Studying museum material and collections

In modern post‐Renaissance western society, museums are the political and cultural institutions entrusted with holding the material evidence, real things, which constitute much modern knowledge. The paper considers some aspects of museums as institutions holding this material evidence – the institutional relationship to accepted knowledge and value, the implication in the social and economic system and the visible architectural display, – which make up the messages which museums communicate to their visitors through exhibitions and interpretive projects. Three related aspects of interpretation which belong with each museum object and specimen are examined, professional care, interpretive approaches and the nature of collections. Finally, these threads are drawn together to suggest a framework of research and investigation which underpins the approach to our understanding of this aspect of the heritage, and points the way to future work.     

Re-thinking festivals: a comparative study of the integration/marginalization of arts festivals in the urban regimes of Manchester,Copenhagen and Vienna

Arts festivals have been on the ascendant since the 1980s. However, while these are proliferating, it remains unclear as to whether they are also flourishing. The present narrow construction of festivals for marketing and economic purposes tends to disregard the festivals’ social and cultural potential, i.e. in terms of functioning as urban laboratories where new and alternative urban and cultural strategies can be tested and developed. In order to address these imbalanced conceptualizations of arts festivals within urban policy frameworks, the article is based on a comparative case study of festivals that try to function as urban laboratories. By examining how these festivals are integrated in or marginalized by the urban regime, and how this influences their operational conditions, the research elucidates the need to create new and more holistic policy frameworks to chart an equitable path for the future development of arts festivals.     

Curating convergence: interpreting museum objects in integrated collecting institutions

This article is concerned with the phenomenon of convergence (institutional integration) of museums, libraries, archives and other cultural facilities. It investigates how such amalgamations impact the capacity of curatorial and collections staff to carry out interpretive practices, including object research, documentation and exhibition development. Through thematic content analysis of staff interviews conducted at five case studies of local government-run converged collecting institutions in Australia and New Zealand, the paper suggests that administrative restructuring – often predicated on the dual imperatives of financial efficiency and improved cultural provision – produces institutional frameworks that undermine the capacity of collections staff to interrogate the meanings of objects. In turn, impediments to interpretive practice limit the extent to which collections are rendered intellectually accessible to visitors.     

Cultural sustainability as a strategy for the survival of museums and libraries

Cultural sustainability has become a growing priority within sustainable development agendas, and is now often depicted as a fourth pillar, equal to social, economic, and environmental concerns. Museums and libraries play a unique role within cultural sustainability by preserving their communities’ heritage. However, sustainability policy and research within these sectors still tends to focus on the social, economic, and environmental pillars. This article provides a critique of sustainability policy and research for museums and libraries. It argues that more explicit coverage of cultural sustainability is required to not only improve the contributions of museums and libraries to cultural sustainability, but also to provide an increased understanding and appreciation of the value of these institutions necessary for their continued survival.     

Handcraft as Cultural Diplomacy: The 1968 Mexico Cultural Olympics and U.S. Participation in the International Exhibition of Popular Arts

Mexican post-revolutionary cultural institutions excelled at implementing Mexican art and popular arts as key elements in cultural diplomacy. However, while there is abundant research regarding these arts and their inclusion in international exhibitions during the first part of the twentieth century, there is little research on their role in international cultural diplomacy during the second half of that century. In the first part of this article I present a historiographical appraisal of the 1968 Mexican Cultural Olympiad and the resolutions of the “First Latin American Seminar on Popular Arts and Crafts” sponsored by UNESCO in Mexico City in 1965. In the second, I examine the case of U.S. participation in the “Exposición Internacional de Artesanías Populares” (International Exhibition of Popular Arts), which was part of the 1968 Cultural Olympiad’s programme – largely neglected by the historiography of the XIX Olympics – to explain how popular arts were made to perform as agents of cultural diplomacy in Mexico and the U.S. during the Cold War. In addition, I argue that U.S. participation in this exhibition also reveals negotiations and redefinitions of the concepts of handcraft and arte popular, and the economic and social situation of their makers in the United States.     

