, national and transnational level, can contribute to the development of new models and institutional practices of heritage within cultural institutions, as also suggested by Culture Action Europe (http://www.cultureactioneurope.org/) and by CultureLink (http://www.culturelink.org/), a Network of Networks for Research and Cooperation in Cultural Development established by UNESCO and the Council of Europe. The potential of these networks has not yet been recognised nor it has been supported by policy makers, as confirmed by the lack of penetration of such themes into cultural policies reported in the Council of Europe Compendium of Cultural Policies and Trends in Europe (http://www.culturalpolicies.net/web/index.php). To fill this gap, field research was carried out with 24 real life case studies and 43 interviews with cultural institutional stakeholders, including museums, libraries, foundations, research institutes, professional and thematic associations, networks and European cultural divisions. These institutions were investigated both within the context of wider cultural networks and as individual initiatives of cultural dialogue.
Cultural network
Cultural networks are playing an increasingly important role in supporting transnational, cross-sectoral cooperation and cultural dialogue, and creating cultural value. UNESCO’s notion of cultural diversity and the Council of Europe’s holistic definition of heritage leave the dimension of interactions and exchanges between cultures to be further explored and defined, for example in terms of ‘cooperation capital’. Also of interest is how the usage of digital technologies is changing the dynamics and scoping of cultural networking and of memory construction, display and understanding in a networked society. The idea of a network, or system of cooperation, between cultural institutions based on a non-territorial approach is an appealing way of breaking through Europe’s geographic, sociological and political borders. Cultural networks, at local, national and transnational levels, can contribute to the development of new models and institutional practices of heritage within cultural institutions. The potential of networks for cultural dialogue has not yet been recognised nor has it been supported by policy makers. To fill this gap, investigations in this project were led on real-life case studies of cultural institutions working in what is defined here as ‘migrating heritage’, organised either in wider cultural networks or in individual initiatives of cultural dialogue.
Diasporic archives
What is the role of memory in the construction of the migrant’s identity? What kind of archives can host these memories? Diasporic Archives suggests cultural memory be considered a contested process, able to account for different views expressed by identities in flux during the process of migration. This clue proposes a reflection on both the processes of the construction and erasure of memory. Consistent with the idea that memory is never neutral, Diasporic Archive investigates how cultural memory is constructed during migration and what are the practices by which events that might fracture the hegemonic understanding of History are put under erasure. It also suggests that archives can be deployed to share memories outside the purview of official institutions and the state. In this sense, diasporic archives can also consist in a personal diary, the family photo album, the community museum, the interactive electronic archive, a collection of seeds, objects found ashore on the sea, and so on.
Digital cultural heritage
The use of digital technologies in the service of cultural heritage, which has been rapidly growing since the early 1990s. In several ways, culture has been one of the driving forces for research and technological development in the last few decades. However, digital and communication technologies in cultural heritage also raise challenging questions regarding the convergence and integration of ‘memory institutions’, the arts sector and information and communications technology (ICT). How could and should cultural heritage be preserved, represented, given access to and disseminated in digital and networked environments? How can digital media be contextualised, interpreted and considered authentic? Who are the privileged users in digital literacy and who is left out in the digital divide? How can cultural dialogue and social inclusion initiatives benefit from digital technologies? New interdisciplinary areas of study and of practice have emerged to circumscribe the use of such technologies to cultural heritage, such as virtual heritage, digital cultural heritage, new heritage , cultural heritage informatics and eCulture, with the intention of addressing new social, political and economic dimensions of sites, artefacts and other aspects of cultural heritage. The definitions of these areas of study and practice have been evolving in parallel with the development of a normative definition of what constitutes cultural heritage.
Display
Display is understood as the organisation in space of cultural objects (ranging from tangible objects to places, concepts historical events or personages) for staged, and sometimes cumulative, encounters between visitors who are assumed to be engaged in co-ordinated acts of locomotion, sensing (primarily looking), reading and viewing. Museum display is not merely ‘reflective’ in the sense that the museum cannot be conceptualized as a ‘mirror’ (for example of society, of history etc.). Rather, it is a technology for constructing knowledge and for theorizing about the world or aspects of the world. This theorizing is done through the physical organization of objects set up in certain ways for pre-imagined encounters with visitors, who are themselves ‘imagined’ by curators engaged in acts of production. The theory embodied in finished displays is always inevitably compromised because of physical, logistical and political circumstances which effectively limit the theoretical potential of displays.
Display politics
Display Politics considers how cultural representations are constructed and how cultural identities are framed in museum spaces. As a place where artefacts are stored and exhibited, but also a site for constructing different identities. With the expansion of empires, museums where both repositories and exhibitionary apparatuses that sustained colonial ideologies. However, since cultural meaning are always contingent and never fixed, there cannot be a single way of narrating history and identity through exhibitionary practices. To focus on the transformation of museums in the age of migrations means to consider the histories and meanings provided by the museum as not-neutral and to expose them to the unauthorised questions coming from beyond their white walls. In this fashion, museums can now be conceived as space of on-going processes and procedures, encouraging participation and promoting innovative approaches.
Document
More than information recorded in a medium it is evident that when one is working with historically valuable archives of documentation, the document is a witness of events, it is an archaeological remain that serves for critically analysing the history of ideas.
Artistic practice can not be understood anymore only through the works of art but the document becomes part of the language that composes a complex cultural production such as the art (in relation to the dematerialization of the art object process).
Art agents use archival documents as a prime material in their work to generate ideas and critical visions, which at the same time produce new documents.
