Overview
"Millions of items are held in museum collections around the world but many museums have very few visitors to their stored collections. These stored objects are certainly not neglected by their professional custodians, and they are loved with a great intensity by some curators and enthusiasts. However, for all but a tiny proportion of the population they have little or no personal meaning. This book goes beyond strategic discussions of access to stores, information enhancement, or collections rationalization and focuses on the emotional potential of these objects. The authors explore how “care” for objects has varied over time and consider who cares for objects that are generally considered to be unsuitable for display and why they care. They also consider how inter-generational and inter-disciplinary dialogue can enhance or engender engagement with ""unloved"" collections and offer strategies and reflection on interpreting stored collections. This book will be essential reading for scholars, students, and professionals in museums, especially those concerned with curation and collections."
Full Product Details
Author: Anna Woodham (Lecturer in Arts and Cultural Management, King's College London) ,
Alison Hess (Research and Public History Manager, Science Museum, London) ,
Rhianedd Smith (Director, Heritage and Creativity Institute)
Publisher: Arc Humanities Press
Imprint: Arc Humanities Press
Edition: New edition
ISBN: 9781641890557
ISBN 10: 164189055
Pages: 216
Publication Date: 31 July 2020
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
This book is a welcome addition to material culture and museum/heritage studies.[...] A tightly articulated set of guiding questions (around care, emotion and collections) tie the various threads together. By focusing on the emotional response and caring practices of museum professionals and external stakeholders working with stored collections (and especially with objects considered by others to be ‘dull’ or ‘uninteresting’), a range of sub-themes are addressed including curatorial practice, expertise, knowledge, ownership and value.[...] By arguing for material culture and museum/heritage studies to pay much greater theoretical and empirical attention to stored collections (in ways that go beyond understanding these simply through the lens of collections management issues), the book ultimately demonstrates how ‘unloved’ collections provide a rich nexus for wider debate on themes such as expertise and public agency, the politics of participatory heritage, concepts of care and affective, emotional modes of heritage engagement. In sum, this is a nicely written and illustrated book which offers a stimulating and original take on museum collections. -- Jennie Morgan * Science Museum Group Journal 15 (Spring 2021), online * [T]he authors grapple with [...] the affective and meaning-making encounters that occur between expert users (curators, collectors, specialist groups, retired practitioners) and objects in storage. The phrase “unloved” was chosen by the editors as a provocation—exactly which museum objects garner this title is malleable, but they are generally stored collections which have been “deemed uninteresting” or have “little or no personal meaning.” [...] Perhaps more than any other type of collection, the “unloved” object seems to cry out for a radical intervention—to be touched, researched, rummaged, shared, and loved by collectors, artists, and community groups. While staying “in the lines” of traditional museum practice, Exploring Emotion nevertheless provides useful practical and theoretical tools for finding new ways to work with collections in storage. -- Kristin D. Hussey * Museum Worlds: Advances in Research 9 (2021): 215–23 *
This book is a welcome addition to material culture and museum/heritage studies.[...] A tightly articulated set of guiding questions (around care, emotion and collections) tie the various threads together. By focusing on the emotional response and caring practices of museum professionals and external stakeholders working with stored collections (and especially with objects considered by others to be 'dull' or 'uninteresting'), a range of sub-themes are addressed including curatorial practice, expertise, knowledge, ownership and value.[...] By arguing for material culture and museum/heritage studies to pay much greater theoretical and empirical attention to stored collections (in ways that go beyond understanding these simply through the lens of collections management issues), the book ultimately demonstrates how 'unloved' collections provide a rich nexus for wider debate on themes such as expertise and public agency, the politics of participatory heritage, concepts of care and affective, emotional modes of heritage engagement. In sum, this is a nicely written and illustrated book which offers a stimulating and original take on museum collections. -- Jennie Morgan * Science Museum Group Journal 15 (Spring 2021), online * [T]he authors grapple with [...] the affective and meaning-making encounters that occur between expert users (curators, collectors, specialist groups, retired practitioners) and objects in storage. The phrase unloved was chosen by the editors as a provocation-exactly which museum objects garner this title is malleable, but they are generally stored collections which have been deemed uninteresting or have little or no personal meaning. [...] Perhaps more than any other type of collection, the unloved object seems to cry out for a radical intervention-to be touched, researched, rummaged, shared, and loved by collectors, artists, and community groups. While staying in the lines of traditional museum practice, Exploring Emotion nevertheless provides useful practical and theoretical tools for finding new ways to work with collections in storage. -- Kristin D. Hussey * Museum Worlds: Advances in Research 9 (2021): 215-23 *
Author Information
Anna Woodham is Lecturer in Arts and Cultural Management at King's College London. Alison Hess is Research and Public History Manager at the Science Museum, London. Rhianedd Smith is the Director of the Heritage and Creativity Institute and UMASCS Director of Academic Learning and Engagement Programmes at the University of Reading.
