Public participation in an environmental dispute: implications for science education

The paper, which reports the findings of a case study of an environmental dispute, focuses on the role of the key players and the way in which they interacted with the underlying science. A model is proposed that lays out some of the dimensions of the complexity of public involvement, of the understandings of the science pertinent to such socio-scientific issues, and of the way knowledge of science is represented and disseminated in such issues. The analysis focuses on the value of local knowledge in framing and engaging with the issue, on the distinction between generative and evaluative engagement, and on the type of knowledge that proved central for engagement. The implications for science education and notions of scientific literacy are discussed.

Changes in museum management : a custodial or marketing emphasis

In recent years museums have changed from being predominantly custodial institutions to becoming increasingly focussed on audience attraction. New emphasis is placed on museum-audience interactions and relationships. This change in the purpose and priorities of museums has impacted upon the nature of museum management. The recognition of new roles for museum directors and the need to appeal to differentiated audiences has created new challenges for previously traditional, custodial directors. This paper presents a conceptual framework for managing museums, taking account of the museum service context and the delivery of the museum service product. It then examines two museums, one in Ireland and one in Australia, both of which have a similar cultural history. The paper considers the different management styles for museum directors and how these different styles illustrate the changes in professional perspective from the traditional (a focus on custodial preservation) to the more current (a focus on educating and entertaining the public).

Museum marketing competing in the global marketplace

Museums have moved from a product to a marketing focus within the last ten years. This has entailed a painful reorientation of approaches to understanding visitors as customers; new ways of fundraising and sponsorship as government funding decreases; and grappling with using the internet for marketing. This book brings the latest in marketing thinking to bear on the museum sector taking into account both the commercial issues and social mission it involves. Carefully structured to be highly accessible the book offers:
* A contemporary and relevant and global approach to museum marketing written by authors in Britain, Australia, the United States, and Asia
* An approach that reflects the particular challenges museums of varying sizes face when seeking to market an experience to a diverse set of stakeholders: audience; funders; sponsors and government.
* A particular focus on museum marketing in the 'Information Age'
* Major case studies at the beginning and end of each section of the book, and smaller case studies within chapters The hugely experienced author team, includes both leading academics and practitioners to ensure the book has broad appeal and is both relevant, innovative and progressive in approach. It will be essential reading for students in museum studies, non-profit marketing, and arts management and marketing. It will also be equally relevant for professionals working in and managing museums and galleries, heritage attractions and ministries of arts.
* The most up-to-date treatment of marketing museums with a global approach
* Blend of academic and practitioner expertise to appeal to students and professionals seeking a contemporary and relevant approach
* Features a range of international case studies that demonstrate the museum experience and draw out the particular challenges that museums and galleries of varying sizes and types face in the global marketplace

Alternative water strategies in public domains : innovative strategies in progress along North Terrace, Adelaide

Water sensitive design on our urban threshold is increasingly becoming topical. In Adelaide it is being driven by stormwater management strategies and economic efficiencies in a city that is beginning to embrace its Mediterranean environment, low water sustainability, and whether our showpiece public domains in Adelaide can afford large expanses of manicured lawns.

This paper reviews four projects in progress along the North Terrace in Adelaide. The first involves a major redesign of First Creek as it traverses Adelaide Botanic Garden to address stormwater management issues. The redesign includes strategies to control flash flooding, to cleanse stream water from pollutants, and to carefully incorporate a wetland system as an integral botanical and horticultural feature of a botanic garden. Further down North Terrace, the University of Adelaide is evaluating a scenario that will totally redesign Goodman Crescent, its picture-postcard promenade lawn. The scenario is to host an integrated water retention and water purification and cleansing system that will service independently of mains water an irrigation system and a waterfall. The proposal draws upon a similar strategy recently adopted by the South Australian Museum to capture and cleanse surface and roof water but place the installation and process on display as part of its overall biodiversity museum display that will unfold over the next five years under director Tim Flannery. The fourth example, in process at present, is to devise an integrated water system that may enable the Government House grounds to remove itself from dependence upon costly mains water to totally sustain its extensive gardens and lawns.

Importantly each project has similar threads: creative water maximization and purification use, and a desire to place these ‘installations’ on display as public statements of their commitment to water sustainability in Adelaide. But radically, here are four prominent cultural institutions readily willing to redefine the notion and traditional visual imagery of a ‘wetland’ on what is the main cultural boulevard of a capital city.

Defining national identity? Visiting the architectural spaces of the Museum of Scotland

National Cultures construct identities by producing meanings about the nation with which we can identify, meanings which are contained in the stories which are told about it, memories which connect its present within its past, and images which are constructed of it. A museum, the repository of a nation’s culture, which connects the past to the present through recounting stories about the artefacts of past cultures is clearly significant in representing the culture of a nation.

This paper explores the architectural spaces of the new Museum of Scotland, which opened in Edinburgh in November 1998. The museum has opened at a crucial time in Scottish history. The Scottish cultural renaissance is manifested in the increase in cultural production and call for Scottish cultural institutions. Parallel to this renaissance are political developments with the re-creation of a Scottish Parliament in 1999. When the idea of ‘Scotland’ is itself in a state of flux, the stories of the nation told in the museum, which attempt to give a sense of location, a connection between the individual and the nation are especially important.

Thus, issues of identity and ‘self’ are crucially important in understanding the contemporary museum. Within this, the relations between the production of these narratives and their consumption by the public are little understood. The majority of studies have concentrated, although not exclusively, on the production of museum displays, primarily with the "politics and poetics" of display. This paper analyses the relationship between producer and consumer within the Museum of Scotland, attempting to reconnect the forces of production and consumption. In doing so, it focuses primarily on the differing conceptions of the ability of the Museum to be able to narrate the nation.