Entwining layers
The museums practices set on a temporary basis have assumed a strategic role in the enhancement of contemporary museums’ mission, because they allow a constant upgrade of contents and tools, prevent the obsolescence of representations and messages, boost wealthy and differentiated programmes, and attract audiences. At the same time, they may facilitate the approach to difficult topics, offer alternative points of view, and pluralize the perspectives on collections and narrations. We might talk about the raise of an “ever-changing museum” model, related to the spread of new programming patterns, ranging from the development of semi-permanent/semi-temporary exhibition strategies – e.g. cyclic renovation of permanent exhibitions, setting of long term temporary exhibitions – to the entwinement of different layers – e.g. promotion of short term temporary exhibitions “grafting” alien objects, artworks or performances within permanent spaces or installations.
Ethnographic Patrimonies
The ethnographic museum is an invention of the age of European Empires. During the colonial era, ethnographic ‘finds’ were increasingly gathered, collected and exhibited in museums throughout Europe. Such collecting and collections intersect with the question of who holds the power to define, own and represent another culture. Since the 1960s, with the impact of the hermeneutic shift in anthropology and museography, and with native communities increasingly requesting the restitution of their objects, crucial changes have taken place in ethnographic and museographic theories and practices. Today, the questioning of the role of ethnographic museums is still ongoing. Under critical investigation is their institutional role as public spaces and their social and cultural mission. Such issues are made all the more pertinent through the persistence of a power to represent and consume ‘the spectacle of the Other’ in global consumer culture.
Identity objects
Identity objects are objects that assume value through their association – usually tangible and material – with place. These associated meanings can be mobilized by museums to stand for affective relationships and experiences of place. The identity object is a concept that recognises the ways in which objects, as understood in their relation to place can stand within and for complexes of ‘other things’: other places (and routes or connections between them), entities, events, relations, ideas, emotions, political, religious and moral positions and histories.
Identity places
An identity places is more or less explicitly and consciously used by individuals and/or groups as a resource for the maintenance or construction of identity, and/or is a place set up, offered or imposed as a resource of this kind through ‘from-above’ representations such as in museums or in the designation of places as heritage sites. It may involve not only spatially displaced settings but also proximate locations remembered as they existed at different points in the individual's life. Individual locations may become imbued with a temporal depth of meaning. Identity places are not necessarily ‘positive’ or psychologically accommodating resources: they may relate to experiences of belonging, attachment to place, personal history within place or indeed to non-belonging and exclusion from place in relation to identity in the present.
Images, sounds, bodies
The proposal of a post-colonial museum has to face the challenge of exposing official History to the emergence of the unregistered narratives it has structurally excluded. These minor histories are able to draw upon maps of the uncharted routes of diasporic, hybrid and subaltern subjectivities. These are alternative and yet co-existent with the official ‘white male’ Occidental normative subject. These stories – these alternative maps of memory – are transported over space and time in historical and cultural bodies: through oral narrations, gestures, tastes, perceptions, touch, sounds and music. Such languages can be considered as alternative vehicles for different modes of experiencing and transmitting memory. Bypassing the traditional Western ocularcentric vision of the world – in which the normative subject is the one who sees, controls, orders and subjects alterity – multisensorial perception in general becomes central in this context and in relation to art and museums.
Immateriality
The questions Lyotard posed in his exhibition 'Les Immatériaux' (Paris, 1985) are more important today than ever as technological change increases and the impact on artists’ practices raises key curatorial questions of exhibition display, acquisition policies and collection management. Historically contrasted with painting and sculpture, the rise of time-based, artistic practices since the 1960s such as performance, sound, light-based, and digital art have challenged the Modernist atemporal, autonomous art object and the modernist display paradigm of the white cube space. As artists from non-Western Fine Art traditions increasingly enter the field of ‘global contemporary art’ their non-object based work is often left to be presented as part of ‘programming’ culture. Without occupying a material aspect, or being rematerialised as document to be archived, such work does not enter museum collections, and hence history, leaving the project of Modernism and the museum of modern art unchanged.
Interactive / interaction
How do these technological, mediating, realtime, responsive content presentation engage users? More particularly to the MeLa topics, this theme reflects on case studies and technologies that develop questions or express ideas of “place” and “identity” inside and outside of the museum. We are interested to include topics and project examples that go beyond 'interactivity-as-technology' from academia and museum design practice. We reflect more broadly on how interaction changes subject-object relations and the composition of self through experience.
Media / mediated
All mediations of the institution and the archive provide opportunities while filtering representations. The affect and effect of media technologies, applied within the cultural sphere, come with presumed educational and social goals, written into these systems. All archives (of which the museum is one) are mediated, so how do we account for the subtle, and not so subtle, details of these mediations. How are presumed "equal" sets of “content” expressed in different ways? Could we develop non-totalised, in-conclusive and open-for-discussion resources? Museum and archives become a location for a comparative media study.
Migrating heritage
In a world increasingly characterized by mobility, travel and social networking history, what could be the cross-border heritage and memories of a heterogeneous and contested place such as Europe today? What kind of cultural identities can be welcomed in and across the European space? Which could be the institutional actors involved and how can they work together across borders and across domains? How can policy bodies support the contexts and practices necessary to encourage this? We are witnessing a complex mixture of shift and continuities from the classic identity-marking heritage of European nation states to a contemporary migrating heritage, a new concept introduced in this project research (Innocenti 2014 and 2015). One key feature of (multi)cultural migrating heritage is the drive to unbind identities and let them interweave in new networks, in new pathways of exchange and hybridization. Migrating heritage encompasses and acknowledges the migration of post-colonial artefacts and also the migration and mobility of people, technologies and disciplines, crossing boundaries and joining forces in cultural networks to address emerging challenges of social inclusion and cultural dialogue, new models of cultural identity, citizenship and national belonging.
