Museum Studies Commons^™

Collections As Currency? New Approaches To Art Museum’S Deaccessioning Dilemmas, Juliana Guerra

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) defines deaccessioning as “the process by which a work of art or other object is permanently removed from a museum’s collection.” Though deaccessions have occurred quietly throughout history, these practices have been recently thrust into the spotlight as art museums grapple with the unprecedented economic challenges of the 21st century. While monetizing the collection is legal, it is undoubtedly controversial, especially in light of the AAMD’s pandemic-prompted decision to suspend sanctions on museums that apply these funds towards operations. With today’s booming art market, deaccessioning may provide an attractive windfall to a struggling …

It's Just Caring: Improving The Museum Experience For Visitors With Autism Through Social Narratives, Reagan R. Stone

Honors Theses

This project explores how museums can improve the visitor experience for visitors with disabilities, more specifically for visitors with autism. In general, museums are environments that have a specific set of rules, guidelines, and built-in social interactions that visitors are expected to understand and follow. These guidelines, as well as the sensory overload that exists within a new environment, can make visiting the museum a stressful, and even negative experience for individuals with autism and their families. A social narrative, a simple written and visual guide that explains characteristics of new environments and various aspects of social situations, is a …

Les Six Continents: An Exploration Of Political Visual Rhetoric In Public Sculpture, Olivia Liu Guillotin

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Les six continents series stands as remnants of the 1878 Exposition Universelle and as a visual marker of the cultural, social, and economic culture of the time period. The series, serving as public art, continues to inform and participate in its environment and space, as it is on display by the entrance of the Musée d’Orsay today. Personified representations of Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, and Oceania as allegorical female figures, the series offers insight into the colonial world where it emerged, and how its impact has visually been ingrained in contemporary society. By using these six statues …

You Belong Here: A Critical Look At Community Engagement In Museum Education Through K-16 Place Based Pedagogy, Janelle O'Malley

Student Projects

Historically museums exist as object centered spaces with little consideration of the community and artists that support them. Therefore museums as pedagogical sites must reorient themselves to become people centered spaces incorporating participatory pedagogical experiences for both community members and artists.

There is a lack of research in place-based pedagogies in museum education. It is important now more than ever to recognize the need to center community in museum education. This study will seek to investigate how museums can exact meaningful change through their educational practices and create a sense of belonging in museums for their immediate community. The outcomes …

What To Keep And How To Keep It: A Case Study Of Archival Material Related To The Richardson Olmsted Campus, Isabelle C. Bateson-Brown

Museum Studies Projects

Museums come in all shapes and sizes but do museum standards? The purpose of this thesis is explore the importance of adapting museum industry standards to the distinctive mission, collection, and feasibility of a specific institution. This research was exemplified by a case study of the historical and archival materials related to the Richardson Center Corporation and Richardson Olmsted Campus. The unique situation of the Richardson Olmsted Campus as a site-specific arts and cultural organization related to the adaptive reuse of a historic landmark was also contextualized within the trend of historic reuse and the larger scope of museum industry …

Our Shared Vision: Representations Of The Trans-Mississippi American West, Joshua D. Koenig

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role played by museums in shaping our understanding of the American West. The history of the American West holds a place in American popular culture, evidenced by music, movies and television shows, novels, art, architecture, clothing, and numerous other examples. However, such examples raise questions of authenticity depending on medium and setting, Representations of the American West depict certain images or beliefs held by society. At the same time, the United States houses nearly 1,500 historic sites and museums focusing on the American West. These museums and sites are found scattered throughout thirty-eight states, in addition …

Woven By The Grandmothers: The Development Of The National Museum Of The American Indian Throughout The 1990s, Lucy Winokur

Scripps Senior Theses

In 1994, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) opened the George Gustav Heye Center in New York City, the first of what would be three campuses. Ten years later, in 2004, the NMAI opened its main campus in Washington, D.C., already having cemented their place as leaders in a movement to center indigenous voices within museums housing indigenous material culture. By examining the history of the NMAI from the first acquisition of George Gustav Heye to its earliest approaches to exhibition design and collections management policy in the 1990s, it is possible to track the development of the …

When Repatriation Doesn’T Happen: Relationships Created Through Cultural Property Negotiations, Ellyn Demuynck

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the discourse of repatriation in connection to the Encounters exhibition held by the National Museum of Australia in 2015. Indigenous Australian and Torres Strait Islander artifacts were loaned to the Australian museum by the British Museum. At the close of the exhibition, one item, the Gweagal shield, was claimed for repatriation. The repatriation request had not been approved at the time of this research. The Gweagal shield is a historically significant artifact for Indigenous and non- Indigenous Australians. Analysis takes into account the political economy of the two museums and situates the exhibition within the relevant museum …

Steam Vs. Stem: A Study And Program Proposal For Monticello, Micaela Deogracias

Honors Projects

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and art programs have long been struggling for dominance in the education system. This fight overshadows the fact there are synergistic educative capabilities when these two schools of thought are combined, allowing scientific and artistic persons to work in tandem and be exposed to a wider variety of problem-solving options and opinions. This study aims to focus on museum education practices specifically and how implementing STEAM programs (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) versus STEM could raise the perceived value of arts in society, as well as create a more enriching educational experience by …

