Date: Monday 16 September 2013
Time: 12–2pm
Venue: The University of Western Australia
RSVP: by 9 September, 2013
In this seminar, CHE Practitioners-In-Residence discuss the role of emotions in curating urban collections for contemporary audiences. Two current museum and art gallery curators explore the selection of objects and the strong emotional currents that underpin visitor experiences. How do collections and their managers create a sense of intimate or remote access to particular artefacts through their position, placement and assemblage with other objects, and what are the distinct feelings that these approaches generate? Interested honours, postgraduate, and staff very welcome. Time for questions and group discussion is planned.
Places are strictly limited. RSVP for registration by 9 September 2013 (or until filled) to sarah.finn@uwa.edu.au. Bring your own lunch, and join us for this intriguing seminar.
In February 2013, Dunfermline, Scotland’s capital from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries, received one of the largest recent public investments in the Scottish heritage sector, a 2.8 million pound Heritage Lottery Fund grant, in addition to 6.8 million pounds from Fife Council and a further substantial contribution from the Carnegie Dunfermline Trust, to tell the story of Dunfermline’s place in Scottish history. CHE researchers will be involved in providing interpretation for the project. Lesley Botten, Display Design and Activities Curator, will explore how the building and collections will be curated in this innovative new context, combining a museum, art gallery, archive, library and local history services.
In 2011, the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum joined forces with CHE (led by Susan Broomhall) to begin a series of related projects resulting in co-authored conference papers and project work. Australian early career scholars worked in a collaborative project to research the emotional meanings of selected medieval and early modern objects, which were prepared on gift cards for commercial sale. In May 2012, the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum was internationally publicised for opening its collections to visitors in a unique open day where selected objects were available to touch and to hold. (View images here) Michael McGinnes will reflect on this experience and the ongoing work of the museum to increase visitor interaction as well as feelings about the museum and its important historic collections.
Practitioners-in Residence:
Michael McGinnes, Collections Manager, Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum
Lesley Botten, Display Design & Activities Curator, Dunfermline Museum & Art Gallery
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