Migrating modernities
Migrations – of people, objects and ideas, have been a central driving force of modernity. New ideas, new ways of making and doing, the construction of memory and cultural identity are all processes that have accompanied the mass movements of people in the globalized societies of Europe today. In art the notion of ‘migrating modernities’ is part of a critical postcolonial constellation of artistic practices and research that aim to challenge dominant mono-cultural and Euro-centric understanding of Western modernity. Artists and curators are using and manipulating anthropological, ethnographic and archival practices to challenge the stability of Euro-centric constructions of space, time (history) and knowledge. The research based practices of artists such as Kader Attia and Camille Henrot explore the complex ways migration- of ideas and knowledge as much as people – fundamentally alter the production, reception and circulation of art and the stability of the art object itself.
Narrative Museum
In contemporary museums it is possible to acknowledge an overall shift from an object-focused to a content-oriented approach in the narratives’ construction, which is resulting in a more crucial role of exhibition design in bearing the museum contents. A new array of exhibition techniques are being experimented to more effectively convey the museum message, foster visitors’ interaction with the exhibits, encourage physical participation and create a sympathetic connection. The viewer becomes ‘The User’, who is not detached from what’s represented, but rather touches, chooses, plays an active role and act as part of it. The museum becomes a stage where space, time, bodies, movements and emotions contribute in conveying a multilayered narration.
This approach is frequently implemented in contemporary migration museums – it may be considered an archetypical design model for their exhibitions – but it is increasingly used in other museums e.g. those focused on contemporary societal issues.
New (im)materials
Heritage is incorporating a material and immaterial dimension, being culture and memories a social construct that in-forms, on contextual bases, objects, spaces and practices, even in dissonant and plural ways. The new museum objects are presences that testify both the de-materialising of the documents, the complexity of multicultural immaterial value embodiment in phisical artefacts, and the production of new contemporary cultural processes.
Understanding the heritage in its intangible and minor forms too, as a repertoire, performance, knowledge subject to execution and evolution, questions the strategies of museums and archives towards more open and updatable systems that should enable multivocal and participative processes of self-representation of identities, the re-enactment and re-use of this heritage as an open-ended system, porous understading and performative experiences in a dialogic and discursive exhibition strategy.
How the museums exhibition systems should be revised and innovated, also by the use of technologies, in order to challenge with these new (im)materials the politics of display?
Performative
Art practices with a basis in performance and including elements of performativity are playing an increasingly important role in contemporary art. Works of art encompassing performance and performativity extend beyond the material object to include ideas and forms of process, action, participation, site-specificity, time-based practice, sound and moving image. This expanded idea of art practice poses significant challenges to how the meanings of art works that encompass performance and performativity are processed and accounted for in museums in relation to the traditional (modernist) narratives they have historically constructed. Projects by Kader Attia, Leo Asemota, Quinsy Gario and Lawrence Abu Hamdan all significantly contain elements of performance as a spatio-temporal event and performativity as forms of discursive interventions and articulations as discussed in the RCA’s 'Transfigurations' publication.
Personal / Social
Museum technologies are traditionally divided into two groups: personal technologies on one side (e.g. audioguides and interpretive tools) and public technologies on the other (e.g. information totem, interactive tables). The emergence of new devices, generically defined smart, such as smartphones and tablets, is overcoming this dualism and introducing a new dichotomy played between personal and social: smart devices are indeed strictly personal and allow high levels of personalization of the visit experience, but at the same time they let users bring their social-2.0 life within museums and cultural institutions.
The self-contradictory nature of these devices, that are both personal and social, opens to novel dynamics of interaction between visitors and cultural contents, but also between visitors themselves, that can be beneficially exploited to foster personalized interpretations, as well as dialogue and confrontation.
Perspective / Reflective
In the context of a trans-European research project about relationships between individual museum visitors and European cultural institutions, we concentrate here on the opportunities technologies open up for self-reflection. These ideas speak about the use of the technology of the museum itself, as well as designed technologies within museums, in ways which help people and ideas reflect upon themselves and against one another. Avoiding determination or simple novelty in presentation, this theme absorbs contemporary thinking of the museum as a place where techno-material cultures and identities are placed in relief against one another.
Post-critical
The term ‘post-critical’ was designated in the publication 'Post-critical Museology: Theory and Practice in the Art Museum' (Routledge 2013, Dewdney, Dibosa & Walsh) to describe a methodological approach to ‘problem-solving’ research in the curatorial and museological context that brings together practice, policy and theory into the same sphere of interaction and analysis through grounded, critically self-reflexive, collaboration between practitioners. While New Institutionalism assumed the mantle of structural, institutional critique from Foucauldian studies and relocated critique of the institution and its curatorial practices inside the institution, the post-critical rejects the idea of a coherent ‘institution’ that can be examined or engaged with as a structural organisation of power. At its core, the post-critical aims to enact change as part of the process of its grounded, practice-led and collaborative methodological approach.
