Museum Studies Commons^™

Art Through A Digital Lens: A Study Of The Effects Of New Medias On The Museum, Its Works, And The Public., Shelley Kopp

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Over the last two decades imagery viewed on the internet has grown immensely. Museums, though slow to embrace it, have begun to upload digital images of their traditional artwork to their websites and onto their social media channels. In large measure, the COVID pandemic accelerated this move to engage audiences they feared would dissipate as museum doors closed. Moving digital images online though means giving over control to the protocol and systems of the internet, to profit-seeking corporations, and the volatility of social media platforms. The museum’s long-established authority over artists, artworks, and exhibitions is usurped by power structures existing …

What Moves You?: Georges Didi-Huberman’S Arts Of Passage And Pittsburgh Stories Of Migration, Alexandra Irimia

Languages and Cultures Publications

Contemporary art historian, critic, and theorist Georges Didi-Huberman thinks of images not as static objects, but as movements, passages, and gestures of memory and/or desire. For the French “historian of passing images,” as he has been called, “all images are migrants. Images are migrations. They are never simply local” (D2017). His book, Passer, quoi qu'il en coûte ("To Pass at Any Price"), co-written with the Greek poet and director Niki Giannari, takes on precisely the visual dynamics of passages, passengers, and passageways in the context of contemporary migration flows. In April 2018, only several months after the launching of the …

Final Experiential Learning Report: The Stratford Festival Archives & Ecuador Women’S Empowerment Trip, Julia Campbell

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

To fulfil my SASAH experiential-learning requirement, I worked as an intern at the Stratford Festival Archives in 2017 and travelled to Ecuador as part of a Women’s Empowerment trip in 2018. At the Festival, my colleague and I were responsible for designing the Archives’ first-ever digital catalogue. We researched the provenance of each costume piece, which often included looking through design bibles and conducting informal interviews. We then photographed and wrote detailed descriptions for each costume piece. By the end of the summer, my colleague and I had written over 300 complete entries, laying the groundwork for future interns. My …

Cheenama The Trail Maker: An Indian Idyll Of Old Ontario Indigenous Ethnographic Films Of The 20th Century, Sarah Charette

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

Ethnographic films of the early twentieth century, intended to document and reproduce the cultural practices, living conditions, and identities of Indigenous populations, were often rife with colonial assumptions, staged events, abnormal or uncommon practices, and the active silencing of Indigenous perspectives. Cheenama the Trailmaker: An Indian Idyll of Old Ontario, produced in 1935 by the Canadian Museum of History, attempts to recreate the day-to-day life of an Algonquin family in pre-contact North America.

Beginning with a comparative analysis of the film itself, this essay uses empirical evidence from the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan to paint a picture of the accuracy …

Sasah Experiential Learning: Stratford Festival Archives And Collections Management, Natalie Scola

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Presentations

Natalie Scola discusses her two experiential-learning opportunities: her internship in the Stratford Festival archives cataloguing costumes and her work cataloguing and preserving a private art collection.

Finding The Path Beneath My Feet, Jill O'Craven

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

Jill O'Craven participated in two CEL experiences: first, assisting with the second-year Digital Humanities course taken by SASAH students and producing a video on breaking down the A&H/STEM dichotomy and, second, volunteering at the London Children's Museum assisting with running the Early Years' Play Dates. The two experiences were useful in crystalizing her interest in science communication and education outside the classroom and helped her develop skills and experience to pursue this passion.

My Internship At The Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery, Carina Pagotto

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Presentations

In her presentation on her Summer 2019 internship at the Judith and Norman Alix Art Gallery in Sarnia, Ontario, Carina focuses on the goals and outcomes, challenges, and results of her experience. Featuring photographs she took onsite, Carina discusses learning about the issues faced by museums and galleries, familiarizing herself with the gallery’s collection and reviewing exhibition catalogues, and building an exhibit. She details promoting the gallery through social media and building strong relationships with her supervisors and peers and finishes with a brief discussion of the value of art and of internships.

