The Participatory Museum

Author: Nina Simon
Publisher: Museum 2.0
ISBN: 0615346502
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 391

Book Description
Visitor participation is a hot topic in the contemporary world of museums, art galleries, science centers, libraries and cultural organizations. How can your institution do it and do it well? The Participatory Museum is a practical guide to working with community members and visitors to make cultural institutions more dynamic, relevant, essential places. Museum consultant and exhibit designer Nina Simon weaves together innovative design techniques and case studies to make a powerful case for participatory practice. "Nina Simon's new book is essential for museum directors interested in experimenting with audience participation on the one hand and cautious about upending the tradition museum model on the other. In concentrating on the practical, this book makes implementation possible in most museums. More importantly, in describing the philosophy and rationale behind participatory activity, it makes clear that action does not always require new technology or machinery. Museums need to change, are changing, and will change further in the future. This book is a helpful and thoughtful road map for speeding such transformation." -Elaine Heumann Gurian, international museum consultant and author of Civilizing the Museum "This book is an extraordinary resource. Nina has assembled the collective wisdom of the field, and has given it her own brilliant spin. She shows us all how to walk the talk. Her book will make you want to go right out and start experimenting with participatory projects." -Kathleen McLean, participatory museum designer and author of Planning for People in Museum Exhibitions "I predict that in the future this book will be a classic work of museology." --Elizabeth Merritt, founding director of the Center for the Future of Museums

The Art of Relevance

Author: Nina Simon
Publisher: Museum 2.0
ISBN: 9780692701492
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
What do the London Science Museum, California Shakespeare Theater, and ShaNaNa have in common? They are all fighting for relevance in an often indifferent world. The Art of Relevance is your guide to mattering more to more people. You'll find inspiring examples, rags-to-relevance case studies, research-based frameworks, and practical advice on how your work can be more vital to your community. Whether you work in museums or libraries, parks or theaters, churches or afterschool programs, relevance can work for you. Break through shallow connection. Unlock meaning for yourself and others. Find true relevance and shine.

A History of Participation in Museums and Archives

Author: Taylor & Francis Group
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781032173047
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Book Description
Traversing disciplines, A History of Participation in Museums and Archives provides a framework for understanding how participatory modes in natural, cultural, and scientific heritage institutions intersect with practices in citizen science and citizen humanities. Drawing on perspectives in cultural history, science and technology studies, and media and communication theory, the book explores how museums and archives make science and cultural heritage relevant to people's everyday lives, while soliciting their assistance and participation in research and citizen projects. More specifically, the book critically examines how different forms of engagement are constructed, how concepts of democratization are framed and enacted, and how epistemic practices in science and the humanities are transformed through socio-technological infrastructures. Tracking these central themes across disciplines and research from Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States, the book simultaneously considers their relevance for museum and heritage studies. A History of Participation in Museums and Archives should be essential reading for a broad academic audience, including scholars and students in museum and heritage studies, digital humanities, and the public communication of science and technology. It should also be of great interest to museum professionals working to foster public engagement through collaboration with networks and local community groups.

Museum Participation

Author: Kayte McSweeney
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781910144787
Category : Museum visitors
Languages : en
Pages : 636

Book Description
Genuine participation is about much more than simply "taking part." But many museums' commitment to engagement and participation remains at this superficial level. Full participation involves the sharing of authority, decision-making and power. And letting go of the boundaries between the professional and the public. This book shows what is being done - and how it can be done. "This inspiring volume is packed with thoughtful examples of leading museums around the world involving their visitors in their work to powerful effect." Nina Simon, Executive Director, Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, and author of The Participatory Museum. "Participation is the only sustainable future for museums and galleries, and this book should inspire us all to get better at embedding it until it becomes part of our museums' DNA." Piotr Bienkowski, Project Director: Our Museum Programme, Paul Hamlyn Foundation. "This is a challenging volume of essays outlining radical museum practice... I highly recommend it to everyone concerned with the potential of the contemporary museum to promote equality and human rights." Dr Viv Golding, Programme Director of Learning & Visitor Studies, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester.