Proactive Spaces
The ongoing revision of the museums’ social and political role and the related reassessment of their mission, practices and approaches, might be as well complemented by a transformation and reorganisation of their spaces, intended as essential components potentiating the effectiveness towards contemporary society. By analysing some significant newly built or recently renovated European museums, it is possible to detect the recurrent presence of strategic spaces, that are meant not only to accommodate but also to support and even foster the development of new practices. We may refer to them as “proactive” spaces – where the adjective “proactive” suggests their ability in consciously reacting to events, in timely adapting, or even fostering and driving changes. Proactive spaces are flexible, adaptive, multi-purpose and in-progress spaces, which remain “open” in their form, function and meaning in order to better respond to the evolving needs and activities of 21st century museums.
Reach-out museum
Among the practices recently implemented to potentiate the social role of contemporary museums, the activities they develop outside their walls are assuming a crucial role and proving to be particularly effective. The experimentation of outreach programmes encompasses a wide array of participatory and community based projects aimed at fostering a bi-univocal relationship with the local population, furthering the possibility to draw in a larger and more differentiated audience, and boosting a more active involvement in the museum’s contents production, experience and sharing. These practices imply the development of innovative curatorial approaches, but also the design of new communicative tools, exhibition devices and spaces e.g. outdoor arenas, mobile laboratories, travelling access points, pop-up exhibitions, urban installations, etc. These “outreach” displays have an in-between and hybrid identity, serving as a bond among the museum and the outside places in which they stand.
Subjectivities
Within the RCA project both artists and curators highlighted the limits of representational practices in terms of the organization of culture, and particularly those informed by discourses of the politics of identity based on the visual markers of cultural difference i.e. race. The need to recognise new forms of subjectivity not exclusively defined by migration but also the conditions of globalisation and digital transformation which are dismantling the historical structures and institutions of the nation-state was established. To avoid reproducing the conditions of cultural difference through representational practices, national museums need to acknowledge current forms of subjectivity of both artists and audiences by engaging with the specificity of the work through new forms of display and collection which equally do not subsume it within Modernist narratives or strategies of display.
176
Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration
A centre dedicated to the history of immigration in France and the immigrants’ cultures, located in a palace built for 1931 Colonial Exhibition.
Anna Chiara Cimoli None Paris Cristina Colombo
170
Imperial War Museum
One of the first war museums that introduced different themes connected to a more articulated concept of war
--- 1917 London Michela Bassanelli and Cristina Colombo
172
Migration Museums as Sites of Memory
Architecture intensely participates to the museums narration in institutions devoted to immigration as Ellis Island, BallinStadt, and Red Star Line.
Anna Chiara Cimoli None None Cristina Colombo
171
Musée royal de l’Afrique Centrale, Tervuren
A museum and research centre devoted to enhance the history and the present of Central African societies and territories.
Camilla Pagani None Tervuren Cristina Colombo
26
Liquid Museaum of Mediterranean Culture
A design proposal for a nomadic museum documenting and displaying migrations, multiple identities and cultural hybridisations in the Mediterranean Sea
Chiara Baravalle, Giuseppe Biscottini 2012 None Michela Bassanelli
122
Museum as a "dispositif"
This essay and the related case studies investigate a new type of mobile, nomadic and diasporic space for XXI century museums.
Michela Bassanelli and Gennaro Postiglione 2014 None Michela Bassanelli and Gennaro Postiglione
169
Museion: Cubo Garutti
A new temporary and exhibit device outside the museum wall and open to the community
Alberto Garutti 2003 bolzano Michela Bassanelli
167
Archive and Document
Video about these objects of research
Maite Muñoz, Marta Vega, Núria Gallissà 2014 Barcelona Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
94
Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee (ASAC)
Documenting and archiving exhibitions
Maite Muñoz, Marta Vega, Núria Gallissà 2012 Venice Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
131
History of Temporary Exhibitions
A bibliography
Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona 2012 None Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
101
Ubuweb
An internet archive of artistic avant-garde material
Kenneth Goldsmith, Radio Web MACBA None None Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
100
Prelinger Archives
Rick Prelinger and the “archival anxiety syndrome”
Rick Prelinger, Radio Web MACBA None None Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
99
Redefining the Lobby of the MACBA Study Center
Promoting documentary heritage through a flexible space that facilitates interaction with the public
Maite Muñoz, Marta Vega 2011 Barcelona Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
116
Forum della Città Mondo: plural voices for a world culture museum
Participatory practices to enhance the Intangible Cultural Heritage at the Museo delle Culture of Milan.
None Milan Sara Chiesa
168
Representing Museum Technologies
This case study sourcebook is a snapshot, a distillation of contemporary practice by museums and cultural institutions.
Jamie Allen - Eleonora Lupo - MELA 2012 copenhagen Jamie Allen
102
Art Mobs
A project about personalised and unofficial audio guides.
David Gilbert 2005 None Jamie Allen
73
Free2choose
Free2choose stimulates reflection about human rights and freedom.
2010 Amsterdam Davide Spallazzo
13
Les Statues Meurent Aussi
Chris Marker and Alain Resnais' film about exhibiting African artefacts in European, using innovative camera and media techniques in its composition.
Alain Resnais & Chris Marker 1953 Paris Jamie Allen
17
ARTours
ARTours is an augmented-reality project, proposing an innovative use of mobile technologies presenting and interpreting the museum's collection.
Stedelijk Museum - Design bureau Fabrique 2011 Amsterdam Jamie Allen
19
Who do you think you really are?
Interactive and immersive learning experience aimed at involving the young audience in an engaging journey to discover humans’ evolutionary past.
Alisa Barry 2010 London Jamie Allen
18
Fabrica: les yeux ouverts
Temporary and travelling exhibition involving visitors in an engaging and performative experience with a multimedia museum approach.
