Beyond the Blockbuster: Good Exhibitions in Small Packages

Many American and European art museums are now featuring small, highly-focused shows in their exhibition programs. In 1990, the Indianapolis Museum of Art organized an exhibition that reunited, for the first time in a century, the four landscape paintings created by neo-impressionist Georges Seurat during the last summer of his life. Using Seurat at Gravelines: The Last Landscapes as an example, this article addresses the advantages — for museums and their visitors — of the small temporary exhibition.     

科学史 ——深化和表达科技馆展览主题的重要途径

我国科技馆在展示内容上往往以传播科学原理及结论为主,而忽略科学方法、科学思想和科学精神的深层次内涵,从而容易使展览虽然充斥着展品和知识,却难以支撑和诠释展览主题。如何挖掘展品的深层次内涵以更好地表达主题,进而提升科技馆的展教功能并深化科学教育效果？笔者认为引入和展示科学史内容是一种有效途径。科学史内容将科学与人文联系起来,增强了科技馆展览的故事性、思想性和人文性,对深化展览主题和创新展示内容起到重要作用。     

自然科学博物馆的地球科学展览策划与设计实践——以湖南省地质博物馆地球奥秘厅为例

地球科学以地球为研究对象,是自然科学的一个重要组成部分,也是自然科学博物馆必不可少的展览内容之一。由于其涉及的范围较广,分支较多,在博物馆展览陈列的设计与布展中也面临着许多挑战。特别是目前我国博物馆事业进入了新的发展阶段,对地球科学的展览陈列也提出了新的要求。本文以2019年完成提质升级的湖南省地质博物馆地球奥秘厅为例,通过贴合时代发展的展览主题策划,将二元叙事结构运用于地球科学展览,在展览设计中探索性地采用了媒体化的途径与方法,为地球科学展览的策划和设计实践提供一种新的方式。     

University Natural History Museums: The Public Education Mission

University‐based natural history museums are specialized cultural institutions that serve diverse constituencies. On one hand, these museums promote scientific research and collections through the work of curators and students and must advance the universities' missions. On the other hand, they must provide exhibition and public programs for the local community, or if they are a state museum, serve the citizens of the entire state through these activities. The challenge for university‐based natural history museums is to achieve a balance among their activities and services, given available resources. In the twenty‐first century, university natural history museums must further adapt by promoting social awareness of topics such as biodiversity and fostering learning in informal and formal settings. The Florida Museum of Natural History, an official State museum located at the University of Florida, is a prime example of a comprehensive university museum with a broad spectrum of programs that promote and enhance learning activities.     

英国格拉斯哥科学中心渗透职业教育的启示

英国格拉斯哥科学中心以联合学校、家庭和社区等多种方式对学生开展职业教育。如基于常设展览“助力未来”向学生渗透与能源相关的职业信息内容;以苏格兰的“卓越课程”改革方案为标准,开设“我的实景工作天地”和“成就挑战”课程进行科学探究活动,对学生进行职业体验教育,将职业教育延伸到学校、家庭和社区;并通过互联网开展职业能力测试,为学生提供职业生涯规划所需要的帮助。本文提出借助科技馆平台联合学校及家庭、社区,基于科技馆的常设展览和科学探究活动对学生进行职业体验教育,使科技馆成为学生了解、体验职业教育的窗口,实现科学技术普及与社会需求无缝接轨,促进科普教育与职业教育一体化。     

The Models of Architeuthis

Models of the giant squid (Architeuthis spp.) are probably unique in natural history exhibition: they are representations of a giant living animal that has never been seen in a healthy state by a human being. Since its discovery in the mid-nineteenth century, the giant squid has remained one of the world's great zoological mysteries. In the attempt to introduce this fabulous creature, museums around the world have resorted to life-sized models. Yale teuthologist A.E. Verrill was responsible for the first such models in 1882; then Ward's Natural Science Establishment in Rochester, New York, manufactured and sold them. In this century, various museums (and one zoo) have made their own models of these ten-armed monsters of the deep. Their disparate attempts to re-create Architeuthis for the museum public represent one of the most intriguing case histories in the annals of museum exhibition.     

Bringing Leonardo to Life: Introducing Students to the Codex Leicester

As natural history museums are becoming more state-of-the-art, integrating computer technology and other interactive components into their exhibits, challenges arise as to how best incorporate these elements into the learning that occurs in a traditional museum setting. In October of 1996, the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) hosted the exhibition Leonardo's Codex Leicester: A Masterpiece of Science, which included interactive computer stations as well as ten working models designed specifically for the exhibition. This article explores the museum's approach to making use of these interactives in planning and implementing a school program for this exhibition. The program was experimental in its format, given the short run of this exhibition, as well as limited planning time. The purpose of this article is to determine what a museum can do to offer quality programs that reach as many students as possible when working under time constraints.     

