Digital Heritage

MA students on the course ‘Museums, Museology & Museographies’ (MA Art Gallery and Museum Studies) will be unveiling their exhibitions in the new Museology showcase in the foyer of the Mansfield Cooper Building this Autumn. Four groups have curated exhibitions on the theme of ‘Manchester’. Each exhibition will be up for a week from November to December 2008. After the last exhibition finishes, students and staff will be asked to evaluate and vote for their favourite exhibition, which will remain on display for the rest of the year. See the poster with the titles, dates and curators of the ‘Manchester on Display’ exhibitions.

The first exhibition, titled ‘Unseen : Unscene’ was installed yesterday and it is now up and running (for a week). A photo documentation of the installation process is available on Flickr. It has also been filmed and will form part of a short film that will be produced out of the four exhibitions (watch this space!).

As the curators point out,

This exhibition is based on the idea of hidden Manchester: a selection of objects unseen, overlooked, or with hidden histories that contribute to the identity of the city. It draws on Lewis Mumford’s idea of the city as museum (‘in its own right, the historic city retains by reason of its amplitude and its long past, a larger and more various collection of cultural specimens than can be found elsewhere’). Collecting diverse, often-overlooked objects reflects this urban layering. Yet the definition of these objects as ‘hidden’ reflects equally their lack of interpretive context: without documentation they are unexplained, unidentified, nameless. The decision to leave the objects uninterpreted – in contrast with presentation in the museum or gallery – refocuses the onus on the viewer to construct his or her own history. An imaginary web is thus suggested, whereby the spectator conducts his/her own research in the wider museum community: library, archive, internet.

(Great job guys! I hope you’ve enjoyed the process of developing the exhibition idea and installing the showcase yesterday. Great start to the exhibitions and I am sure the rest of the groups will benefit a lot from your experience in putting this up)

Everyone: Do come and enjoy this and the following shows! All welcome. The floor (i.e. the blog) is also open for questions, comments and debate! Feel free to contribute!