Fabrica, Centre Pompidou, Triennale di Milano, Shanghai Art Museum 2007 Milan Jamie Allen
20
WikiLeaks
As for the Critical Archive, WikiLeaks is an archive of unofficial, unsanctioned informations and dossiers.
Sunshine Press 2006 Internet Jamie Allen
21
Making Things Public
The exhibition Making Things Public addresses the challenge of renewing politics by applying to it the spirit of art and science.
Bruno Latour 2005 Karlsruhe Jamie Allen
24
Walkthrough: Towards a Methodological Potential
Walkthrough Research: Methodological Potentials for Head-mounted Cameras as Reflexive Tools in Museum Contexts
CIID / ICCHS 2014 Copenhagen Jamie Allen
66
The Beauty of Letting Go
Sven Ouzman writes in "The Beauty of Letting Go" about the perishable, cracked and imperfect nature of all archives.
Sven Ouzman 2006 None Jamie Allen
22
How We Think
In this essay, N. Katherine Hayles outlines the "idea that we think through, with, and alongside media”
N. Katherine Hayles 2012 None Jamie Allen
93
Living Archive -- Van Abbemuseum
Documenting and archiving exhibitions
Maite Muñoz, Marta Vega, Núria Gallissà None Eindhoven Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
95
The institutional archive of the Centre Pompidou
Documenting and archiving exhibitions
Maite Muñoz, Marta Vega, Núria Gallissà 2013 Paris Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
97
Document vs Artwork
The dividing line traditionally separating the categories of document and work of art has been overcome in the context of contemporary art
Mela Dávila, Pamela Sepúlveda, Radio Web MACBA, Jorge Ribalta, Bartomeu Marí, Maite Muñoz, Jordana Mendelson None None Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
98
Miralda, a practical case of an artist’s archive
Documenting and archiving exhibitions
Maite Muñoz, Marta Vega, Núria Gallissà None None Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
96
Anarchive
Wolfgang Ernst,Professor of Media Theories at the Humboldt University, Berlin, reflects on the archive and on the 'anarchive'
Wolfgang Ernst, Ràdio Web MACBA None None Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
156
Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Victoria Walsh & Bartomeu Marí
Abu Hamdan shares his research on the relation between speech / language the body and truth in his collaboration with 'Transfiguratons'
Lawrence Abu Hamdan 2014 None Pamela Sepúlveda
158
Quinsy Gario, Jelle Bouwhuis & Kerstin Winking
Writer, performance artist and media personality Quinsy Gario was part of the research exhibition 'Transfigurations'
Quinsy Gario 2014 None Pamela Sepúlveda
59
Interview with the designers of 'Transfigurations' publication
Berthod and Brash discuss the challenges of designing a research publication and the paradox between research as process and publication as object
Jonas Berthod and Andrew Brash 2014 London Margrethe Troensegaard
159
European Museums in the 21st Century: Setting the Framework
Exploring current trends in the evolution of exhibition design practices triggered by this “age of migrations”.
None None Luca Basso Peressut, Francesca Lanz and Gennaro Postiglione
33
The Sackler Hall, Museum of London
An hybrid multifunctional space at the core of the renovated Museum of London
Wilkinson Eyre Architects, Furneaux Stewart 2010 London Francesca Lanz
32
Proactive Spaces
A short essay exploring a spatial and museographical feature of XXI century museums
Francesca Lanz and Elena Montanari 2014 None Francesca Lanz
60
Introduction to 'Transfigurations' publication
An introduction to the second research publication realised within Research Field 04, Curatorial and Artistic Research
Victoria Walsh 2014 None Margrethe Troensegaard
110
Multi-layered Religion Representation in Museums
An experimental action promoted by the MeLa Project at the Museo Diocesano in Milan to explore religious assets as potential cross-cultural heritage
MeLa Polimi-Design team, CNR/ITIA 2014 Milan Rita Capurro
126
Gifting the living memories of migration
Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration is engaged in collecting, preserving, documenting and disseminating the living memory of migration
Perla Innocenti 2012 Paris Perla Innocenti
129
Cultural networking and cultural policies
An overview of the emergence of migrating heritage, the changing landscape of cultural networking and suggestions for cultural policies
Perla Innocenti 2014 None Perla Innocenti
130
Living Library
Bringing oral history, human rights, pluralism and democratic participation alive in civil society
Perla Innocenti None None Perla Innocenti
162
Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona
Essay on Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona and interview with its Chief Executive Joan Abellá and Head of the Study Center Mela Dávila
Perla Innocenti 2012 Barcelona Perla Innocenti
165
Mental health and cultural diversity
Essay on Museo Laboratorio della Mente in Rome and interview with its director Pompeo Martelli
Perla Innocenti 2012 Rome Perla Innocenti
160
SUDBLAB
Essay on SUDLAB and interview with its director Antonio Perna
Perla Innocenti 2012 Naples Perla Innocenti
125
A museum as a router and facilitator on cultural dialogue
Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration is connecting people and facilitating debate on cultural dialogue, social inclusion and migration
Perla Innocenti 2012 Paris Perla Innocenti
164
The repatriation question
An essay on the contested politics of repatriation of human remains from the perspective of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle
Laurence Isnard, Fabienne Galangau 2012 Paris Perla Innocenti
15
Cultural policy making, cultural dialogue and creative arts
The European Cultural Foundation works on policy strategies, legislative frameworks, funding programs and partnerships across Europe and beyond
Perla Innocenti 2012 Amsterdam Perla Innocenti
124
€urovisions: looking at Europe from the migrant's perspective
Performing the contemporary story of immigration in Europe, the evolving role of the media and our interaction with representations of immigration
European Souvenirs project artists None Amsterdam Perla Innocenti
161
Idea Store
Essay on innovative library Idea Stores in London
Sergio Dogliani 2012 London Perla Innocenti
128
Europeana
A transnational online portal, an interface to millions of digitised books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records of European heritage
Perla Innocenti 2012 None Perla Innocenti
127
Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration
A French national museum as research centre on the history and contribution of immigration, participatory place for dialogue and network leader
Perla Innocenti 2012 Paris Perla Innocenti
123
Documentary 'We don’t want to work for war'
The story of Italian immigrants killed in 1943 while demonstrating against the war, learned and narrated by contemporary immigrants
Istoreco 2010 Reggio Emilia Perla Innocenti
149
Essay: Defining 'Belonging'
Belonging exists in representational form in museum displays as implicit or explicit projections of group identity.