Children’s museums as cultural development strategies for urban revitalization

Cities have increasingly invested in cultural institutions in hopes of revitalizing their urban centers. Critical of the value of these expenditures, scholars have called for an examination of the various types of cultural institutions in which cities have invested, to determine whether they are capable of simultaneously serving the economic, physical, and social goals of urban revitalization. In response to that call, I examine whether the children’s museum, a distinct type of cultural investment, is able to provide this range of public benefit. To do so, I draw on secondary sources to examine the origins, development, and current practices of children’s museum and present an illustrative example of a children’s museum that is intended to serve as a catalyst for urban revitalization in a small city in the USA. I contend that children’s museums are worthy recipients of public funding because they are simultaneously able to address these diverse agendas.     

Sound recordings and cultural heritage: the Fonck Museum,the Felbermayer collection,and its relevance to contemporary Easter Island culture

Sound recording plays a prominent role in cultural heritage work in the Pacific region, supported by sound archives and institutional collections that serve to preserve this intangible cultural heritage. While it has long been a standard practice for field recordings to be lodged in institutions of learning, recent developments in Pacific research have emphasised the ethical and social benefits that can result from the repatriation of sound recordings to their communities of origin, and from the development of field recording practices in which cultural stakeholders are more directly involved. Meanwhile, the digitisation of historical sound recordings and the use of digital domains for dissemination have become matters of theoretical and methodological inquiry in their own right. This article seeks to contribute to the discourse surrounding the repatriation of historical field recordings through the presentation of findings from a recent Chilean government-funded digitisation and repatriation project involving previously undocumented recordings of Easter Island (Rapanui) music from the Fonck Museum, Viña del Mar. It will explain the circumstances under which the project developed, the strategies pursued in bringing it to fruition, and the reception of the project by the Rapanui community.     

INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS AND ARTS POLICY RESEARCH1

There is a growth of networks in the cultural policy arena. Many of these networks have been formed to share information and to engage in comparative documentation and research. The International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA) is one such network, established with aims of consolidating the collective knowledge of arts councils and culture agencies, adding value to that knowledge, and improving the management and sharing of information on arts and cultural policy. Networks such as IFACCA impact on the research agenda in two main ways: directly, by undertaking, commissioning or collaborating on research projects, and indirectly, by highlighting the perceived information needs of their constituents or members. IFACCA’s main research programme, D’Art, is used as a case study to evaluate the direct impacts of the network, and this forms the basis for a discussion of the influence of such networks on the global arts policy research agenda.     

Sustaining popular music’s material culture in community archives and museums

This article examines the challenges of sustainability faced by community archives and museums that are concerned with the preservation and display of the material culture of popular music’s recent past. The sustainability of grassroots sites of popular music heritage is of great concern due to their role in making accessible cultural artefacts that have limited representation in the collections of more prestigious institutions. Drawing on three sites that have ceased operation – Jazz Museum Bix Eiben Hamburg, Mutant Sounds and Holy Warbles – the article highlights difficulties faced by the founders and volunteers of physical and online archives in sustaining their ‘do-it-yourself’ heritage practices in the medium- to long-term.     

Arts practitioners in the cultural policy process: spear-carriers or speaking parts?

This paper considers the argument that arts practitioners are rarely acknowledged by cultural policy researchers as being more than marginally involved in policy-making. Drawing on public policy analysis which pays attention to a breadth of policy actors, and on the concept of civil society, the paper examines whether these approaches can help to better investigate and understand the role of arts practitioners in the policy process. It discusses this subject in relation to cultural policy in general and in the specific arena of British arts policy, focusing on original case-study research of playwrights’ organisations and playwriting policy. The case-study evidence demonstrates that arts practitioners – through involvement in policy debate and implementation, and their own initiatives and activities – are frequently engaged in the policy process and thus more broadly in the democratic public domain. Understanding of cultural policy development is therefore considerably weakened if the role of practitioners is ignored.     

