Overview

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.

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9781032156934

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Reviews

"""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"

"""As definitions of the museum continue to expand, this book makes valuable contributions to ongoing debates. Each generation has its own priorities, politics, 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"

Author Information

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.

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