Christopher Whitehead, Rhiannon Mason, Katherine Lloyd & Susannah Eckersley 2014 Newcastle upon Tyne Christopher Whitehead
140
Museum of World Cultures, Gothenburg
Identity objects
None Gothenburg Chris Whitehead
147
Essay: Defining 'Identity Places'
Museums and heritage sites provide a physical catalogue of identity objects and identity places, with which visitors can negotiate personal identities
Christpher Whitehead, Rhiannon Mason, Susannah Eckersley and Katherine Lloyd 2014 Newcastle upon Tyne Christopher Whitehead
114
Hybrid Objects: Museum of European Cultures
‘Hybrid’ objects which are made to stand as emblematic celebrations of contemporary multiculturalism in Western Europe.
None Berlin Chris Whitehead
117
Transgeographical displays
Multi-geographical perspectives can constructively problematize and render the complexity of place identities, identity objects and place histories
None None Rhiannon Mason
135
National Museums, Globalization, and Postnationalism
National Museums, Globalization, and Postnationalism:Imagining a Cosmopolitan Museology
Mason, Rhiannon 2013 Newcastle upon Tyne Professor Chris Whitehead
155
Museum of World Cultures
Colonial objects can be resources for pride or regret
None Gothenburg Christopher Whitehead
80
Fare gli italiani 1861-2011. 150 anni di storia nazionale
Temporary exhibition on the Italy's history, exploring the differences of a Nation within a narration of intangible contents.
Studio Azzurro None Torino Eleonora Lupo
77
A Oriente. Città, uomini e dei sulle Vie della Seta
Temporary exhibition on the migrating multicultural heritage along the Silk Route
Studio Azzurro None Rome Eleonora Lupo
58
Meanwhile, Vasa Museum
Meanwhile exhibition is a mosaic of stories in the first half of the 17th century that tell about meetings of civilisations that change the world.
Monika Frelin, Ylva Lewenhaupt None Stockholm Eleonora Lupo
39
Rethinking the Intangibile Cultural Heritage within museums
Rethinking the exhibit and experience of Intangibile Cultural Heritage as trans-cultural performative process within museums
Eleonora Lupo None Milan Eleonora Lupo
68
Text on 'Oral Museum Of The Revolution'
Bartomeu Marí's text traces the historical lineage of sound-based art and argues for the new emphasis on orality and voice-based art at MACBA
Bartomeu Marí 2014 None Margrethe Troensegaard
34
Entwining Layers: Experimenting with Multi-layering Pratices
The experimentation with innovative conceptual and physical design practices enhancing a multi-layered upgrade of museums’ programmes and messages.
Elena Montanari None None Elena Montanari
137
Museums and Identity in History and Contemporaneity
Mela policy document detailing the findings of RF01, Newcastle University.
2014 Newcastle upon Tyne Professor Chris Whitehead
132
"Placing" Europe in the Museum: People(s), Places, Identities
This book represents the proceedings of Mela's first conference entitled "Placing" Europe in the Museum: People (s), Places, Identities, held in 2012.
Chris Whitehead, Rhiannon Mason, Susannah Eckersley, Katherine Lloyd 2013 Newcastle upon Tyne Chris Whitehead
136
Placing Migration in European Museums
Book - Placing Migration in European Museums: Theoretical, Contextual and Methodological Foundations
Whitehead, C., Mason, R. , Eckersley, S., Lloyd, K. 2013 Newcastle upon Tyne Professor Chris Whitehead
36
Essay on 'To Each Present, Its Own Prehistory'
The institutional failure to recognise ethnic artist-subjects in post-war Britain and the problematics of the artistic category ‘the contemporary’
Peter Osborne 2013 Milan Margrethe Troensegaard
69
Text on 'Archiving The Immaterial: Old Problems, New Challenges'
A text that discusses the changes demanded of the museum and its archival structures in the wake of contemporary process-based artistic practices
Maite Muñoz, Pamela Sepúlveda 2014 None Margrethe Troensegaard
157
Leo Asemota & Paul Goodwin
The complexity of Leo Asemota’s work and the challenges it poses to exhibiting institutions and curatorial practice.
