Curation as a concept and a catchword in modern parlance has, over recent decades, become deeply ingrained in modern culture. The purpose of this study is to explore the curatorial forces at work within the modern opera house and to examine the functionaries and processes that guide them. In turn, comparisons are made with the workings of the traditional art museum, where artworks are studied, preserved, restored, displayed and contextualised - processes which are also present in the opera house. Curatorial roles in each institution are identified and described, and the role of the celebrity art curator is compared with that of the modern stage director, who has acquired previously undreamt-of licence to interrogate operatic works, overlaying them with new concepts and levels of meaning in order to reinvent and redefine the operatic repertoire for contemporary needs. A point of coalescence between the opera house and the art museum is identified, with the transformation, towards the end of the nineteenth century, of the opera house into the operatic museum. Curatorial practices in the opera house are examined, and further communalities and synergies in the way that 'works' are defined in each institution are explored. This study also considers the so-called 'birth' of opera around the start of the seventeenth century, with reference to the near-contemporary rise of the modern art museum, outlining operatic practice and performance history over the last 400 years in order to identify the curatorial practices that have historically been employed in the maintenance and development of the repertoire. This examination of the forces of curation within the modern opera house will highlight aspects of authenticity, authorial intent, preservation, restoration and historically informed performance practice.

Negotiating Race and Rights in the Museum traces the evolution of pervasive racial ideas, and 'post-race' allusions, over more than a century of museum thinking and practice. Drawing on the illuminating history of the Smithsonian Institution, this book offers an account of how museums have addressed and renegotiated wider calls for inclusion, 'self-definition', and racial justice, in ways that continually re-centre and legitimise the White frame. Charting the emergence of 'post-race' ideas in museums, Bunning demonstrates how and why 'culturally specific' approaches have been met with suspicion and derision by powerful museum stakeholders against the backdrop of a changing United States of America, just as they have offered crucial vehicles for sectoral change. This study of the evolution of racial ideas in response to Black empowerment highlights deeply entrenched forms of White supremacy that remain operative within the international museum sector today, and serves to reinforce the urgent calls for the active disruption of racist ideas and the redesign of institutions. Negotiating Race and Rights in the Museum will appeal to those working in the international fields of museum and heritage studies, cultural studies, and American studies, and all who are interested in the production of racial ideas and White supremacy in the museum.

Evaluating Early Learning in Museums presents developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant practices for engaging early learners and their families in informal arts settings. Written by early childhood education researchers and a museum practitioner, the book showcases what high-quality educational programs can offer young children and their families through the case study of a program at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. Providing strategies for building strong community partnerships and audience relationships, the authors also survey evaluation tools for early learning programs and offer strategies to help museums around the world to engage young children. At the center of this narrative is the seminal partnership that developed between researchers and museum educators during the evaluation of a program for toddlers. Illuminating key components of the partnership and the resulting evolution of family offerings at the museum, the book also draws parallels to current work being done at other museums in international contexts. Evaluating Early Learning in Museums illustrates how an interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers and practitioners can improve museum practices. As such, the book will be of interest to researchers and students engaged in the study of museums and early childhood, as well as to practitioners working in museums around the world.

Franco Albini's works of architecture and design, produced between 1930 and 1977, have enjoyed a recent revival but to date have received only sporadic scholarly attention from historians and critics of the Modern Movement. A chorus of Italian voices has sung his praises, none more eloquently than his protege, Renzo Piano. Kay Bea Jones' illuminating study of selected works by Studio Albini will reintroduce his contributions to one of the most productive periods in Italian design. Albini emerged from the ideology of Rationalism to produce some of Italy's most coherent and poetic examples of modern design. He collaborated for over 25 years with Franca Helg and at a time when professional male-female partnerships were virtually unknown. His museums and installation motifs changed the way Italians displayed historic artifacts. He composed novel suspension structures for dwellings, shops, galleries and his signature INA pavilions where levity and gravity became symbolic devices for connoting his subjects. Albini clarified the vital role of tradition in modern architecture as he experimented with domestic space. His cohort defied CIAM ideologies to re-socialize postwar housing and speculate on ways of reviving Italian cities. He explored new fabrication technologies, from the scale of furniture to wide-span steel structures, yet he never abandoned the rigors of craft and detail in favor of mass-production. Suspending Modernity follows the evolution of Albini's most important buildings and projects, even as they reveal his apprehensive attitudes about the modern condition. Jones argues here that Albini's masterful use of materials and architectural expression mark an epic paradigm shift in the modern period.

