Does the Museum Just Preserve the Museum?

Does the Museum Just Preserve the Museum?'s image
Created: 2015-01-05 09:17
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Description: Conveners

Liz Hide (University of Cambridge Museums)
Tim Knox (Fitzwilliam Museum)
Robin Osborne (Museum of Classical Archaeology)
Liba Taub (Whipple Museum)
Caroline Vout (Classics)

Summary

This conference is the culmination of a series of events during 2014 in which the University of Cambridge Museums have explored the art and science of museum curation. It brings together a wide range of speakers to take a long hard look at what museums do, what they should do, and what they might do. We will explore the ways in which what museums do is enabled and limited by their history and the history of collecting, asking whether and how museums can use their collections to transcend time. We will explore the constraints placed on museums by national history and how they contest natural history. We will think about museums as installations and museums as laboratories. And we will ask how healthy is the pressure to make visitors love their experiences in museums. Have museums failed or succeeded if some people hate them?

This is a conference designed both to celebrate and to question what we do in museums and what museums do to us, and to ask what the future should hold for the museum and what the museum should hold for the future.

Confirmed speakers include: Sam Alberti (Royal College of Surgeons of. England/ Hunterian Museum), Maurice Davis (Former Head of Policy at the Museums Association), Paul Greenhalgh (Sainsbury Centre, UEA), Henry McGhie (Manchester Museum), Paul Smith (Oxford University Museum of Natural History), Martin Roth (V & A), and Mark Wallinger.

In preparation for this conference there will be a series of seminars organised by University of Cambridge Museums on Wednesdays at 5.15 p.m. in Room G 21, Faculty of Classics, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge on November 12, 19, 26th and December 3rd; speakers include Penelope Curtis (Tate Britain), Richard Evans (Beamish Museum), Stephen Feeke (New Art Centre), Jane Munro (Fitzwilliam Museum) and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (Herculaneum Conservation Project). All are welcome.
 

Media items

This collection contains 9 media items.

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Media items

Session 1: Tim Knox and Alexander Sturgis

   759 views

SESSION 1: Subversive traditions? Does the current enthusiasm for the history of collecting and of the museum silence objects, or make them speak?

Tim Knox (Fitzwilliam...

Collection: Does the Museum Just Preserve the Museum?

Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities

Created: Mon 5 Jan 2015


Session 1: Tim Knox and Alexander Sturgis (Discussion)

   300 views

SESSION 1: Subversive traditions? Does the current enthusiasm for the history of collecting and of the museum silence objects, or make them speak?

Tim Knox (Fitzwilliam...

Collection: Does the Museum Just Preserve the Museum?

Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities

Created: Mon 5 Jan 2015


Session 2: Minna Moore Ede and Paul Greenhalgh

   208 views

SESSION 2: Should museum displays rejoice in being of their time, or aim to transcend time?

Minna Moore Ede (National Gallery)
Paul Greenhalgh (Sainsbury Centre)
Chair: Tim...

Collection: Does the Museum Just Preserve the Museum?

Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities

Created: Mon 5 Jan 2015


Session 2: Minna Moore Ede and Paul Greenhalgh (Discussion)

   178 views

SESSION 2: Should museum displays rejoice in being of their time, or aim to transcend time?

Minna Moore Ede (National Gallery)
Paul Greenhalgh (Sainsbury Centre)
Chair: Tim...

Collection: Does the Museum Just Preserve the Museum?

Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities

Created: Mon 5 Jan 2015


Session 3: Paul Smith and Martin Roth

   268 views

SESSION 3: Does the museum have a natural history? a national history?

Paul Smith (Oxford University Museum of Natural History)
Martin Roth (V&A)
Chair: Liz Hide

Collection: Does the Museum Just Preserve the Museum?

Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities

Created: Mon 5 Jan 2015


Session 3: Paul Smith and Martin Roth (Discussion)

   271 views

SESSION 3: Does the museum have a natural history? a national history?

Paul Smith (Oxford University Museum of Natural History)
Martin Roth (V&A)
Chair: Liz Hide

Collection: Does the Museum Just Preserve the Museum?

Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities

Created: Mon 5 Jan 2015


Session 4: Sam Alberti and Mark Wallinger

   318 views

SESSION 4: Is the curator a scientist or an artist?

Sam Alberti (Royal College of Surgeons of. England/ Hunterian Museum)
Mark Wallinger
Chair: Liba Taub

Collection: Does the Museum Just Preserve the Museum?

Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities

Created: Mon 5 Jan 2015


Session 4: Sam Alberti and Mark Wallinger (Discussion)

   273 views

SESSION 4: Is the curator a scientist or an artist?

Sam Alberti (Royal College of Surgeons of. England/ Hunterian Museum)
Mark Wallinger
Chair: Liba Taub

Collection: Does the Museum Just Preserve the Museum?

Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities

Created: Mon 5 Jan 2015


Session 5: Maurice Davies

   905 views

SESSION 5: Is curation about the objects or the audience?

Maurice Davies (The Museum Consultancy / King’s College London)
Chair: Robin Osborne

Collection: Does the Museum Just Preserve the Museum?

Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities

Created: Mon 5 Jan 2015