Double-Edged Experiences And Their Impact On The Twenty-First-Century Audience: The Ever-Evolving Museum, Ana Sanz Menchero

MA Theses

The twenty-first-century museum is an ever-changing art institution adapting itself to engage a broader audience. The democratization of the museum becomes the priority to make art accessible to everyone. In the quest to find the perfect strategy, museums commit themselves to a constant transformation that seeks to create a unique “business model.” Along this process, institutions provide two-folded experiences to the public; first, the exhibition of art as a spectacular experience, and second, the staging of the museum as an entertaining entity. Today, museum attendance is not necessarily related to the quality of the show anymore. Welcome to the era …

Making Space For Makerspace: How Adding A Makerspace Can Benefit Art Museum Education Programming, Kaeleigh Thorp

Master's Projects and Capstones

In this capstone project, I advocate for adding makerspaces to art museum education programming. I review the foundational educational concepts of a makerspace which help explain why it is a modern strategy to increasing visitor learning. This includes John Dewey’s theories of experience and education, Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory, George Hein’s studies of museum visitor behavior, and the physiological science of learning. I then propose four key terms essential for visitor learning, and explain how makerspaces successfully incorporate them. The four key terms are: 1. multiple intelligences, 2. direct experience, 3. inquiry based and open ended learning, and 4. …

Expanding The Definition Of Provenance: Adapting To Changes Since The Publication Of The First Aam Guide To Provenance Research, Katlin Cunningham

Master's Projects and Capstones

In 2001 the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) published The AAM Guide to Provenance Research. However, in the past seventeen years there have been several new developments in the provenanceresearchfield, and an updated guide has yet to be released. I propose that several changes be made to create an updated version. For this project, I tested this guide in two ways: first, to see how our understanding of provenance has changed since 2001 and second, to use a case study to assess whether the recommended basic research guide and principles still apply to today.

In the first …

Multilingual Museums: A Proposal To Increase Linguistic Diversity In Contemporary Art Museums, Jennifer Cha

Master's Projects and Capstones

The U.S. population is becoming more ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse. It is estimated that by the year 2050, the U.S. will shift to a majority-minority population, meaning that the total minority population will become the majority of the U.S. population. But while the U.S. is diversifying, the current museum visitorship demographic is not representative of or on track to measure up to these changes in the future. If museums are valuable civic spaces with several associated health, social, and educational benefits, and a large percentage of the population have low-English proficiency and cannot access the information, then there is …

Designing Narrative Artefacts, Jennifer Dempsey

Masters

This thesis documents an investigation that explored the use of narrative and material culture to present aspects of women’s lives from eighteenth-century Cork city to a twenty-first century museum audience. There were two objectives of this research. The first was to create a catalogue of elements from material culture through which these women’s lives would be revealed. The second was to use narrative to make this information accessible and engaging.

This research is linked with Nano Nagle Place, a heritage centre in Cork city that opened in 2017. The centre documents the life of Nano Nagle, an eighteenth-century philanthropist who, …

Stability For A Small Historic House Museum: Drafting A Collection Management Policy For The Trinidad Museum, Alexandra Mackay Cox

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

A museum exists and is defined primarily by its collection. It is therefore important for a museum to manage its collection effectively while preserving it for long-term use. The size and scope of the museum's collection will determine the complexity of its policy. As such, all museums, including small ones, need a well-defined Collection Management Policy (CMP). This policy outlines what and how to collect, defines the development and use of the collection as well as procedures for the care of the collection, the loaning of items and removing of items from the museum's collection. The Trinidad Museum, a small …

Curating Contemporary Japanese Art: Exhibition Catalogue Production For Hidden Landscapes: Yasuaki Onishi And Invisible Space, Emily Lawhead

Master's Projects and Capstones

In the last decade, there has been a telling increase of attention given to contemporary Asian artists exhibited in the United States and Europe. Since 2008, artists from China, Japan, South Korea, and Central Asia have been featured in exhibitions from the Venice Biennale to the Whitney Biennale, and are becoming ever more present on the Western art stage. Meanwhile, curatorial practice, once focused on the care of objects, is shifting to encompass a wider range of creative activity. Curators are taking time to engage with living artists in a collaborative setting, rather than as impartial facilitators. This capstone seeks …

Applying Agile Project Management To Art Museums: A Proposal For Implementing A Generalist Scrum Master, Vincent Sulit

Master's Projects and Capstones

This capstone project examines organizational change, along with its challenges, through case studies in museums and businesses in the private sector, subsequently providing a possible solution for museums to adapt to the current global market economy through the use of Agile Project Management (Agile). I cite recent case studies of art museums implementing Agile for digital product development. This project proposal aims to introduce Agile outside of digital departments, including Exhibitions and Education, with the goal of developing better visitor-centered offerings from museums. This may be achieved through the proposal of a job description for a new museum position of …

Aura Of Authenticity: The Impact Of Original Objects In The Museum Guest Experience, Alyssa Frijey

Museum Studies Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to defend the maintenance of original object-based collections in museums with the argument that they provide profound, unique, and irreplaceable experiences for museum guests. Authenticity of an artifact carries with it an aura of importance which is a highly valuable means of connection within museums. Such meaning is the direct result of the manner in which human beings interpret material culture. Keeping in mind that this value can only be fully experienced through that which is original, it is crucial that original objects should be maintained in these institutions.