The world-class National Palace Museum (NPM) in Taiwan possesses a repository of the largest collection of Chinese cultural treasures of outstanding quality. Through implementing a two-organizational restructuring, and shifting its operational focus from being object-oriented to public-centered, it aims to capture the attention of people and promote awareness of the culture and traditions of China. In this vein, the NPM combines its expertise in museum service with the possibilities afforded by Information Technology (IT). This book analyses the research results of a team sponsored by the National Science Council in Taiwan to observe the development processes and accomplishments, and to conduct scientific researches covering not only the technology and management disciplines, but also the humanities and social science disciplines. The development process of new digital content and IT-enabled services of NPM would be a useful benchmark for museums, cultural and creative organizations and traditional organizations in Taiwan and around the world.

Graphic Design in Museum Exhibitions offers an in-depth analysis of the multiple roles that exhibition graphics perform in contemporary museums and exhibitions. Drawing on a study of exhibitions that took place at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum of London and the Haus der Geschichte, Bonn, Piehl brings together approaches from museum studies, design practice and narrative theory to examine museum exhibitions as multimodal narratives in which graphics account for one set of narrative resources. The analysis underlines the importance of aspects such as accessibility and at the same time problematises conceptualisations that focus only on the effectiveness of graphics as display device, by drawing attention to the contributions that graphics make towards the content on display and to the ways in which it is experienced in the museum space. Graphic Design in Museum Exhibitions argues for a critical reading of and engagement with exhibition graphic design as part of wider debates around meaning-making in museum studies and exhibition-making practice. As such, the book should be essential reading for academics, researchers and students from the fields of museum and design studies. Practitioners such as exhibition designers, graphic designers, curators and other exhibition makers should also find much to interest them in the book.

This research-based book investigates the effects of digital transformation on the cultural and creative sectors. Through cases and examples, the book examines how artists and art institutions are facing the challenges posed by digital transformation, highlighting both positive and negative effects of the phenomenon. With contributions from an international range of scholars, the book examines how digital transformation is changing the way the arts are produced and consumed. As relative late adopters of digital technologies, the arts organizations are shown to be struggling to adapt, as issues of authenticity, legitimacy, control, trust, and co-creation arise. Leveraging a variety of research approaches, the book identifies managerial implications to render a collection that is valuable reading for scholars involved with arts and culture management, the creative industries and digital transformation more broadly.

Graphic Design in Museum Exhibitions offers an in-depth analysis of the multiple roles that exhibition graphics perform in contemporary museums and exhibitions. Drawing on a study of exhibitions that took place at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Museum of London and the Haus der Geschichte, Bonn, Piehl brings together approaches from museum studies, design practice and narrative theory to examine museum exhibitions as multimodal narratives in which graphics account for one set of narrative resources. The analysis underlines the importance of aspects such as accessibility and at the same time problematises conceptualisations that focus only on the effectiveness of graphics as display device, by drawing attention to the contributions that graphics make towards the content on display and to the ways in which it is experienced in the museum space. Graphic Design in Museum Exhibitions argues for a critical reading of and engagement with exhibition graphic design as part of wider debates around meaning-making in museum studies and exhibition-making practice. As such, the book should be essential reading for academics, researchers and students from the fields of museum and design studies. Practitioners such as exhibition designers, graphic designers, curators and other exhibition makers should also find much to interest them in the book.