The Museum Profession: Protecting and Promoting Professional Commitments

Throughout their history, museums have performed diverse public services: from preservation, collection, and exhibition, to interpretation, education, and civic engagement. As Stephen E. Weil ( 2002 ) explains, since the mid‐twentieth century, museums have experienced two major revolutions. First, a revolution in focus from collection‐oriented to visitor‐oriented practices, and second, a revolution in public expectations as museums secured a position within the nonprofit sector (81–82). With competition for public, private, and philanthropic support resting upon measurable results, the evaluation of museums depends upon its ability to “accomplish its purpose” (5). However, the question remains: what is the museum's purpose? Which is the more important: collection and artifact preservation, or public engagement and education? An overview of museum practices reveals a multiplicity of professional tasks distributed among three imperatives: preservation, scholarship, and programming (Weil 2002 , 11). The competition for resources devoted to each of these imperatives can spark controversy—particularly if museum professionals answer the question of the purpose of museums differently. Organizational communication scholar, Janie M. Harden Fritz, developed a theoretical framework that seeks to respond to such controversies in Professional Civility: Communicating Virtue at Work. This essay considers Fritz's “professional civility” in the context of the American museum sector, lending insight to the question of museum purpose and function.     

One Hundred Strong: A Colloquium on Transforming Natural History Museums in the Twenty‐first Century

In February 2012, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) convened 100 colleagues from 43 organizations to initiate a collaborative learning research agenda focused on examining important areas for innovation to better serve twenty‐first‐century audiences. The conference organizers anticipated that scientists, educators, exhibit professionals, and other members of the natural history community would identify and prioritize research questions about what, how, why, when, and where people learn about natural history. We prepared to engage in a conversation about how natural history museums could change what they do. The participants' overwhelming passion for their work, and for natural history museums and their transformative potential for society, quickly turned the conversation toward how natural history museums should change what they are. The result was an emergent learning research agenda situated within a broader vision for natural history museums.     

将博物馆展览策划做成一项文化创意活动 ——《博物馆展览策划:理念与实务》书评

展览是博物馆的核心工作之一,也是博物馆服务社会最普遍和最直接的途径。《博物馆展览策划:理念与实务》一书作者结合多年的博物馆理论研究和博物馆展览策划实践经验,直击当下我国博物馆展览策划的核心问题,对现代博物馆陈列展览策划所应遵循的理念、工作流程和工作规范进行了详细阐述,为当前及未来一段时期内我国博物馆的展览策划工作提出了极为具象的实践指南。     

Cultivating Connectivity: Folklife and Inclusive Excellence in Museums

Today there is a growing global awareness of the need to address issues related to the safeguarding and use of both tangible and intangible heritage. By engaging with communities in the documentation of local cultures—especially their folklife, or in other words, their traditional intangible cultural heritage—museums can create collections that will serve as foundations for museum research, exhibitions, and programs that have more resonance with and relevance for those communities. Interactions of these kinds—in particular those of the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the Michigan State University Museum, home of the Michigan Traditional Arts Program, as well as collaborations between the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the Great Lakes Folk Festival, and other programs around the world—have served as important platforms for public discourse about a variety of issues and have produced programs and exhibitions both at home and around the world.     

How Popular Music is Exhibited by Museums in Portugal at the Beginning of the Twenty‐First Century: A Case Study

Popular music is deeply embedded in the dynamics of the contemporary world by means of its capacity to engender modes of privacy and publicness, to communicate emotion, and to enable us to create connections—and so to work within communities. Museums have traditionally addressed art‐music through the exhibition of musical instruments. But now that the exhibition of popular music has presented new challenges and opportunities worldwide for museum professionals, examining popular music discourses in museums is of the utmost importance in order for it to be meaningfully celebrated as instances of heritage. This paper expands on the representation of Popular Music in museums in Portugal at the beginning of the twenty‐first century by discussing a case study: the exhibition No Tempo do Gira‐Discos: Um Percurso Pela Produção Fonográfica Portuguesa at Museu Nacional da Música, Lisbon, Portugal, in 2007. Two methods of analysis are deployed: interviews with the curators, which revealed insights on their understanding of popular music, and analysis of the exhibition through discourse analysis, specifically through the lens of the analytical concepts genre and register. Although the curators had themselves previously developed insightful and innovative concepts with regard to popular music, discourse analysis reveals how, in this instance, the museum practices were primarily inherited from past traditions, and so failed to convey the meanings previously envisioned by the curators. In order for genuine public engagement with museum exhibitions about music, a collaboration is required between the music studies and museum studies professionals. Only through such a collaboration can it be ensured that those contemporary dynamics are present and meaningful.     

