Rereadings: Highlighting the Gender Perspective Through Hypermedia

Abstract

In this text, we present the contributions of the Spain-based project Rereadings. Museum Itineraries from a Gender Perspective, which aims to present to the public the collections of 11 Valencian museums, of various kinds and under different types of ownership, from a gender and queer perspective. Rereadings uses virtual itineraries and QR codes to contribute to the study of gender. Thus, technology is used as a basis for information dissemination, analysis, and debate. The struggle against androcentrism and heteropatriarchy has generated a greater inclusion of women, other genders, and diverse sexualities in traditional museum discourse. New technologies function as one of the fundamental pillars of the project; their purpose is to disseminate museum itineraries as works in progress, and to promote education and access. Rereadings offers a forum for public discussion that questions androcentrism and the Western sexand gender-based binary system, while increasing the visibility and acceptance of alternative and transgender identities.

Keywords:

• Rereadings
• Gender
• Digital museums
• Hypermedia
• LGBTQI+

Notes

1 Rereadings. Museum Itineraries from a Gender Perspective. The whole network can be consulted at www.relecturas.es [Accessed 20 November 2020].

2 Publications produced under the project can be consulted at: <http://relecturas.es/dissemination/>[Accessed 16 November 2020].

3 http://www.culturaydeporte.gob.es/museosmassociales/presentacion.html [Accessed 10 September 2020].

4 Past women. Available at: <http://www.pastwomen.net/> [Accessed 10 September 2020].

5 The publication of ‘Welcoming guidelines for museums’ by the LGBTQI Alliance of the American Alliance of Museums in 2016 was also a major step forward.

6 Museos + Sociales plan. Available at: http://www.culturaydeporte.gob.es/dam/jcr:b16771f7-9f4f-40d6-aca8-30d9fb1f8dc6/plan-museos-soc.pdf [Accessed 15 May 2020] .

7 Everything that is not innate, given or universal, is the result of a shaping process in which norms, customs, cultural guidelines, beliefs, etc., that govern a society, intervene. These vary between cultures and change over time, based on the society and culture in which the relevant concept has been constructed.

8 According to Alario Trigueros, in 1985, only five per cent of the artists at the New York Metropolitan were women, something that was common to the other museums, while 85% of the nudes were female.

9 In Second Life, users may choose from five categories: humans, vampires, animals, robots and vehicles, but the sex of the avatar is reduced to a binary male/ female role, despite feminist and queer theories that argue that gender is a cultural construction (Alba, Cuesta Davignon and Gaitan 2019). Faced with this limitation, Eduardo Barrera (2015) demonstrated that people with queer sensibilities resort to fantasy and mythological characters such as elves with feminine appearances or druid bears that evoke the so-called bear in gay culture, suggesting that alternative sexualities occupy marginal spaces not only in society (Miles 2018) but also in the digital world.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mar Gaitán

Mar Gaitán is an art historian pursuing a PhD in Art History from the University of Valencia, Spain. She is a member of ICOM specialised in cultural heritage management and digital humanities. Gaitán has worked as a cultural disseminator in organisations such as ICCROM, and at the Mexican National Conservation Institute for Cultural Heritage, INAH, for which she also carried out audience research. She is currently a researcher for the H2020 SILKNOW project.

Ester Alba

Ester Alba is Professor of Art History at the Faculty of Geography and History of the University of Valencia, Spain. She has completed four six-year research periods. Alba holds a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Geography and History, and a PhD in Art History from the University of Valencia. Her research focuses on artistic image and the representation of power from the perspective of visual studies and gender, art criticism, museology, and cultural heritage. Alba is the principal project researcher in H2020 SILKNOW, and a coordinator for the Rereadings project.