Based on interviews both with museum staff and with visitors to the museum, it argues that an understanding of the relationship between the museum and Scottish national identity can only be considered through an understanding of the tension between the producers’ intentions and the way in which consumers conceptualise the museum as a space for "telling the nation".

The reflexive museum : opening the door to behind the scenes

In this paper I argue for a shift in conceptualising exhibitions: from products to be presented to processes to be revealed. I will explore how museum theory and practice are inextricably intertwined and can be brought into fruitful dialogue within an exhibition setting. By revealing the processes leading to the definition of categories and the interpretation of identities, and by giving ‘faces’ to decisions made, the ‘reflexive museum’ can become an embodiment of democracy, which does not silence controversies but gives diversity public voices. The ‘reflexive museum’ as I envisage it, by referring to Beck and Bonss’ ‘reflexive modernity’ (2001) is not only self-aware, but confronts, critiques, questions and ultimately transforms itself and invites the visitor to democratically participate in this process.

First, I sketch out recent academic musings on museological approaches. Then I present some examples of exhibitions in Germany in which these theories have been put into practice. I conclude by arguing for a symbiotic relationship between museum theory and practice, enabling the museum to realise its unique potential as a dynamic ‘playground’ located between scholarly thinking and the public.

The reflexive museum - opening the door to behind the scenes

In this paper I argue for a shift in conceptualising exhibitions: from products to be presented to processes to be revealed. I will explore how museum theory and praxis are inextricably intertwined and can be brought into fruitful dialogue within an exhibition setting. By revealing the processes leading to the definition of categories and the interpretation of identities, and by giving faces to decisions made, the ‘reflexive museum’ can become an embodiment of democracy, which does not silence controversies but gives diversity public voices. First, I sketch out recent academic musings on museological approaches. Then I present some examples of exhibitions in Germany in which these theories have been put into praxis. I conclude by arguing for a symbiotic relationship of museum theory and praxis enabling the museum to realise its unique potential as a dynamic ‘playground’ between academia and the public.

Testimony, memory, and art at the Jewish Holocaust museum, Melbourne, Australia

Taking its cue from Charlotte Delbo’s powerful writing about the Holocaust in which she highlights the role of sense memories, this chapter begins with the proposition that sense memories – as distinct from narrative or vicarious forms of memory – are a particularly effective vehicle for the communication of past trauma in the present. The paper explores the potential value of this proposition for the display of objects in a Holocaust museum which are given meaning by the voices of the survivor community and their focus on the importance of testimony. The chapter undertakse an analysis of how the sense memories of survivors animate specific objects on display, exploring the ways in which these objects help the Museum to create a bridge between the survivor community and the wider general public (Auerhahn and Laub, 1990). I argue that built into that process there is a requirement that audiences listen in a manner that makes them a witness to past traumas. This listening process, I want to argue, offers not only an opportunity for healing on the part of survivors but also, following Simon (2005), the exchange of a ‘terrible gift’. That gift, I will suggest, places the visitor as a witness to past traumas and builds an ethical request that they should actively work against future genocides. Central to that possibility, I want to argue, is the way in which the process of witnessing a sense memory is an affective experience for the viewer leading to the potential production of empathy.

Mana Taonga and the public sphere: a dialogue between indigenous practice and Western theory

Recent re-conceptualizations of the ‘public sphere’ facilitated a much needed shift in thinking about identity politics ‘from a substance … to a movement’ (Weibel and Latour, 2007). This laid the foundation for dissolving the ‘emanatist vision’ (Bourdieu, 1990) of self-explanatory and perpetual systems and structures towards the interrogation of actions and performances that simultaneously constitute and are affected by such wider socio-political realities. Most academic contributions, however, remain on a normative or theoretical level without offering empirical insights.

This article introduces Mana Taonga as an Indigenous Māori concept of cultural politics embedded in current museum practice at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa). It creates a dialogue between Indigenous Māori practice and Western theory leading to a refined understanding of performative democracy within a museum as forum, or public sphere. The authors argue that a specific museum offers a particular place, space and empirical reality to interrogate seemingly universal concepts such as ‘culture’ and ‘politics’ by blending theoretical notions with an awareness of institutional contexts and practices.

Bushfire catastrophe in Victoria, Australia : public record, accountability, commemoration, memorialization and heritage protection

In Australia, 7 February 2009 has become known as ‘Black Saturday’ because of the bushfire catastrophe that took 173 lives and devastated communities in the central parts of the State of Victoria. The paper considers how the 2009 fires have been recorded, how the issue of accountability has been dealt with, particularly in relation to the State and its agencies but also individual residents in the fire-devastated areas, and how bushfire deaths and other losses have been commemorated through remembrance events and museum collection projects and memorialized through the creation of new monuments and the protection of remaining physical structures as official heritage. Despite the major impact of bushfires on the State, to date few bushfire-related places have been protected. The former Cockatoo Kindergarten, which acted as a community refuge during an earlier catastrophic Victorian bushfire on Ash Wednesday, 16 February 1983, is an exception. Inscribed in 2012, the former kindergarten is the only bushfire-related place inscribed on the Victorian Heritage Register, in this case for its historical and social value as a place resonating with other communities affected by other bushfires and helping the broader Victorian public to come to terms with bushfire catastrophe. But, while bushfire commemoration activities and physical memorials, like those relating to war, help many societies remember individual and community pain and suffering, they can divert attention from the more fundamental questions of why they were there in the first place and what must be done to ensure the same catastrophe does not recur in the future. In this regard, the paper questions the oft-cited claim that bushfires are embedded in the Australian psyche, seeing links between the rhetoric around bushfire survival and Australian myth-making and nation-building.