Artificial Hells

Author: Claire Bishop
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1781683972
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 483

Book Description
Since the 1990s, critics and curators have broadly accepted the notion that participatory art is the ultimate political art: that by encouraging an audience to take part an artist can promote new emancipatory social relations. Around the world, the champions of this form of expression are numerous, ranging from art historians such as Grant Kester, curators such as Nicolas Bourriaud and Nato Thompson, to performance theorists such as Shannon Jackson. Artificial Hells is the first historical and theoretical overview of socially engaged participatory art, known in the US as "social practice." Claire Bishop follows the trajectory of twentieth-century art and examines key moments in the development of a participatory aesthetic. This itinerary takes in Futurism and Dada; the Situationist International; Happenings in Eastern Europe, Argentina and Paris; the 1970s Community Arts Movement; and the Artists Placement Group. It concludes with a discussion of long-term educational projects by contemporary artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tania Bruguera, Pawe? Althamer and Paul Chan. Since her controversial essay in Artforum in 2006, Claire Bishop has been one of the few to challenge the political and aesthetic ambitions of participatory art. In Artificial Hells, she not only scrutinizes the emancipatory claims made for these projects, but also provides an alternative to the ethical (rather than artistic) criteria invited by such artworks. Artificial Hells calls for a less prescriptive approach to art and politics, and for more compelling, troubling and bolder forms of participatory art and criticism.

The Great Good Place

Author: Ray Oldenburg
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0786752416
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 377

Book Description
The landmark survey that celebrates all the places where people hang out--and is helping to spawn their revival A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice "Third places," or "great good places," are the many public places where people can gather, put aside the concerns of home and work (their first and second places), and hang out simply for the pleasures of good company and lively conversation. They are the heart of a community's social vitality and the grassroots of a democracy. Author Ray Oldenburg portrays, probes, and promotes th4ese great good places--coffee houses, cafes, bookstores, hair salons, bars, bistros, and many others both past and present--and offers a vision for their revitalization. Eloquent and visionary, this is a compelling argument for these settings of informal public life as essential for the health both of our communities and ourselves. And its message is being heard: Today, entrepreneurs from Seattle to Florida are heeding the call of The Great Good Place--opening coffee houses, bookstores, community centers, bars, and other establishments and proudly acknowledging their indebtedness to this book.

Democratising the Museum

Author: Pille Runnel
Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften
ISBN: 9783631649169
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Democratising the museum is a collection of articles about participation intended for academics and professionals. Democratic museum shares power with the visitors while negotiating the concept of professionalism. In this book the idea of participatory technologies is extended to modes of participation using online and offline technologies.

Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience

Author: John H Falk
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315427044
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Book Description
Drawing upon a career in studying museum visitors, renowned researcher John Falk attempts to create a predictive model of visitor experience, one that can help museum professionals better meet those visitors’ needs.

Museum Experience Revisited

Author: John H Falk
Publisher: Left Coast Press
ISBN: 1611320453
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Book Description
The first book to take a "visitor's eye view" of the museum visit, updated to incorporate advances in research, theory, and practice in the museum field over the last twenty years.

Participate

Author: Helen Armstrong
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN: 9781616890254
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
Creativity is no longer the sole territory of the designer and other creative professionals. Amateurs are drawn to websites such as Flickr, Threadless, WordPress, YouTube, Etsy, and Lulu, approaching design with the expectation that they will fill in the content. Never has user-driven design been easier for the public to generate and distribute. How will such a fundamental shift toward bottom-up creation affect the design industry? Designing for Participatory Culture considers historical and contemporary models of making that provide ideas for harnessing user-generated content through participatory design. The authors discuss how designers can lead the new breed of widely distributed amateur creatives rather than be overrun by them. DPC challenges designers to transform audiences into users, and completed layouts into open-ended systems. The book opens with an introductory essay entitled 'Ceding Control,' which explores the general concept of participatory culture and the resulting emergence of systems-oriented models of co-creation. Four chapters Modularity, Flexibility, Community, and Technology explore the various approaches to participatory design through critical essays, case studies, and interviews with leading designers in the field.