Leo Asemota 2014 None Pamela Sepúlveda
151
Kader Attia & Sofia Victorino
Attia shares his research into various African musical genres in this lecture on the phenomena of re-appropriation used as repair within cultures
Kader Attia 2014 None Pamela Sepúlveda
139
'One Nation: Five Million Voices', National Museum of Scotland
Film featured in 'Scotland: A Changing Nation', an exhibition of the 20th and 21st Centuries, in the National Museum of Scotland
National Museum of Scotland 2008 Edinburgh Katherine Lloyd
152
Essay: Defining 'Display'
Display is a technology for constructing knowledge and for theorizing about the world or aspects of the world
Christpher Whitehead, Rhiannon Mason, Susannah Eckersley and Katherine Lloyd 2014 Newcastle upon Tyne Christopher Whitehead
154
Essay: Defining 'Constitution Moments'
Constitution moments are historicized identities constituted in museum representations of pivotal and emblematic moments in history
Christpher Whitehead, Rhiannon Mason, Susannah Eckersley and Katherine Lloyd 2014 Newcastle upon Tyne Christopher Whitehead
150
Essay: Defining 'Identity Objects'
Identity objects are objects that assume value through their association – usually tangible and material – with place
Christpher Whitehead, Rhiannon Mason, Susannah Eckersley and Katherine Lloyd 2014 Newcastle upon Tyne Christopher Whitehead
143
Visual Narratives of Migration
Migration (in) Museums: A reflection on display structures for the representation of migration in European contemporary museums.
Francesca Lanz 2014 None Francesca Lanz
146
Europeana 1914-1918. Your family history of World War One
A pan-European WWI archive of artifacts and stories usable for research, education, and exhibitions, collected by user contributions
Europeana Foundation 2011 None Sara Radice
148
Camille Henrot & Mélanie Bouteloup
'The Pale Fox and the Taxidermist: A Foray into Camille Henrot’s Research' was the project Camille Henrot presented as part of ‘Transfigurations’
Camille Henrot, Mélanie Bouteloup 2014 None Pamela Sepúlveda
141
Fare gli Italiani 1861-2011
A temporary exhibition celebrating the idea of belonging to a nation through an exploration of the multifaceted identity of Italian people.
Studio Azzurro 2011 Torino Marco Borsotti
88
MEN, The Ethnographic Museum of Neuchâtel
The MEN proposes an innovative way of curating and displaying temporary exhibitions, challenging the traditional practices of ethnographic museums.
None Neuchâtel Giulia Grechi
30
Ghosting the Archive - A Postcolonial Artwork by Keith Piper
Artist Keith Piper develops an artistic reflection on the formation of archives and their ability to shape our reception of historical narrative.
Keith Piper 2005 Birmingham Michaela Quadraro
12
Spaces of Invention - Essay on Race and Representation
The essay considers the aesthetic forms of bioracism as instruments of the inclusion of racism within modern and neoliberal States.
Mariangela Orabona 2012 None Mariangela Orabona
2
The Lampedusa Museum of Migrations
The Lampedusa Museum of Migrations as an example of a migrant and “in-between” space of contact and contamination between cultures, stories, lives.
Askavusa, Giacomo Sferlazzo 2011 Lampedusa Alessandra De Angelis
3
Archive and Aspiration - Essay by Arjun Appadurai
In “Archive and Aspiration”, Arjun Appadurai highlights the centrality of alternative archives and practices of memorialisation for migrant subjects.
Arjun Appadurai 2003 None Beatrice Ferrara
4
The Museum of European Normality - A Post-colonial Artwork
"The Museum of European Normality" is an installation aimed at exploring the role of museums and archives in the construction of European identity.
Jimmie Durham, Maria Thereza Alves, Michael Taussig 2008 Trento Beatrice Ferrara
5
Seeds of Change - A Post-colonial Artwork by MT Alves
“Seeds of Change” is a project by Maria Thereza Alves questioning the geographical and natural history of places through collections of ballast seeds.
Maria Thereza Alves 2013 Bristol Giulia Grechi
6
Archivio Memorie Migranti - An Association for Migrant Memories
Archivio Memorie Migranti is an Association promoting social and cultural development through a participatory method of self-narration by migrants.
Various 2008 None Beatrice Ferrara
7
Floating Coffins - A Post-colonial Artwork by Zineb Sedira
Sedira’s "Floating Coffins" is a video installation about the coastline of Mauritania, a point of departure for those seeking a better life in Europe.
Zineb Sedira 2009 London Celeste Ianniciello
8
A Museum of Traces - A Postcolonial Artwork by Zineb Sedira
“A Museum of Traces” is a video by Sedira that highlights the ambivalence of the relationship Algeria maintains with the colonial period.
Zineb Sedira 2011 Paris Celeste Ianniciello
11
Endless Conundrum - A Postcolonial Artwork by Kara Walker
In “Endless Conundrum” Walker plays with the idea of Africanity and primitivism by displaying a ‘totem-woman’ attracting many gazes.
Kara Walker 2001 Minneapolis Mariangela Orabona
56
The Palestinian Museum - Museum as a Post-territorial Space
The project of the Palestinian Museum reconfigures the museum into a post-territorial space, which implicates a new sense of citizenship.
Beshara Doumani None Birzeit Celeste Ianniciello
86
WESTERN UNION - A Postcolonial Artwork by Isaac Julien
In Isaac Julien's WESTERN UNION: Small Boats (2007) the materiality of the images is used to investigate migration in the Mediterranean.
Isaac Julien 2007 None Michaela Quadraro
85
Egyptian Chemistry - A Postcolonial Artwork by Ursula Biemann
Investigating migration through matter, Biemann's "Egyptian Chemistry" highlights the importance of post-representative forms of narration.
Ursula Biemann 2013 None Beatrice Ferrara
53
A Critical Essay on Citizenship, Language and Modernity
How to conceive citizenship as an open-end concept, in which different languages, cultures and histories coexist?
Iain Chambers 2002 None Beatrice Ferrara
54
Citizen and Subject - An Essay on Postcolonial Citizenship
Migratory movements invite us to rethink the formal definition of (European) citizenship.