China's Route Heritage examines the creation, development and proliferation of the route heritage discourse of the Ancient Tea Horse Road (Chamagudao), in the People's Republic of China. Examining the formation of the tea-horse road as a concept, its development as a platform for cultural branding, and its most recent interactions with the policy of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the revival of the discourse on the Silk Roads, the book demonstrates that the tea-horse road is an important part of the discourse on Chinese modernity. Describing the route heritage of the tea-horse road as a 'mobility narrative', whereby an ancient route is used to form a narrative of ethnic unity and cooperation, the book demonstrates that the study of such heritage offers unique insights into issues that are of concern to the wider field of critical heritage studies. Sigley also shows how the study of alternative route heritage enables us to gain a broader sense of route heritage discourse and its implications for the discussion of historical, present and future forms of mobility and connectivity within China and beyond its borders. China's Route Heritage should be of interest to researchers and postgraduate students who are engaged in the study of heritage, China, the Silk Roads and the BRI, politics, international relations and tourism.

This new and substantially revised edition of Heritage Planning: Principles and Process offers an extensive overview of the burgeoning fields of heritage planning and conservation. Positioning professional practice within its broader applied and theoretical contexts, the authors provide a firm foundation for understanding the principles, history, evolution, debates, and tools that inform heritage planning, while also demonstrating how to effectively enact these processes. Few published works focus on the practice of heritage planning. The first edition of this book was developed to fill this gap, and this second edition builds upon it. The book has been expanded in scope to incorporate new research and approaches, as well as a wide range of international case studies. New themes reflect the emerging recognition that sustainability, climate resilience, human rights, social justice, and reconciliation are fundamental to the future of planning. Heritage Planning is indispensable reading, not only for professionals who transform the built environment, but for anyone who wants to understand the ideas and practices of heritage planning and conservation. For the benefit of student readers, twelve chapters-designed to accommodate the academic semester-are augmented with concise summaries, key terms and definitions, questions, and learning objectives.

Communities and Cultural Heritage explores the relationship between communities, their cultural heritage and the global forces that control most of the world's wealth and resources in today's world. Bringing together scholars and heritage practitioners from nine countries, this book contributes to the ongoing dialogue on community heritage by analysing impediments to full community participation. The underminin of local communities comes at a high price. As the chapters in this book demonstrate, the knowledge embedded within traditional and Indigenous heritage creates communities that are more resilient to environmental and social stressors and more responsive to contemporary challenges such as climate change, environmental degradation, post-disaster recovery and relocation. Cultural heritage practices often fail to capitalise upon local knowledge and traditional skills and undervalue the potential contribution of local communities in finding creative and resourceful solutions to the issues they are confronting. Arguing that the creation of successful community heritage project requires ongoing reflection on the aims, methods, financing and acceptable outcomes of projects, the volume also demonstrates that the decolonization of Western-focussed heritage practices is an ongoing process, by which subaltern groups are brought forward and given a space in the heritage narrative. Reflecting on trends that impact communities and heritage sites across different geographical regions, Communities and Cultural Heritage will be of interest to academics, students and practitioners of cultural heritage,archaeology and anthropology around the world.

This volume examines the ways in which the violent legacies of the twentieth century continue to affect the concept of the nation. Through a study of three societies' commemoration of notorious episodes of 1930s state violence, the author considers the manner in which attention to the state violence authoritarianism, and exclusions of the last century have resulted in challenges to dominant conceptions of the nation. Based on extensive ethnographic research in El Salvador, Spain, and the Dominican Republic, Remembering Violence focuses on new public sites of memory, such as museum exhibitions, monuments, and commemorations - powerful loci for representing ideas about the nation - and explores the responses of various actors - civil society, government, and diasporic citizens - as well as those of UN and other international agencies invested in new nation-building goals. With attention to the ways in which memory practices explain ongoing national exclusions and contemporary efforts to contest them, this book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities with interests in public memory and commemoration.

