1st Edition
Histories of Exhibition Design in the Museum Makers, Process, and Practice
Histories of Exhibition Design in the Museum: Makers, Process, and Practice offers a new model for understanding exhibition design in museums as a human and material process. It presents diverse case studies from around the world, from the nineteenth century to the recent past.
It moves beyond the power of the finished exhibition over both objects and visitors to highlight historic exhibition making as an ongoing task of adaptation, experimentation, and interaction that involves intellectual, creative, and technical choices. Attentive to hierarchies of ethnicity, race, class, gender, sexuality, and ableism that have informed exhibition design and its histories, the volume highlights the labour involved in making museum exhibitions. It presents design as filled with personal and professional demands on the body, senses, and emotions. Contributions from historians, anthropologists, and exhibition makers focus on histories of identity, collaboration, and hierarchy ‘behind the scenes’ of the museum. They argue for an emphasis on the everyday objects of museum design and the importance of a diverse range of actors within and beyond the museum, from carpenters and label writers to volunteers and local communities.
Histories of Exhibition Design in the Museum offers scholars, students, and professionals working across the museum and design sectors insight into how past methods still influence museums today. Through a postcolonial and decolonial lens, it reveals the lineage of current processes and supports a more informed contemporary practice.
Introduction: Museum Exhibition Design Histories
Kate Guy, Hajra Williams, and Claire Wintle
Part 1: Exhibition Makers
1. Exhibition Work: Exploring Labour in the Federal Community Art Center Project
Sara Woodbury
2. Putting Joseph Towles’ Name in the Credit Line: Institutional Racism at the American Museum of Natural History
Jacklyn Grace Lacey
3. ‘Miss Hall and Her Busy, Energetic Design Group’: The Emergence of Professional In-House Design at the British Museum
Kate Guy
4. An Immersive Journey – Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia & Alaska
Barbara Fahs Charles
5. A Latin American Model of Professional Training in Exhibition Design: Alliances, Outcomes, and Challenges
Américo Castilla
Part 2: Beyond the Museum
6. Fashioning Beaton Portraits: 1928-1968 Exhibition
Marlène Van de Casteele
7. Collaboration and Exhibition Making at Cartwright Hall: Strategies of Permanence
Hajra Williams
8. The Re-Crafting of Design: Towards an Ethnographic Perspective in Chinese Exhibition Design
Lisheng Zhang and David Francis
Part 3: The Material Culture of Display
9. The Afterlives of Labels: Materiality and Labour in the Science and Technology Exhibition Label Archive of National Museums Scotland
Kate Bowell
10. Ethnonational Identity and Mannequins in History Museums in Korea and Japan
Kyunghee Pyun
11. Exhibition Design and the Construction of Race, Gender, and Class in the First Ladies Hall of the United States National Museum
Emily Mazzola
12. ‘Above All Matter of Facts’: Material Knowledge, Exhibition Culture, and the Making of Economics
Sophie Cras and Claire-Lise Debluë
Part 4: Exhibition Afterlives
13. ‘Gesamtwirkung’: Researching Wilhelm von Bode’s Design for the Exhibition of Old Master Paintings (1883) as a Model for Future Museum Practice
Sandra Kriebel
14. Visual Interventions: Exhibition Graphic Design as Critical Practice
Jona Piehl
15. The Living Area at the Sainsbury Centre: Looking Back to Look Forward
Lisa Maddigan Newby
Index
Biography
Kate Guy is an AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Award candidate at the University of Brighton and the British Museum, UK.
Hajra Williams is a Design Star doctoral candidate at the University of Brighton, UK.
Claire Wintle is a Principal Lecturer of Design History and Museum Studies at the University of Brighton, UK.
'As definitions of the museum continue to expand, this book makes valuable contributions to ongoing debates. Each generation has its own priorities, politics, and restrictions, but there is an arrogance that assumes that history is best ignored. Here, multiple authors demonstrate how wrong we can be.' Dinah Casson, CBE RDI, Co-founder of Casson Mann
'This book fills a huge and important museum history gap - its focus on the process of making exhibitions and its wide global and chronological coverage uncovers hidden histories in exhibition design, and points the way to the future.' Kate Hill, Associate Professor of History, University of Lincoln, UK
'A must for anyone interested in exhibitions, design and museums, this book cuts new swathes through exhibition design history, and presents "behind the scenes" practices, processes and labour as worthy subjects in their own right.' Pat Kirkham, Professor of Design History, Kingston University, UK; Professor Emerita, Bard Graduate Center, USA