New perspectives on instrumentalism: an empirical study of cultural diplomacy

Museums are increasingly recognised as having a role to play within international relations, to facilitate cultural exchange, assert national identity and foster mutual understanding. Whilst international work is perceived to be politically motivated and diplomatically advantageous, it can be highly beneficial to cultural institutions. In this paper, ‘cultural diplomacy' is shown to be a strategy used by museums to enable organisational development and economic growth. This paper demonstrates how national museums adopted a political rhetoric and used strategic lobbying to formulate a new cultural policy, which expanded the scale and scope of their international work. By defining the parameters and principles of this policy, the institutions wield power, thus challenging the conventional perceptions of policy-making and contradicting commentators who accuse museums of political subservience. Throwing the notion of instrumentalism into disarray, this paper calls for a theoretical and conceptual rethinking, to revamp understanding and bring it in line with practice.     

博物馆经典藏品资源的文创产品开发——以曾侯乙编钟文创系列产品的开发为例

对博物馆经典藏品进行复制,或者萃取其文化元素开发衍生产品,一直为博物馆所重视。这类复制品从传播效应、经济效应、市场价值、文化价值和创意内涵诸方面都体现出"文创产品"的性质,应该纳入"文创产品"市场予以定位、规划。湖北省博物馆对馆藏经典藏品曾侯乙编钟开发了七大类百余个品种的文创系列产品,它们既体现了藏品原型的价值和精髓,也具有保护、研究和实用价值。目前我国博物馆文创事业还需要在经典藏品资源的研究、市场研发人才的培养、衍生品系列的完善、跨界同质资源的整合以及复制品制作单位资质的把控等方面加大推进的步伐。     

The end of cultural policy?1

ABSTRACT

The article discusses whether we are approaching the end of public cultural policy in Western democracies, because contemporary cultural policy is not adapted to major transformation processes in contemporary societies. I discuss seven different challenges/scenarios that public cultural policy has to confront today: (1) It appears to be very difficult to democratise culture. (2) Public authorities consistently continue to support cultural institutions that may be obsolete. (3) Professional artists are still poor, despite public support schemes. (4) Public cultural policy is still predominantly national, despite the globalisation of cultural production and distribution. (5) Public authorities increasingly justify subsidies to culture with reference to the beneficial effects that art and culture could have outside the cultural field. Therefore, one might argue that other public bodies could take better care of cultural affairs. (6) A specific public cultural sector may appear to ‘imprison’ culture in a bureaucratic ‘iron cage’. (7) Finally, one might argue that a public cultural policy has no sense in a period of stagnating public finances. In addition, I discuss several counterarguments to these challenges, without coming to a definite conclusion. I have based the analysis on available comparative research about the public cultural policies of Western democracies, predominantly Norwegian cultural policy.     

Chinese Objects in Eurasian Empire: On the Cultural Meaning of Chinese Art in Russia in the Late 17th–Early 18th Centuries

This article examines special features of “Chinoiserie” or “Chinese fashion” (“Kitaischina”) in Russia from the late 17th to the early 18th century: The reign of Peter the First. It discusses this cultural phenomenon’s historical origins, demonstrates the role of Chinese luxury goods and art objects in the era’s Russo-Chinese cultural exchange, and illustrates how Chinese decorative arts were used in Russian palaces. While Chinoiserie in Russia was influenced by similar trends in Western Europe, it was rooted in the unique history of regular contacts between Russia and the Qing Empire. Chinese objects not only appeared as commodities in the higher levels of Russian society, they also contributed to the prestige of the Russian state. Peter the First had a political purpose behind the collection, display and imitation of Chinese art objects in Russian palaces, as these practices demonstrated the growing wealth and power of newly established Russian Empire, which enjoyed trade connections with the Qing Empire. While contemporary perceptions of China in Russia were derived mostly by the exotic images of export art, ethnographic collections of genuine Chinese utensils, which were founded during that period, also contributed to Russian views of China. This research uses a comprehensive methodology, combining studies of material objects preserved in Russian museums and written sources, including archival records.     