Museums, Modernity and Conflict examines the history of the relationship between museums, collections and war, revealing how museums have responded to and been shaped by war and conflicts of various sorts. Written by a mixture of museum professionals and academics and ranging across Europe, North America and the Middle East, this book examines the many ways in which museums were affected by major conflicts such as the World Wars, considers how and why they attempted to contribute to the war effort, analyses how wartime collecting shaped the nature of the objects held by a variety of museums, and demonstrates how museums of war and of the military came into existence during this period. Closely focused around conflicts which had the most wide-ranging impact on museums, this collection includes reflections on museums such as the Louvre, the Stedelijk in the Netherlands, the Canadian War Museum and the State Art Collections Dresden. Museums, Modernity and Conflict will be of interest to academics and students worldwide, particularly those engaged in the study of museums, war and history. Showing how the past continues to shape contemporary museum work in a variety of different and sometimes unexpected ways, the book will also be of interest to museum practitioners.

This book examines knowledge traditions that held together the fluid and overlapping maritime worlds of the Indian Ocean in the premodern period, as evident in the material and archaeological record. It breaks new ground by shifting the focus from studying cross-pollination of ideas from textual sources to identifying this exchange of ideas in archaeological and historical documentation. The themes covered in the book include conceptualization of the seas and maritime landscapes in Sanskrit, Arabic and Chinese narratives; materiality of knowledge production as indicated in the archaeological record of communities where writing on stone first appears; and anchoring the coasts, not only through an understanding of littoral shrines and ritual landscapes, but also by an analysis of religious imagery on coins, more so at the time of the introduction of new religions such as Islam in the Indian Ocean around the eighth century. This volume will be of great interest to researchers and scholars of archaeology, anthropology, museum and heritage studies, Indian Ocean studies, maritime studies, South and Southeast Asian studies, religious studies and cultural studies.

Goto introduces the diverse and multilayered skylore and cultural astron- omy of the peoples of the Japanese Archipelago. Going as far back as the Jomon, Yayoi, and Kofun periods, this book examines the significance of constellations in the daily life of farmers, fishermen, sailors, priests, and the ruling classes throughout Japan's ancient and medieval history. As well as covering the systems of the dominant Japanese people, he also explores the astronomy of the Ainu people of Hokkaido, and of the people of the Ryukyu Islands. Along the way he discusses the importance of astronomy in official rituals, mythol- ogy, and Shinto and Buddhist ceremonies. This book provides a unique overview of cultural astronomy in Japan and is a valuable resource for researchers as well as anyone who is inter- ested in Japanese culture and history.

This book focuses on the fraught relationship between cultural heritage and intellectual property, in their common concern with the creative arts. The competing discourses in international legal instruments around copyright and intangible cultural heritage are the most obvious manifestation of this troubled encounter. However, this characterization of the relationship between intellectual and cultural property is in itself problematic, not least because it reflects a fossilized concept of heritage, divided between things that are fixed and moveable, tangible and intangible. Instead the book maintains that heritage should be conceived as part of a dynamic and mutually constitutive process of community formation. It argues, therefore, for a critically important distinction between the fundamentally different concepts of not only intellectual and cultural heritage/property, but also of the market and the community. For while copyright as a private property right locates all relationships in the context of the market, the context of cultural heritage relationships is the community, of which the market forms a part but does not - and, indeed, should not - control the whole. The concept of cultural property/heritage, then, is a way of resisting the reduction of everything to its value in the market, a way of resisting the commodification, and creeping propertization, of everything. And, as such, the book proposes an alternative basis for expressing and controlling value according to the norms and identity of a community, and not according to the market value of private property rights. An important and original intervention, this book will appeal to academics and practitioners in both intellectual property and the arts, as well as legal and cultural theorists with interests in this area.

