Curating good participants? Audiences, democracy and authority in the contemporary museum

ABSTRACT

Public participation has become axiomatic in contemporary museum theory and practice. In the absence of consensus about the fundamental principles of participatory museology and what participation looks like in practice, the term is now routinely attached to a heterogenous array of museum-stakeholder interactions. This article interrogates the rhetoric of participatory museology by critically examining its intellectual roots, followed by a preliminary review of contemporary museum policy and strategic documents from international and national cultural bodies to generate a typology of participation in the museum sector. Taking the findings into account, this article questions whether New Museology’s desire to empower visitors is genuinely realised through participatory practices. It concludes by outlining future research directions that may contribute to greater understanding of the political and practical implications of audience participation in the museum context.

KEYWORDS:

• Participation
• new museology
• museum activism
• audience engagement
• inclusion
• cultural democracy

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Dr Christen Cornell for her research assistance on this project. I also thank the IAP2 International Federation for permission to use the IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Helena Robinson is a Museum Studies scholar whose research explores the construction of values and significance around cultural collections within the broader context of the museum as a complex system for meaning-making. Her current research investigates the idea of cultural democracy and stakeholder participation in curatorial projects, as well as the convergence of museums, libraries and archives and the impact of integrated institutional structures on the interpretation of museum collections. At the University of Sydney she is a Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Education with the Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor-Education and an Honorary Associate with the Department of Art History.

Notes

1 SJAM Social Justice Alliance of Museums. c.2014. ‘Museums.’ Social Justice Alliance of Museums. https://sjam.org/who-we-are/museum-members/

2 Hebert-Daly, E. 2017. ‘Museums have a fundamental role in reshaping the world.’ Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice. https://coalitionofmuseumsforclimatejustice.wordpress.com/2017/11/07/museums-have-a-fundamental-role-in-reshaping-the-world-an-ally-writes/

3 International Association for Public Participation (IAP2). c.2020. IAP2: About Us (website). Denver: International Association for Public Participation. https://www.iap2.org/page/about

4 See https://www.iap2.org/ for the IAP2 website, and https://iap2.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2018_IAP2_Spectrum.pdf for the IAP2 Spectrum. The Spectrum was approved by the IAP2 Board in 2015.

5 Paul Hamlyn Foundation. 2011. Our Museum: Communities and Museums as Active Partners. http://ourmuseum.org.uk/

6 International Coalition for Sites of Conscience: celebrationg 20 years of memory to action (website). New York: International Coalition for Sites of Conscience. https://www.sitesofconscience.org/en/home/

7 Government of Western Australia. c.2018. New Museum for WA: Project Aspirations (website). Retrieved from: http://museum.wa.gov.au/newmuseum/project-aspirations.

8 See IAP2 Spectrum of Participation: https://iap2.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2018_IAP2_Spectrum.pdf.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney: [Research Incubator Scheme 2018].