The Constituent Museum
Constellations of Knowledge, Politics and Mediation: A Generator of Social Change
UNAVAILABLE
- Attempts to redefine the role and significance of the museum: as a collaborative project between audience, artist and museum workers
- Frames the museum as an important part of community where activims, its histories, visual and intellectual thinking are gathered and questioned
Editors: John Byrne, Elinor Morgan, November Paynter, Aida Sánchez de Serdio, Adela Železnik
Contributors: Azra Akšamija, Alberto Altés Arlandis, Burak Arikan, James Beighton, Manuel Borja-Villel, Sara Buraya, John Byrne, Jesús Carrillo, Alejandro Cevallos Narváez, Céline Condorelli, Sean Dockray, Özge Ersoy, Carmen Esbrí, Oriol Fontdevila, Amy Franceschini, Janna Graham, Nav Haq, Yaiza Hernández Velázquez, Emily Hesse, John Hill, Alistair Hudson, Adelita Husni-Bey, Kristine Khouri, Nora Landkammer, Maria Lind, Isabell Lorey, Francis McKee, Elinor Morgan, Paula Moliner, November Paynter, Manuela Pedrón Nicolau, Elliot Perkins, Bojana Piškur, Tjaša Pogačar Podgornik, Alan Quireyns, RedCSur, Rasha Salti, Francesco Salvini / pantxo ramas, Raúl Sánchez Cedillo, Aida Sánchez de Serdio, Somateca, Igor Španjol, Nora Sternfeld, Subtramas, Tiziana Terranova, Piet Van Hecke, Onur Yıldız, Adela Železnik
Design: George&Harrison
Series: L'internationale
2018, Valiz with L'internationale | supported by Liverpool John Moores University, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, L'Internationale, KASK School of Arts, Gent, European Union, Culture Programme | hardcover | 384 pp. | 24.5 cm x 17.5 cm (portrait size) | English | ISBN 978-94-92095-42-8
>What would happen if museums put relationships at the centre of their operations? This question inspires this publication, which offers a diverse, rigorous, and experimental analysis of what is commonly known as education, mediation or interpretation within museum institutions. It regards the visitor not as a passive receiver of predefined content, but as an active member of a constituent body, whom it facilitates, provokes, inspires and learns from. Moving beyond the practice of mediation as such, the publication situates constituent practices of collaboration and co-production within the existing social-political (neoliberal) context. It does this to reimagine and affect both the physical and organizational structures of museums and galleries.
Understanding the challenges of a constituent practice in an integral, interdisciplinary manner is what this publication aspires to. This is explored by placing the museum's constituents—museum professionals, active audience/co-curator, local and political agencies, operational structures and contexts—at the centre of the museum organization and looking at how their positions in society start to shift and change.
Issues that are addressed: ownership and power dynamics, collective pedagogy, pedagogy of encounter, collaboration, assent, dissent and consent, co-labour and co-curation (economies of exchange), precarity, and working with interns, archives and how to activate them, broadcasting, digital cultivation, crowdsourcing, and many other topics.