The Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, UCSB and Microcosms: Objects of
Knowledge, a Special Humanities Project of the UC Office of the President,
are pleased to announce a free conference:

RETURN TO WONDER:  RETHINKING MUSEUM DISPLAY IN AN AGE OF DIDACTICISM
McCune Conference Room, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, University of
California, Santa Barbara

March 3-4, 2000, 9:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

Because space is limited, pre-registration is suggested:  please send your
name to: [log in to unmask]

The conference, "Return to Wonder: Rethinking Museum Display in an Age of
Didacticism," concerns the reintegration of "wonder" as a mode of
knowledge production into contemporary art museum exhibitions.  We wish to
re-examine how museums teach and audiences learn, through the display
practices of exhibitions.  The conference will have two parts: an
historical component that retrieves the practice of wonder from the
earliest museums, the sixteenth-century curiosity cabinet, and a
contemporary component that examines the range of display practices across
a wide range of museum types.  The conference is broadly
inter-disciplinary, with artists, anthropologists, historians of science,
technology, culture, literature and art, museum educators and
curators.  We wish to raise questions, not provide answers.

Many exhibitions and permanent installations concerning the curiosity
cabinet have been created in recent years;   it has also been a rich
source for many contemporary artists.  These museum and artistic displays
examine the curiosity cabinet itself, and the different view of the world
it presents, as a way of either enlivening collections of Renaissance
objects or questioning the nature of ordering systems.  What we will
consider at this conference is not historical recreation or art production
per se, but the relevance of the curiosity cabinet's mode of display to
the general educational ideas of art museums and galleries.  Curiosity
cabinets required the active production of knowledge by their visitors,
rather than the passive reception of information, an increasingly
desirable goal for modern museums.  Museums want visitors to interact with
exhibits, rather than be dictated to; curators and educators envision them
integrating the ideas and information presented in the exhibition with
their own knowledge in interesting and productive ways. We would like to
proceed, in thinking about the instructive and interactive role of museum
exhibitions, from an historical perspective, one which investigates
earlier practices and reconsiders them for use today.

In particular we are interested in the role that "wonder" played in the
sixteenth-century curiosity cabinets and Wunderkammern.  For
sixteenth-century collectors and visitors, "wonder" was an intellectual
strategy rather than an emotional reaction.  We are most interested in the
ways in which, on the one hand, non-linear and associative display
techniques may be deployed, and, on the other, how we may construe the
exhibition as a site for knowledge production rather than a container of
information, as a laboratory or studio rather than a classroom.

Program

Friday, March 3
9:30  Welcome and Introduction:  Mark Meadow, History of Art and
Architecture, UCSB

10:15-12:00  The History of Wonder
The first day, devoted to a history of knowledge production in object
collections, begins with a session on the history of wonder and the
curiosity cabinets of the sixteenth-century.

Participants: Ken Arnold, Exhibitions Director, The Wellcome Institute
Peter Platt, English, Barnard College
Harriet Roth, Independent Scholar, Hannover, Germany
Moderator:  Paula Findlen, History, Stanford University

1:30-3:00 Spaces for Producing Knowledge
This session looks at the spaces of knowledge production that were part
of, or precipitate out of, the curiosity cabinet, such as the laboratory,
the museum, and the artist's studio.

Participants:  Sophie Forgan, School of Law, Arts, and
Humanities,University of Teeside
Bruce Robertson, History of Art and Architecture, UCSB
Alison Winter, Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of
Technology
Moderator:  Robert Kargon, History of Science, Medicine and Technology,
The Johns Hopkins University

3:15-5:00  Visuality and Narrative
The day ends with an examination of historical strategies for visual
knowledge production and the relationship of such strategies to narrative.

Participants: Horst Bredekamp, Kunstgeschichte Seminar,
Humboldt-Universitt zu Berlin
Natalie Melas, Comparative Literature, Cornell University
Barbara Stafford, Art History, University of Chicago
Moderator:  Mark Meadow, History of Art and Architecture, UCSB

Saturday, March 4
The second day is devoted to museum exhibitions in the present.

9:00 -11:30 Museum Exhibitions: the Curatorial Perspective
We begin with an examination of current curatorial practices in museums of
history, science, anthropology and art.

Participants:  Diana Fane, Arts of Africa, Brooklyn Museum of Art
Rosemary Joyce, Anthropology, UCBerkeley
Steven Lubar, History of Technology, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution
Moderator:  Jennifer Gonzalez, Art History, UC Santa Cruz


11:30-1:00: Display and Narrative Strategies in the Museum
This session examines display strategies that exploit other resources,
both in and outside the museum, such as education, contemporary artists,
design and digital media.

Participants:  Judy Gradwohl, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution
Sue Lafferty, Education, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and
Botanical Gardens
Elizabeth Brown, University Art Museum, UCSB
Kathleen McLean, Center for Public Exhibitions, Exploratorium, San
Francisco
Moderator:  Victoria Vesna, Design, College of Fine Arts, UCLA

2:30-4:30: Wonder, Narrative and Matter
We conclude with a discussion focusing on the relationship of wonder,
narrative and knowledge production in material collections.

Participants:  Marc Pachter, Office of the Secretary, Smithsonian
Institution
Marla Berns, University Art Museum, UCSB
Philip Fisher, Literature and Languages, Harvard University
Moderators:  Bruce Robertson and Mark Meadow

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).