Papadimitriou, N., Plati, M., Markou, E. & D.Catapoti (2017) Performing the ‘inclusive’: Rethinking participation in contemporary museums. In Museum International, The role of museums in a changing society, Vol 68 No 269-270 (original) (raw)
Related papers
THE MUSEUMS IN A NEW PROMISING PARTICIPATORY WORLD
During the last years, the explosion of social media, the emergence of new participatory services and multiple internet technologies which can all be described under the term Web 2.0, have changed the way we think about the Internet for ever. The revolutionary Web 2.0 offers new communication potentials of interaction among users, enabling them to exchange ideas, opinions and information. These changes offer multiple and unknown – till now – potentials for the cultural organizations and museums to broaden their audiences, engage more people and social groups with their activities, thus maximizing their communicative role and the participation of all members of the community. This article will explore the great impact of Web 2.0 in the museum world and the challenges that museums need to deal with under these promising circumstances. Furthermore there will be presented some representative case studies of museums abroad, their current policies and the ways they have introduced participatory technologies in various fields of the museum work. The article will also try to present the way that greek museums have responded till now to the new communication challenges and to what extent they have embraced participation and social networking. Last but not least, the article aims to depict the complex, yet very promising technological world of museums, to show its strengths and weaknesses, to describe practices and policies. Through the parallel dialogue of theory and practice, the article will try to point out the mission and the essence of the new communication culture in its museum dimension. Note: The current article was the result of the speech presented during the 1st International Workshop entitled VIRTUAL ARCHAEOLOGY: Museums & Cultural Tourism (VAMCT) which took place at Delphi, on September 2013. Urfortunately, the article was not accepted for the special issue of International Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, though the author published it on Academia, thinking that it could be helpful for the interested audience and the researchers out there.
Renewal of the Museum in the Digital Epoch
The Future of Museums
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, digital technologies are radically changing the way young people communicate, learn and spend their free time. Museums, in order not to lose the next generations as visitors, must conform to the new expectations and needs. On a large scale, the museum must address young people, provide a forum for self-expression and participation and advertise itself by new means. On a smaller scale, the style and means of individual exhibitions must change, providing space for activity, emotions and multiple modalities besides text, personalized visits, interactive explorations and self-expression, evoking emotions but meanwhile also fulfilling educational objectives. Digital technologies-by the yet smaller, cheaper and more and more pervasive devices and services-provide ample means to reach these goals. In our article first we provide a conceptual framework, focussing on the Internet generation as new audience and traditional and new functions of museums. We show how digital technologies may be used to reach six major and general goals. For each issue, we discuss concrete recent examples, from international and own projects. Finally, we address the roles in the complex process of design, development and daily operation of digital applications, in the context of a digital strategy for the museum.
The Terrain of 21st Century Museums: Virtually Unexplored Ground
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
Making History Together: Participation in Museums
Narratives in History Museums – Reflections and Perspectives, 2022
The way in which cultural institu- tions preserve, create and commu- nicate history has greatly changed in the past decades. The revolution in communications – especially through digital technologies – has affected not only how museums display but also how they research, collect and in- terpret history. The role, functioning and practices of museums have been changing and have become more participatory. While participatory practices and projects are now widely developed, questions remain on how they impact how history is done and displayed in museums.
Review of 6 books on cultural heritage, museums and digital media
This review will present six books in which various researchers address the challenges that digital media/technology, as well as the paradigms of globalisation and experience economy in which the digital media are embedded, present to museums as agenda makers and curators of cultural heritage. Digital media with their focus on user participation and co-creation constitute a challenge not only to museums communicating art, history and other types of cultural heritage, but to all types of institutions, organisations and businesses. And especially with the emergence and vast (and fast) spread of so-called social or participatory media and Web 2.0 technologies, this challenge increasingly invites us to rethink communication all together. The open-endedness of these media and media technologies, the radical possibilities for dialogic processes, collaboration and cocreation when it comes to both user-generated media content and user-centred or user-driven design and innovation vouch for (re)thinking communication as a dynamic process, whichinstead of a processes transporting information/media content from a provider/producer to a consumer/useris regarded as something that is continuously developing and constantly changing as a result of a communication format characterised by collaboration, participation and co-creation.
In this essay I analyse the 'ideas ', 'philosophies', 'contexts' and 'companions' of several recent museum studies anthologies, and examine whether they respond to key issues facing museums today. I am particularly interested in how effectively these anthologies represent social inclusion and diversity discourses, how they account for outreach programs that aim to link museums and communities, and how they engage with the more general work, experience, and critical analysis of museums and museum contexts globally.
Making Differences: Transforming Museums and Heritage in the 21st Century
August: Article for Shanghai Museum Journal , 2018
‘Making Differences’ is the lead project of a new research centre that I established at the Institute of European Ethnology at the Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, in October 2015. This is the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage – CARMAH.1 Funded primarily by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, with further support from the Humboldt University, the Berlin Museum of Natural History, and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (which is responsible for Berlin’s national museums), CARMAH is, as far as I am aware, the world’s largest concentration of museum and heritage researchers taking a specifically anthropological approach. By this we mean that we work, on the one hand, in depth locally and usually ethnographically – to understand specific cases and actual practice on the ground; and, on the other, that we investigate comparatively and internationally. Bringing together these two levels of focus allows us to achieve an analysis that is attuned to institutional and national differences, while also able to identify and map broader dynamics of museums and heritage in the contemporary world. By doing so, our hope is to contribute new approaches to both the analysis and work of museums and heritage.
book, 2021
This volume explores the process of transformation that is affecting art museums and their role in the modern world. It considers art museums from the perspectives of their social disposition, pedagogical practices, and the education they offer. The book embraces modern perspectives as a part of the international process where museums’ activities are transforming from the established traditional approach to more innovative methods, such as the digital environment, websites development, and social activities, among others. The volume is divided into three parts wherein museums are considered as agents of different spheres in society, pedagogy, and education. The transformation that modern museums have to accept is rooted in new challenges that society offers, and the book offers various examples that could be inspirational for developing new strategies for museums. It also features interviews with museum educators throughout the world in which they share their experience and vision on the questions presented here.