Sandro Mezzadra 2005 None Beatrice Ferrara
55
Repair - A postcolonial artwork by Kader Attia
Different objects and images from ex-colonized African countries activate a disruptive encounter with a repressed history and materiality.
Kader Attia 2012 None Celeste Ianniciello
87
Karmacoma (Napoli Trip) by Massive Attack - Music as Archive
The track Karmacoma (Napoli Trip) provides an alternative map of memory of contemporary migrations, transported over space and time through sound.
Massive Attack feat. Almamegretta 1995 None Beatrice Ferrara
121
StoryCorps
An oral history project whose goal is to provide Americans of all backgrounds with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve their stories.
David Isay (radio documentary producer) and Local Projects 2003 New York Sara Radice
138
7 Billion Others Project
A video art project building an inclusive, egalitarian and multidirectional portrait of humankind.
GoodPlanet Foundation, Yann Arthus-Bertrand 2009 None Marco Borsotti
144
Destination X: About Travelling From Different Perspectives
A temporary exhibition investigating different perspectives on the experience of travel at the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg.
Agneta Andren, Space Production & Mediatec 2010 Gothenburg Marco Borsotti
115
99 Objects: Neukölln Museum
Mapping cultural objects through museum displays
Neukölln Museum None Berlin Chris Whitehead
113
The Lewis Chessmen: Transcultural Objects
Objects can be used to represent transcultural exchange by highlighting the interconnectedness of cultures and identities
None Edinburgh Rhiannon Mason
84
The Migration Museum Project
A project aimed at creating a Migration Museum for Britain capable of taking the story of Britain’s heritage as a migrant nation around the country.
None London Lucia Parrino
31
Dictionary of Concepts for Mobile Architecture
A theoretical contribution by Yona Friedman reflecting on mobility in architecture.
Yona Friedman 1957 Paris Michela Bassanelli
105
MAS Boulevard
The enhanced connection spaces at MAS | Museum aan der Stroom expand the cultural programme of the museum and foster its relationships with the city.
Neutelings Riedijk 2011 Antwerp Elena Montanari
57
Paletti e catene
Converting the constraints and obstacles of the city into equipment for domestic living in the urban environment
Ugo La Pietra 1979 Milan Laura Boffi
74
The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces
An early example of the kind of quantitative-interpretational approach to using media as reflective artefact for human experience.
William H Whyte 1988 None Jamie Allen
38
Folding the exhibition
Documenting and archiving exhibitions / Recommended practices for archiving documentation of exhibitions
Maite Muñoz, Marta Vega, Núria Gallissà 2014 None Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA)
112
Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History
A museum focusing on the creation of innovative programs that actively engage local community members as partners.
Nina Simon None Santa Cruz, CA Sara Radice
76
The Memory of the Sea
A travelling photographic exhibition promoted within the MeLa Project, representing migration in real-time through the Sea Memory Museum in Zarzis
Anna Chiara Cimoli 2012 None Anna Chiara Cimoli
83
Mapping The Change, Hackney Museum
A participatory project to capture East London through the eyes of its people, as the city prepared for the Olympics.
2008 London Lucia Parrino
92
Galata Museo del Mare
The first Italian museum to confront itself with the theme of immigration to the country in a permanent display.
Studio Vàzquez Consuegra 2004 Genoa Anna Chiara Cimoli
91
German Emigration Center Bremerhaven
A migration museum using storytelling and narration to suggest an empathic, emotional approach to issues of immigration and emigration.
Andreas Heller Architects & Designers 2005 Bremerhaven Anna Chiara Cimoli
75
QRator
QRator enhances museum interpretation and engages visitors actively.
UCLDH, CASA, UCL Museums and Collections 2011 London Davide Spallazzo
37
The Topography of Terror Documentation Center
A museum that represents a diversity of stories and memories related to the traumas of the Second World War
Ursula Wilms and Professor Heinz W. Hallmann 2010 Berlin Michela Bassanelli
16
Essay on Migrating Heritage
We are witnessing a complex mixture of shift and continuities from the classic European identity-marking heritage to a contemporary migrating heritage
Perla Innocenti 2014 None Perla Innocenti
107
Musée de l'Histoire de l'Immigration
A museum displaying immigration through a thematical narration, using contemporary art side by side with historical documents in order to communicate.
Agence Construire 2007 Paris Anna Chiara Cimoli
44
Essay on 'Stored Code'
Essay on post-ethnographic museum challenges and on how to structurally rethink the connections established between cultures, people and objects
Clémentine Deliss 2013 Milan Margrethe Troensegaard
45
From Cultural Diversity to the Limits of Aesthetic Modernism
The impact of British cultural diversity policies on practices of audience development and the shortcomings of a modernist notion of spectatorship
Andrew Dewdney and Victoria Walsh 2013 None Margrethe Troensegaard
43
Introduction to 'Agency, Ambivalence, Analysis' publication
First publication with a small number of useful contributions towards building an argument about the role of museums in a migratory society
Ruth Noack 2013 Milan Margrethe Troensegaard
14
The Secret Annex Online
The Secret Annex Online is a virtual navigation of the house at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam, where Anne Frank’s family lived during WW2.
LBi - Lost Boys International 2010 Amsterdam Jamie Allen
71
A Matter Of Faith
Temporary exhibition dealing with religious issues, making visitors reflect upon their religious choice with interactive installations.
Beat Hächler, Sibylle Lichtensteiger 2007 Lenzburg Jamie Allen
