Museums and tourism
Stakeholders, resource and sustainable development
Master’s Dissertation International Museum Studies Museion/Göteborg University Spring term 2004 Author: Guðbrandur Benediktsson Supervisor: Cajsa Lagerkvist
LIST OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1. Aims and objectives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2. Theoretical approaches and sources. . . . . . . . . .
2 3 5 5
2. TERMS AND DEFINITIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.1. What is a museum? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.2. What is tourism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3. MUSEUMS AND CULTURAL TOURISM. . . . . . . . . .
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This is an immense and actual task, for “[t]he achievement of a beneficial inter-action between the potentially conflicting expectations and aspirations of visitors and host or local communities, presents many challenges and opportunities.”13 I believe that within the museum world lies much knowledge and experience which is certainly relevant to further discussion and development of the relationship between cultural heritage management and tourism. Though my topic is connected to the field of cultural tourism, it has to be kept clear that this thesis is on museums and museology rather than on tourism. The reason is that cultural tourism is a form of tourism – it is not a form of cultural heritage management and is not a form of museum management.14 Museums can on the other hand contribute to cultural tourism as attractions, because they work with the cultural heritage, or even are themselves cultural or heritage assets. Therefore their input to the development in the field of cultural tourism is certainly valid. Though the tourism sector and the cultural heritage management sector, including the museums, actually do have
Museums have long served a purpose as cultural staples. For every museum, big and small, careful consideration is used in selecting its contents. When securing new items for a museum, it is most important to consider public appeal, educational value, and cost-effectiveness.
Within such assemblage museums and their unsettled artifacts can be situated as affect- image (83). They are not fixed and static places which contain unsettled objects. They can depart from the common sense world and organize systems that control appearance and relationships and suggest the future. Museums select what they represent and; consequently, excludes parts of history according to their interests. This resembles the white policy which stresses and enlarges a specific trait in the colonized and excludes any implication of positive traits.
In Steven Lubar’s book, Inside the Lost Museum: Curating, Past and Present, the recurring idea that museums are “more than the sum of their parts” plays a critical role in the overall argument (329). Lubar notes many aspects that make up a museum, the collection, for example is an essential part of any museum, but the community, as well as the experiences of the patrons create a lasting museum experience. Additionally, Lubar aptly utilizes real-world examples, contemporary and historical, highlighting the work of individuals in museums and establishing a connection between past and current events. Central to this narrative is the example of the lost Jenks Museum. Lubar uses this museum to argue that museums of the past can educate museum goers
I hope to see museums make more concerted efforts to educate the public. Too many exhibits are of the “passive, didactic looking” than like the engaging Object Stories program (Dartt, Murawski). Exhibits should seek to tell untold narratives, and programs should be places of communication and cross-cultural encounters. For too long, difficult confrontations have been avoided, both inside the museum, and by dominant communities
The 21st century has seen a dramatic increase in the challenges facing cultural institutions, particularly museums. One of the most pressing issues currently facing museums worldwide is the diminishing level of government support. Despite reductions in government funding, the sustained maintenance of museum collections and facilities continues to require substantial resources. In the face of such difficulties, a growing number of museums have turned to innovative programming, specifically exhibitions, as a way to ensure financial viability through increased attendance. Given the growing competition for consumer leisure time in today’s society, attention has shifted away from traditional scholarly collection based exhibitions, towards the populist exhibition format offered by blockbuster exhibitions. Through a discussion of Harry Potter™: The Exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum and the First Emperor: China’s Entombed Warriors at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, this essay will examine the two approaches museums are taking to the blockbuster model. It will be argued that although exhibitions reflecting popular culture are becoming increasingly more common, there are institutions that manage to reflect popular taste in ways that continue to advance scholarship and create opportunities for lifelong learning.
What defines a memorial museum as a category of museum? While symbolizing the event and forming public perspectives on it, “the ethics in memorial museums, ethics morality and human deeds occupy the very heart of the topics on display, and correspondingly involve especially careful consideration of representation and reception” (Williams, Memorial museums, 220). Memorial mMuseums should be responsible at when choosing the objects they display, narrating the event and establishing visitors’ memories.
The Executive Director of the Museum begins to restore this organization with clear point of view, that the
Another aspect that I found to be very interesting was the way in which each of the museums offered different multimedia formats to facilitate the visitor’s experience with the artwork in display. I noticed that both museums offered applications for smartphones and tablets, free of charge, to assist the visitors with getting the most possible out of the museum. Visiting a museum can be a very distracting task because there is so much to see and without a plan or a navigating system that helps you make your way towards the museum, it can be hard to gain something from your visit. Both apps are accessible to most people and very easy to navigate through. These apps included audio guides, exhibition information, calendars, events and so on. However, I noticed
Overall, subjectivity is very important to this non-fiction article, it allows the reader to get a taste of what the museum may feel like, what emotions they may feel,
Before I went to the museum, my prospective about a museum was poor expectations. What can a museum will offer? , this was one of the questions that I always had in mind. For these reasons, I never thought that I could enjoy a museum tour. However, everything change after visited the Phoenix Art Museum. I went to the trip with poor expectations, but since I arrived in the lobby with all of my classmates and the professor. I started feel that this trip will be sash an educational experience.
When it comes to the exhibition in museums, there is increasing discussion of museum as dialogue environment and its learning impacts on audience. Modern museums have gradually transferred their emphasis from collection, conservation and research to display and education. Besides the traditional functions of museum, 吉村典夫( 1979: 104-107) maintains that organisation is encouraged to develop responsibilities-
According to the American Alliance of Museums, community engagement in museums includes the use of this facility as “a center where people gather to meet and converse and an active, visible player in civic life, a safe haven, and a trusted incubator of change” (Long 141). Different museums
‘Imagine you were in charge of a museum’s collecting policy. What would you chose to collect and how would you justify these decisions?’
The Cambridge Dictionary Online defined museums as “places of study, buildings where objects of historical, scientific or artistic interest are kept, preserved and exhibited”. To The Museums Association, a museum is “an institution which collects documents, preserves, exhibits and interprets material evidence and associated information for the public benefit”. Since 1998, this definition has changed. Museums now enable the public to explore collections for inspiration, learning and enjoyment. They are institutions that collect, safeguard and make accessible artefacts and specimens, which they hold in trust for society. Mike Wallace (1996) categorised museums into four distinct types, namely National Museums that hold collection of
First of all, initiative of thinking of people might be provoked in the museum. For interpreters, the prior thing they want to achieve is that visitors can be attracted and give a feedback about their exhibition. In terms of visitors, Michael Baxandall divided visitors’ purpose of engaging in the museum into two aspects. Interesting objects and partly culture are the aims of coming to the museum for people. During the period of exploring the objects what they are interested in, people might have desire to know some more relevant objects. In psychology, William