Museums must demonstrate that they are relevant, and not just show off old stuff. They have a responsibility to use their tax-exempt status in ways that are useful for the people who live in the communities they serve, not just those who come to visit. They must be willing to search out new sources, and talk with the people whose histories have been left out. They need to create new experiences that engage visitors, and allow them to take part in telling the story of their community.
Exhibits are one way museums do this. By bringing historical research and content together in creative visual storytelling, they can bring history to life for a wider audience. They can also help to foster collaboration between scholars in the academy and museum professionals, by allowing them to share their work in an open forum. This is the purpose of this column, which will focus on reviewing exhibitions that highlight history in museums.
Historical exhibitions are often based on research in fields as diverse as archaeology, art, anthropology, ethnology, science, technology and natural history. They require more context than a fine art exhibition, and often include texts, dioramas, maps, and interactive displays that explain the themes of an exhibit.
While the research behind a historic exhibition is important, an effective museum experience also requires strong management and interpersonal skills, a knowledge of material culture, and an understanding of the needs of their intended audience. Successful curators therefore combine their scholarship with management and production expertise, and they work with a wide range of other museum professionals.
Exhibition reviews can help to broaden the scope of academic scholarship on historical presentations in museums by providing a permanent record of what exhibitions have been seen and discussed by their audiences. They can reveal critical debates in the past, and can help to retrace the history of ideas in our cultural heritage. They can also shed light on the politics and policies of an institution, and expose the underlying forces that shape its mission.
The exhibition review process is unique in that it is an iterative and collaborative process that is both internal to the museum world and open to the public. The reviews provide an opportunity to record and critique the development of exhibition scholarship in museums, and to establish a language for the review process. Unlike a monograph, an exhibition review has a short life, and thus the literature that develops around it is particularly valuable. The publishing of exhibition reviews in Perspectives can create an archive that will outlive the shows themselves, and foster future collaborations between museum professionals and scholars in the academy.