In the Merriam Webster dictionary, the literal definition of the word museum is “an institution devoted to the procurement, care, study, and display of objects of lasting interest or value; also : a place where objects are exhibited”. So what exactly do exhibitions represent and how do they do so? Exhibitions are put into museums that differ by age, target audiences, content, national and regional orientations and just simply by ambition. The type or genre of a museum might be the significant difference that divides through all of the other variables: art museums, cultural history museums, and natural history museums have different explanations for their motives and completely different conceptions of how to use and present having different
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All exhibitions are inevitably organized on the basis of assumptions about the intentions of the objects’ producers, the cultural skills and qualification of the audience, the claims to authoritativeness made by the exhibition, and judgements of the aesthetic merit or authenticity of the objects or settings exhibited. In works such as the Paris Primitive by Sally Price and Our Lives: Collaboration, Native Voice, and Making of the National Museum of the American Indian by Jennifer Shannon, we can see the similarity and difference of the struggles in exhibitions. In Paris Primitive, Sally Price focuses on the extended analysis of the ambiguous relationship between “primitive arts” and “civilized eyes” and how the role of museums is …show more content…
The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), through Shannon’s views, had a mission to make a commitment to “advancing knowledge and understanding of partnerships with Native people and others”. What makes it both unique and problematic among the Smithsonian’s museums is its focus on a curatorial practice called “community curating”. Although far removed physically and culturally from the communities it represents, the concept of “community curating” legitimatized the NMAI’s representation of indigenous cultures. In this instance, exhibit teams consisted of non-Native curators who were academic content specialists, Native curators who combined community perspective with scholarly content, community curators who brought an experiential practice and shared values to the process, and other museum staff with specialized skills such as exhibit design and fabrication, object conservation, education, administration, security, and many more. However because of the infinite possibility of the changing of staff, there would then be a significant realization of the changing of conceptualizations. Throughout Jennifer Shannon’s book, she states that exhibitions should be more like a classic life cycle display and should
All exhibitions are inevitably organized on the basis of assumptions about the intentions of the objects’ producers, the cultural skills and qualification of the audience, the claims to authoritativeness made by the exhibition, and judgements of the aesthetic merit or authenticity of the objects or settings exhibited. In works such as the Paris Primitive by Sally Price and Our Lives: Collaboration, Native Voice, and Making of the National Museum of the American Indian by Jennifer Shannon, we can see the similarity and difference of the struggles in exhibitions. In Paris Primitive, Sally Price focuses on the extended analysis of the ambiguous relationship between “primitive arts” and “civilized eyes” and how the role of museums is …show more content…
The National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), through Shannon’s views, had a mission to make a commitment to “advancing knowledge and understanding of partnerships with Native people and others”. What makes it both unique and problematic among the Smithsonian’s museums is its focus on a curatorial practice called “community curating”. Although far removed physically and culturally from the communities it represents, the concept of “community curating” legitimatized the NMAI’s representation of indigenous cultures. In this instance, exhibit teams consisted of non-Native curators who were academic content specialists, Native curators who combined community perspective with scholarly content, community curators who brought an experiential practice and shared values to the process, and other museum staff with specialized skills such as exhibit design and fabrication, object conservation, education, administration, security, and many more. However because of the infinite possibility of the changing of staff, there would then be a significant realization of the changing of conceptualizations. Throughout Jennifer Shannon’s book, she states that exhibitions should be more like a classic life cycle display and should