小学生参观自然博物馆的恐惧心理及对策——以成都理工大学博物馆为例

小学生在博物馆展厅中产生的恐惧感会严重影响参观效果。本文以成都理工大学博物馆为例,经观察和分析,认为展厅的环境氛围、动物标本和某些特殊场景是引发小学生恐惧心理的原因。在此基础上,根据儿童心理学和教育学的原理,提出了创设良好博物馆教学情境并疏导小学生恐惧感的措施。     

科技馆内科技成就主题展览的策划与实践——以“礼赞共和国”展览为例

“礼赞共和国——庆祝新中国成立70周年科技成就科普展”是中国科技馆2019年精心策划打造的一个主题展览,是利用科技馆独特的科普展教形式和手段进行科技成就展示宣传的成功尝试。本文通梳理展览策展思路,剖析了该展览在选题、展览目标、内容规划、布展和展品设计等方面收获的经验,希望在“建设创新型国家和世界科技强国”国家战略背景下,为今后拓展科技馆展示科技成就的思路提供一些参考。     

Remembering and Disremembering: A Museum Perspective

Abstract Ken Waliaula’s essay in this issue, Remembering and Disremembering in Africa, acutely observes the interaction of individual memory with what has been remembered and “disremembered” (willfully erased) by local communities and larger national political structures in Kenya. His reflections on the way society deals with memory offer valuable insight into museum‐making. Exhibitions can accommodate the fuller range of complexity, meaning, and interpretation that is reflective of real history as experienced from the range of perspectives Waliaula describes. To create such exhibitions, museum professionals need to adopt methods of collection and curation that differ from the common practice of “telling the story” in favor of incorporating greater narrative variety that embodies the complex contradictions of events that become history. By doing so, museums may better equip their users to share interpretive authority and experience a greater sense of authenticity within the exhibition.     

Artistic Practice and (Museum) Ethnography

Abstract In this study of artistic practice surrounding the development of the Pasifika Styles exhibition at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Cambridge), the author argues that certain methodologies employed in artistic practice, such as techniques of assemblage, not only suggest ways in which collaborative initiatives between museums and their communities can be realized, they also offer practical direction for the development of complementary ethnographic techniques. Interest among museum practitioners in what artists can offer museums is explored in relation to their increasing need to demonstrate their social relevance.     

Building a Community-Based Identity at Anacostia Museum

A historian explores the construction of Anacostia Museum's identity from the 1960s to the present by examining the history of its exhibitions. Direct community accessibility was part of the museum's founding mission, but Smithsonian administration, museum staff, and community residents all seemed to have different ideas about the meaning of the “neighborhood museum” concept. Designated a “Smithsonian outpost,” and intended to draw African-American visitors to the Smithsonian museums on the Mall, the new museum's mission was instead shaped by community advisory groups to focus broadly on African-American history and culture. Staff efforts to “professionalize” and upgrade museum operations later threatened community access to the exhibition-development process, and most community/museum interaction was relegated to the program and outreach activities of the education department. The 1994 Black Mosaic exhibition provided an opportunity to devise new ways of integrating the perspectives of a changed community into the exhibition-development process.     

探索博物馆“展教结合”新形态——美国史密森尼国家自然史博物馆Q?rius案例研究

在博物馆更新改造中设置与展厅相邻的教室、实验室、活动室,开展与展览内容对应的教育活动,体现了国际上博物馆“展教结合”、加强教育功能的发展趋势。美国史密森尼国家自然史博物馆Q?rius展区即是这一趋势的产物,它将教育与展厅及其展览内容密切呼应、深化展览教育,在空间规模、功能布局、对象设定、活动规划、教育资源、人员分配、突出公众的“个体化”“参与式”和“关联型”学习等方面拥有较为成功的经验,可为我国博物馆提供借鉴。     

John Dewey and Museum Education

Abstract Although John Dewey's educational concepts have been discussed previously in relation to museums, his own writing about museums has received little attention. Dewey, who visited museums frequently throughout his life, recognized the powerful educational value of museums. He assigned a central role to museums as integrative components of raw experiences in his educational theory, and he made extensive use of student visits to museums at the Chicago Laboratory School. Early twentieth‐century museum educators and directors applied Dewey's ideas, and advocated a museum education philosophy, based on the progressive education movement, that has significance for current exhibition and educational practice.     

引进“二元叙事结构”，深化展览科学内涵

在科技馆展览设计中,主题展开式、学科分类式仍然是目前比较主流和常见的设计方法。要想突破原有这些平面的设计方法,展览设计立体化是一种思路,而借助“二元叙事结构”的手法,就是实现这种立体化的一种利器。本文以合肥市科技馆“WE展区”为例,与大家分享二元叙事结构在科技馆展览设计中的做法,旨在抛砖引玉,为科技馆展览设计做一点创新尝试。