Interpreting American Indian Cultural Heritage: Visitor's Educational Experience At Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site, Kara Lynn Underwood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The following research and analysis explore the various methods in which American Indian heritage is interpreted at Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site in Colorado Springs, CO. Attention was given to the distinctive ways this space acts as an educational institution that displays and interprets Colorado's cultural heritage through object-centered learning and participatory education. The goal for this research was to discuss ahistorical biases that have existed in museums for centuries, while encouraging dialogue and discourse about the appropriate methods for interpreting American Indian cultural heritage. Through the presentation and examination of visitors' educational experiences using observations, questionnaires, and informal interviews …

Leandro Erlich: Towards A Collaborative Relationship Between Architecture And Art, Isabel Tassara

Master's Projects and Capstones

For this Museum Studies capstone project, I presented and developed a proposal and project plan for an exterior interactive exhibition of an Argentinean artist, Leandro Erlich, at the Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) in San Francisco, California. After researching diverse conflicts between architects and artists in the art museum context, my goal was to show an approach in which art can “dialogue” with the exterior features of the CJM’s cutting edge building. To be presented on the courtyard entrance of the Libeskind construction, the exhibition that I propose will potentially prove that an effective relationship can be established outside the common …

Jackson Creek Arts And Trails, Llc: Museum Travel Immersion Programs, Else C. Trygstad-Burke

Master's Projects and Capstones

Museums have become increasingly oriented towards reaching new audiences, encouraging visitor loyalty, and informing the public about their overall relevance. Innovation in programming is a centerpiece of this effort, including a provision of programs for all age groups and demographics. At the same time that this transformation occurs in the museum world, similar changes are taking place in the leisure, travel and tourism industries. A continuously rapid increase in globalism and cultural access contributes to an atmosphere in which travelers can expand their goals and purposes within the context of a travel experience. This report will demonstrate that these trends …

Improving Cal Nagpra: Honoring Native American Rights, Kim Turner

Master's Projects and Capstones

The California Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (Cal NAGPRA) became state law in 2001. Its purpose was to create a process whereby California tribes could seek to repatriate human remains and objects from their cultural heritage from museums and custodial institutions. Cal NAGPRA includes a number of shortcomings that have impeded the ability of tribes to successfully reclaim objects from their heritage. The ethical implications of museums retaining cultural objects and human remains, often confiscated from Native peoples or their tribal lands, has been a principal social justice topic of USF’s museum studies program. This capstone describes a …

Accessibility And Technology: Remote Access To Art Through Telepresence Robotics, Jenna M. Hebert

Master's Projects and Capstones

This capstone project details a proposal for a remote tour pilot program and community partnership written for the Art Institute of Chicago, Snow City Arts and the John H Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County. The proposal seeks to provide a model for remote accessibility to art museums for visitors with mobility disabilities. The pilot program utilizes telepresence technology as a tool for providing remote tours and for emulating the social benefits of a museum visit. Within the program, telepresence technology becomes a mechanism for communication and collaboration between the museum and members of the community, allowing individuals previously unable …

Curating Adjacent Shores: A Contemporary Art Exhibition At Usf's Thacher Gallery, Nell C. Herbert

Master's Projects and Capstones

This capstone is a project management plan for the curation of a real-world contemporary art exhibition at the University of San Francisco’s Mary and Carter Thacher Gallery. Adjacent Shores: Hughen Starkweather was on view from March 7 through April 24 of 2016, and featured an eighteenth century Japanese map and the work of the collaborative team of San Francisco based artists Amanda Hughen and Jennifer Starkweather. The exhibition was part of a larger program of events that occurred concurrently on the USF campus and at the Asian Art Museum, all centered on the theme of cartography. During and immediately following …

Designing Museums For Participation, Collaboration And Social Interaction, Martin Mccarthy

Masters

This thesis documents the design and development of novel interactive experiences that explored concepts aimed to enhance the visitor experience to Cork Butter Museum, Cork, Ireland.

The context to the work is that in recent years, museums and cultural institutions are increasingly motivated to apply creative strategies to engage visitors who come for recreational, social and sometimes educative purposes. Novel museum exhibits designed to cater for such needs often involves the integration of new media technologies in response to rising expectations visitors have with regards to being actively engaged during their visit. This often requires a higher level of participation …

100 Years Of Yakima Indian Nation Art, Muriel Jean Hauge

All Master's Theses

The curatorial process was examined in the preparation for a Washington State Centennial exhibition of Yakima Indian Nation art and Western Columbia Plateau material culture. Interviews with artists, local historians and collectors plus a review of literature gave contemporary and historical perspectives on the arts and crafts of the Columbia Plateau. An exhibition plan and museum education slide-text program are included in the study.