Reflecting On That #Gallerylife, Carina Pagotto

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

My report documents my internship experience at the Judith and Norman Alix Art Gallery in Sarnia, Ontario. The report describes the progression of my internship from the first meeting, through my internship, to the final presentation of the experience. I reflect on the behind-the-scenes experience I had at working in a prestigious local art gallery. I describe researching and crafting social media posts for the permanent collection and for a travelling exhibition. I also go on to recount my experience in creating my main deliverable: an exhibition. The report explains the development of my exhibition proposals and my presentation at …

Report On Experiential Learning: Stratford Festival Internship And Private Art Collection Management, Natalie Scola

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

In her report, Natalie Scola discusses her two experiential-learning opportunities: her internship in the Stratford Festival archives cataloguing costumes and her work cataloguing and preserving a private art collection.

Rui(N)Ation: Narratives Of Art And Urban Revitalization In Detroit, Jessica Ks Cappuccitti

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation considers the City of Detroit as a case study for analyzing the complex role that artists and art institutions are playing in the potential re-growth and revitalization of the city. I specifically look at artists and arts organizations who are working against the popular narrative of Detroit as “ruin city.” Their efforts create counter narratives that emphasize stories of survival and showcase vibrant communities. By focussing on artist-led and institutional initiatives, I emphasize the importance of art in both community and narrative-building.

This research has taken the form of a written dissertation and two adapted projects, and positions …

Mapping The Presence Of Latin American Art In Canadian Museums And Universities, Alena Robin

Hispanic Studies Publications

This essay overviews how Canadian museums and universities have historically accessioned Latin American visual culture and identifies potential ways of sustaining interest, streamlining initiatives, and promoting access. The larger project aims at contributing to a hemispheric and transnational understanding of the history and growth in Canada of the field of Latin American art and its subfields of Pre-Columbian, colonial, modern, and contemporary art. While the study of art history among Canadian museums and universities has kept up with the decades-long interest in Latin American art and visual culture, there remain considerable challenges in bringing Latin American art to the forefront …

Un/Dead Animal Art: Ethical Encounters Through Rogue Taxidermy Sculpture, Miranda Niittynen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Beginning in 2004, the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists began an art movement of taxidermied animal sculptures that challenged conventional forms of taxidermied objects massively produced and displayed on an international scale. In contrast to taxidermied ‘specimens’ found in museums, taxidermied ‘exotic’ wildlife decapitated and mounted on hunters' walls, or synthetic taxidermied heads bought in department stores, rogue taxidermy artists create unconventional sculptures that are arguably antithetical to the ideologies shaped by previous generations: realism, colonialism, masculinity. As a pop-surrealist art movement chiefly practiced among women artists, rogue taxidermy artists follow an ethical mandate to never kill animals for the …

Organizational Improvement Plan: Establishing A Plan For A Rural Museum To Actively Engage Its Community Youth, Jason Pankratz

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

Rural museums play active roles within their communities. They provide opportunities for community members to volunteer and engage as patrons. The museum within this Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) is the hub of culture and tourism for a small town in Ontario. It has a solid volunteer base made up of town citizens. These individuals participate because they have an innate interest in the culture and heritage of the town. A weakness to the volunteer base is that there is no active policy or practice to involve youth as volunteers or in leadership roles. This OIP suggests that the museum partner …

Virtual Archaeology, Virtual Longhouses And "Envisioning The Unseen" Within The Archaeological Record, William M. Carter

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

We are of an era in which digital technology now enhances the method and practice of archaeology. In our rush to embrace these technological advances however, Virtual Archaeology has become a practice to visualize the archaeological record, yet it is still searching for its methodological and theoretical base. I submit that Virtual Archaeology is the digital making and interrogating of the archaeological unknown. By wayfaring means, through the synergy of the maker, digital tools and material, archaeologists make meaning of the archaeological record by engaging the known archaeological data with the crafting of new knowledge by multimodal reflection and the …

Remembrance As Presence: Promoting Learning From Difficult Knowledge At The Canadian Museum For Human Rights, Kelsey Perreault

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis explores the relationship between memorial museums and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR), Winnipeg. Although the CMHR self-defines as an idea museum, using theories of remembrance, commemorative museum pedagogy, memory, and difficult knowledge, the CMHR is also easily situated in the growing global network of memorial museums. Angela Failler's theory of consolatory hope and my own theory of past-future dissonance suggest that there are several reasons the CMHR has not fulfilled its intended mandate of advocating for human rights in the present. Through a compare and contrast approach, this paper argues that the CMHR should look to …