Exhibiting Craft and Design: Transgressing the White Cube Paradigm, 1930-present investigates the ways that craft and design objects were collected, displayed, and interpreted throughout the second half of the twentieth century and in recent years. The case studies discussed in this volume explain the notion the neutral display space had worked with, challenged, distorted, or assisted in conveying the ideas of the exhibitions in question. In various ways the essays included in this volume analyse and investigate strategies to facilitate interaction amongst craft and design objects, their audiences, exhibiting bodies, and the makers. Using both historical examples from the middle of the twentieth century and contemporary trends, the authors create a dialogue that investigates the different uses of and challenges to the White Cube paradigm of space organization.

What is the role of cultural heritage in multi-ethnic societies, where cultural memory is often polarized by antagonistic identity traditions? Is it possible for monuments that are generally considered as a symbol of national unity to become emblems of the conflictual histories still undermining divided societies? Taking as a starting point the cosmopolitanism that blossomed across the Mediterranean in the age of empires, this book addresses the issue of heritage exploring the concepts of memory, culture, monuments and their uses, in different case studies ranging from 19th-century Salonica, Port Said, the Palestinian region under Ottoman rule, Trieste and Rijeka under the Hapsburgs, up to the recent post-war reconstructions of Beirut and Sarajevo.

First published in 2004, this volume recognises that there is much more to museums than the documenting, monumentalizing, or theme-parking of identity, history and heritage. This landmark anthology aims to make strange the very existence of museums and to plot a critical, historical and ethical understanding of their origins and history. A radical selection of key texts introduces the reader to the intense investigation of the modern European idea of the museum that has taken place over the last fifty years. Texts first published in journals and books are brought together in one volume with up-to-the-minute and specially commissioned pieces by leading administrators, curators and art historians. The selections are organized by key themes that map the evolution of the debate and introduced by Donald Preziosi and Claire Farago, two considerable critics, who write with the edge and enthusiasm of art historians who have spent their lives working with museums. Grasping the World is an invaluable resource for students and teachers of art history and museum studies.

Blockbuster exhibitions are ubiquitous fixtures in the cultural calendars of major museums and galleries worldwide. The Rise of the Must-See Exhibition charts their ascent across a diverse array of museums and galleries. The book positions these exhibits in the Australian cultural context, demonstrating how policy developments and historical precedents have created a space for their current domination. Drawing on historical evidence, policy documents and contemporary debates, the book offers a complex analysis of the aims and motivations of blockbuster exhibitions. Its chronological approach reveals a genealogy of exhibits from the mid-nineteenth century onward to identify precursors to current practice. This provides a foundation upon which to examine the unprecedented growth of blockbusters in the latter half of the twentieth century. The examples discussed offer a unique opportunity to study how institutional growth, political support, individual champions and audience interest have influenced the development of large-scale temporary exhibitions. The Rise of the Must-See Exhibition considers blockbusters as an international phenomenon and, as such, is highly relevant to practitioners working across the cultural sector around the world. The book will also appeal to academics and students engaged in the study of museums and galleries, arts management and curating, as well as those interested in the history of exhibitions and cultural policy.

The concept of preventive conservation has successfully introduced the knowledge that "prevention is better than cure" into the built heritage sector. The benefits of this approach are the cost-effectiveness, the improved protection of heritage values, the reduced risk for accumulating deterioration and additional damage, the prolongation of the physical service life of buildings and building parts and the empowerment of local communities in dealing with heritage. Increasingly, arguments rise against reactive treatment patterns, which result too often in postponed interventions and increasing costs for restoration. WTA-Nederland-Vlaanderen, the Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation and the Civil Engineering Department of KU Leuven jointly organised an international conference on preventive conservation approaches - including climate and damage monitoring - and how to implement these monitoring tools within a systemic approach. The conference took place in context of the international WTA days, 3-5 April 2019, and the 10th anniversary of the UNESCO Chair on Preventive Conservation, Monitoring and Maintenance of Monuments and Sites (PRECOM(3)OS). The contributions meet the increasing demand for information, case studies and practical examples to support the transition towards more preventive rather than reactive conservation actions. The volume aims at academics and professionals involved or interested in the conservation of buildings, building parts and heritage.