Die regionalökonomische Bedeutung der Wissenschaft für das Ruhrgebiet

The Ruhr area has advanced to the largest university region in Germany – often unnoticed within and outside. At the same time scientific institutions have become a major economic factor. Because of the higher and extra-university research institutions about 2.5 billion euros are effective as a demand potential in the region. 1.7 billion euros of this amount are directly associated with investments and operating expenditures of the scientific institutions as well as consumptions of employees and students. Additional 770 million euros result in revenues of many branches such as trade, housing, gastronomy sector, handcraft industry etc. It should not be underestimated that higher and extra-university research institutions generate with their research activities particular funding from the European Union or the rest of Germany for benefit of the region. Each euro spent by the state government for basic funding creates 39 cents third-party funding. These regional-economic effects result in noticeable employment impacts within the region. Around 25,000 people are directly employed in higher and extra-university research institutes or student unions (Studierendenwerke), about 22,000 jobs in other economic sectors are ensured or created by the induced demand. Science has thus become an important economic factor and represents an essential counterbalance to employment decline in shrinking industries of the region. The specific inclusion of science in a regional development strategy and targeted relining with appropriate measures to strengthen the science creates therefore an effective starting point for the design of structural change.     

Cultural policy as development policy: evidence from the United States

Cultural policies and cultural projects in the United States have been reframed to emphasize their economic benefits to cities. New alliances between arts advocates and place promoters are apparent at all levels, but are most prominent locally. These new alliances are facilitated by the changing interests of local officials and business people, who have come to believe there is economic value in the arts and of arts administrators, for whom attracting broader public support has become imperative. In some cities, entirely new organizational structures have sprung up to plan and implement projects that serve cultural and economic development advocates simultaneously. Such new institutions are most prominent in more economically disadvantaged cities.     

Going ‘mainstream’: evaluating the instrumentalisation of multicultural arts

This paper considers how debates over the instrumentalisation of the arts have informed the cultural production of an Australian arts organisation – Multicultural Arts Victoria (MAV). In an effort to make multicultural arts more ‘mainstream’, MAV has increasingly adopted market‐based rationales for its work – particularly the use of ‘audience development’ policy frameworks. It is easy to evaluate this marketisation of multicultural arts negatively as an acceptance of neoliberal policy agendas and as a weakening of its commitment to ‘cultural development’ goals. This paper suggests, however, via a critique of Ghassan Hage’s analysis of multiculturalism, that such accounts do not consider how economic rationales actually sit in practice with MAV’s other (cultural development) agendas. Such critiques, therefore, preclude an affirmative reading of the instrumentalisation of multicultural arts. An alternative analytical framework is proposed – one which can more readily account for multicultural arts as a set of practices informed by diverse agendas, and which acknowledges how such practices might both contest and converge with official government policies.     

National identity and economic development: reiteration,recapture, reinterpretation and repudiation*

Abstract. This article attempts to move beyond assumptions that nationalism is essentially cultural and/or narrowly political, and that it is primarily past‐oriented and defensive. We do this by examining evidence relating to the creative (re)construction of the nation from a contemporary economic perspective. Paying particular attention to Scotland and Wales, we show that the mobilisation of national identity within this process of (re)construction is not exclusive to those who seek greater political autonomy. National identity is also mobilised, often in a ‘banal’ fashion, by non‐political national institutions such as economic development agencies. We argue that, within the strategies and discourses of economic development, historic national characteristics are reconciled with contemporary needs and aspirations through four processes: reiteration, recapture, reinterpretation and repudiation.     

Governance, institutional capacity and partnerships in local economic development: theoretical issues and empirical evidence from the Humber Sub-region

Recent research on local and regional economic development has focused upon transformations in local governance and institutional capacity. It has been argued that local authorities have ceded power to other actors and institutions involved in economic development and regeneration, and that the success of local and regional economic development is closely related to the strength of 'institutional capacity' within an area. In this paper, we examine these claims with reference to the operation of EU Structural Funds in the Humber Sub-region of the UK. Previous research on local governance and institutional capacity has had a limited empirical focus, drawing conclusions from studies of either economically 'successful' regions or regions undergoing regulatory and institutional transformation and precluding analysis of the nature and conditions of local governance and institutional capacity in less developed regions. Our case study evidence not only suggests that arguments about the declining influence of the local state are overdrawn, but also indicates a need for more nuanced accounts of the role of institutional capacity in regional development.