[csaa-forum] seminar: Museums and the Public Sphere

[Tanja Dreher]

ARTICULA8TE 
Semester One Seminar Series, 2008

Presented by the 
Faculty of the Humanities and Social Sciences, UTS and the Transforming Cultures Research Centre

MUSEUMS AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE

Date:		Thursday 20 March

Venue: 	Large Training Room, Level 6, Building 10, UTS.
Walking from Central Station along Broadway (heading west), turn right after the UTS Tower Building on Jones Street. You will find Building 10 on your left.

TIME: 	4.00 – 6.00

Entry is free and there is no need to RSVP
	
Pam Meecham (Art, Design & Museology, University of London)
‘In search of a job to do: technology and material culture’

Abstract: Responding to broad social emancipation set in motion by social unrest in the 1960s, museums have belatedly overhauled their relationship with the public: visitor services now play a key, rather than subordinate role in the museum hierarchy. This paper discusses the dilemmas facing museums seeking to use technology to provide a digital bridge between new audiences and old collections by focusing on several recent technological interventions into the gallery space.

Bio: Pam Meecham is currently completing, with co-author Julie Sheldon, Making American Art for Routledge she also co-wrote Modern Art: a Critical Introduction.

Jennifer Barrett (Museum Studies, University of Sydney)
‘Museums: a public affair?’

Abstract : Claims about the public nature of museums can be found in museum studies and professional accounts analysing and describing the significance of the museum. The public is commonly assumed to be the audience, automatically assuming that the space of the museum is then  public space. The exhibitions are conceived for the public, and their subject is also about matters of 'public importance'. This paper maps the different ways in which the term public is used in the museum context and is discussed in relation to the current political trends affecting museums.

Bio: Dr Jennifer Barrett’s recent writings include a nearly completed monograph, The Museum and the Public Sphere and Australian Artists and Museums, which she co-wrote with Jacqueline Milner. 

Dr Tanja Dreher
ARC Postdoctoral Fellow
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
University of Technology, Sydney
PO Box 123
Broadway NSW 2007
Email: tanja.dreher at uts.edu.au
Phone: (02) 9514 1671



-- 
UTS CRICOS Provider Code:  00099F
DISCLAIMER: This email message and any accompanying attachments may contain
confidential information.  If you are not the intended recipient, do not
read, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or attachments.  If
you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately
and delete this message. Any views expressed in this message are those of the
individual sender, except where the sender expressly, and with authority,
states them to be the views of the University of Technology Sydney. Before
opening any attachments, please check them for viruses and defects.

Think. Green. Do.

Please consider the environment before printing this email.