This book makes a significant contribution to the history of placemaking, presenting grassroots to top-down practices and socially engaged, situated artistic practices and artsled spatial inquiry that go beyond instrumentalising the arts for development. The book brings together a range of scholars to critique and deconstruct the notion of creative placemaking, presenting diverse case studies from researcher, practitioner, funder and policymaker perspectives from across the globe. It opens with the creators of the 2010 White Paper that named and defined creative placemaking, Ann Markusen and Anne Gadwa Nicodemus, who offer a cortically reflexive narrative on the founding of the sector and its development. This book looks at vernacular creativity in place, a topic continued through the book with its focus on the practitioner and community-placed projects. It closes with a consideration of aesthetics, metrics and, from the editors, a consideration of the next ten years for the sector. If creative placemaking is to contribute to places-in-the-making and encourage citizenled agency, new conceptual frameworks and practical methodologies are required. This book joins theorists and practitioners in dialogue, advocating for transdisciplinary, resilient processes.

Museums today find themselves within a mediatised society, where everyday life is conducted in a data-full and technology-rich context. In fact, museums are themselves mediatised: they present a uniquely media-centred environment, in which communicative media is a constitutive property of their organisation and of the visitor experience. The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication explores what it means to take mediated communication as a key concept for museum studies and as a sensitising lens for media-related museum practice on the ground. Including contributions from experts around the world, this original and innovative Handbook shares a nuanced and precise understanding of media, media concepts and media terminology, rehearsing new locations for writing on museum media and giving voice to new subject alignments. As a whole, the volume breaks new ground by reframing mediated museum communication as a resource for an inclusive understanding of current museum developments. The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication will appeal to both students and scholars, as well as to practitioners involved in the visioning, design and delivery of mediated communication in the museum. It teaches us not just how to study museums, but how to go about being a museum in today's world.

This well referenced book provides an amply illustrated publication on upholstery conservation which discusses and reviews the issues related to the care, interpretation and treatment of upholstered furniture. Through many well illustrated case studies the inter-disciplinary collaboration fundamental to upholstery conservation, and the complex decision-making process involved in the treatment of upholstered furniture, are made evident. The case histories are contributed by leading international practitioners in the field and concern objects and collections in the care of English Heritage, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other internationally renowned institutions. Likewise, the contributors, from both sides of the Atlantic, are world-renowned specialists and leaders in this area of conservation working for the public and private sectors. The case histories, illustrated in colour, black and white and specially prepared line drawings, concern object treatment and documentation, the conservation of information, the function and the artefact. They range from the documentation of eighteenth century removable chair covers and the treatment of a nineteenth century carriage to a twentieth century foam-filled chair belonging to a museum.

In 1935, the Russian-born Jewish architect Berthold Lubetkin and his firm Tecton designed Highpoint, a block of flats in London, which Le Corbusier called 'revolutionary'. Three years later, Lubetkin completed a companion design. Yet Highpoint II felt very different, and the sense that the ideals of modernism had been abandoned seemed hard to dispute. Had modern architecture failed to take root in England? This book challenges the belief that English architecture was on hiatus during the 1930s. Using Highpoint II as a springboard, Deborah Lewittes takes us on a journey through the defining moments of modern English architecture - the 'high points' of the period surrounding Highpoint II. Drawing on Lubetkin's work and his writings, the book argues that he advanced influential, lasting theories which were rooted in his design for Highpoint II. Lubetkin's work is explored within the context of wider Jewish emigration to London during the interwar years as well as the anti-Semitism that pervaded Britain during the 1930s. As Lewittes demonstrates, this decade was anything but quiet. Providing a new perspective on twentieth-century English architecture, this book is of interest to students and scholars in architectural history, urban studies, Jewish studies, and related fields.