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Editorial
Museums globally exist in an academic, cultural and social context of contest and controversy. A long established practice of exhibiting the facts, truth, national history or unproblematic conceptions of other places and peoples is no longer wholly sustainable in
an environment where the self evidence of all these things is under question. Topics of global importance that challenge, upset, intrigue and attract are now legitimate areas for museological investigation, and for public display through exhibitions and other programs.
Ongoing cultural, social and political tensions in Australia and in other countries also
heighten the need for civic spaces where diverse communities might learn about and debate
issues of contemporary relevance and importance. And in societies where a diverse citizenry
demands greater participation in decision making, where power is shifting from older
hierarchical forms to coalitions, fundamental questions are raised about the roles and functioning of museums in the 21st century. What are the civic and social responsibilities of museums in this climate of contestation, in creating debate and for democratic decision
making?
On the other hand, western democracies have over the last 15 years witnessed a rise in museum controversies and political debates. Many of these struggles have centred on
exhibitions and questions about what museums should exhibit, the choice of topics and collections and how they should be interpreted, and who has the power to make editorial decisions. Examples include interpretations of colonialism (The West as America at the
Smithsonian's National Museum of American Art; frontier conflict at the National Museum
of Australia and slavery at the National Maritime Museum, UK), war (The Last Act Enola
Gay exhibition at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum) and genocide (Crimes against
Humanity at the Imperial War Museum, London), sexuality and representations of the human
body (Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment at the Institute of Contemporary Art of the
University of Philadelphia and Body Art at the Australian Museum).
Although a body of literature has emerged to understand this phenomenon
(Macdonald 1996; Crouch 1997; Durbin 1999; Harris 1999; Boyd 1999), much of this has
been preoccupied with describing and deconstructing controversies or providing an
introspective analysis of the emergence of museums as sites of controversy in the US
context.
The museum community is diverse, but as institutions, their mission, civic and social
responsibilities and modes of engagement have always been in a constant process of
transformation in response to social, discursive and economic imperatives. Museum director
Duncan Cameron (1971) in his formative article argued that museums should recast
themselves as a forum, a place for confrontation, experimentation and debate, acting as an
antidote to the traditional temple.
Museum director Robert Macdonald (1996: 197:150;169)
suggested that in addition to being visually exciting, museum exhibitions and programs have
to be intellectually accessible, stir the emotions and evoke serious dialogue. Others cast
museums as centres for tolerance, as places for fostering critical thinking, problem solving
and self reflexivity, and for visitor participation through dialogue with the institution and
other visitors (Museums for a New Millennium 1997:71:150;74). With reference to the
engagement of contentious topics, museum consultant Elaine Gurian (1995) characterized
museums as a safe place for unsafe ideas. More recently, Dawn Casey (2002) then director
of the National Museum of Australia described the museum as a forum for debate by
offering a reflective space in which people can consider issues in context. Taking this further, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, David Anderson (2005) described cultural institutions as corporate citizens with obligations to foster critical cultural debates
and to protect society from damage to its cultural health.
In reference to the findings of the American Association of Museums study
Mastering Civic Engagement: A Challenge for Museums (2002) on the relationships between museums, communities and civic engagement, consultant Ellen Hirzy envisioned the 21st century museums as a
center where people gather to meet and converse, a place that celebrates the
richness of individual and collective experience, and a participant in
collaborative problem solving. It is an active, visible player in civic life, a
safe haven, and a trusted incubator for change. (Ibid, p.9)
In summary, each of these models puts forward a position a museum may embrace
around difficult topics from informing or reflecting, debating or transforming to
confronting or arbitrating, tethered to a notion of communalism and connectivity.
Surprisingly, despite this musing, museums were described by many participants in
the AAM dialogues as floating above the community as institutions that control rather
than share knowledge, expertise and learning, devalue audiences own knowledge and were
not seen as public as libraries (Mastering Civic Engagement 2002). And although a
museum's reputation for accuracy and authenticity inspires trust, there were also doubts about
whether institutions have the ability to reflect a variety of perspectives (Ibid).
In initiating the international research project Exhibitions as Contested Sites: the roles of museums in contemporary society (a three year study conducted between 2001 and 2004, funded by the Australian Research Council with partners the University of Sydney, the Australian Museum and the Australian War Memorial), we aimed to move beyond the specifics of exhibition controversies and theoretical rhetoric to examine the relevance, plausibility and practical operation of a range of museums as civic centres and for the engagement of topics of contemporary relevance and importance.
To this end we sought to
define and seek answers to a range of questions including how can museums contribute to these discussions? Do museums have a social responsibility to represent contentious topics in exhibitions? And if so how significant is this role? How might museums effectively engage contentious topics in new ways that acknowledge and embrace conflicting opinions, are non
-alienating and acceptable to the majority of audiences? What roles can museums as
information sources play in the engagement of difficult topics and how might the trust
accorded to museums as knowledge sources be maintained? What topics are currently
controversial for museums to engage with, and why, and what does this tell us about the role
of museums and the context in which museums operate early in the 21st century? And how
can museums navigate the sensitive terrain between facts/opinion, authority/expertise,
advocacy/neutrality and censorship/exposure? To this end we engaged an audience-specific
focus to our research which departs from previous studies, and has produced a range of
findings that is both significant and practically useful.
Within this framework three stages were identified each using different
methodologies to best deliver the desired results. First, a literature analysis was undertaken
into prevailing museological and theoretical debates about the roles of museums in
contemporary society and in the fields of media and cultural studies, sociology and conflict
and peace studies. The aim was to link contemporary debates across a range of disciplines to
contribute to and extend understandings of the capacity of museums to anticipate and engage
with controversial subjects outside traditional thinking. This was followed by literature
analysis of exhibition controversies in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and
Australia to situate controversy in a historical context by investigating how particular
exhibitions in the past have been defined as controversial and how the definition has affected
the roles and functioning of museums. For the purposes of this research, we defined
controversial subjects as taboo topics, 'hot' contemporary issues, or a particular historical
interpretation that embodies an idea or question that has a divisive dimension.
From the themes identified in the review, we developed and implemented a multi-method combination that was both quantitative (phone and exit surveys) and qualitative (in-depth interviews and focus groups) to investigate museum roles, community, audience, staff,
management and stakeholder expectations and concerns to ensure reliability and validity
(Cohen and Manion 1994). A series of statements were developed and used across all
samples that addressed key issues identified from the literature review. Second, we
conducted telephone surveys of the broader Australian community, both museum and non-museum goers (using a sample of 500 participants in Sydney and Canberra) gathering
demographic profiles including socio-economic data co-related to a series of questions on
topics and museum roles. Here we tested 16 topics that Australians might consider
controversial, for example indigenous issues, immigration, population levels, asylum seekers,
death terrorism, treatment of prisoners of war, war atrocities, drugs, sex, religion, racism,
social justice, globalization, sustainability of the environment and genetic engineering.
Survey respondents were asked whether or not museums should present exhibitions on
contentious topics and were then invited to respond to a series of current and potential role
statements using a five-point Likert scale (strongly agree to strongly disagree) based on the
following themes. Are museums information sources and safe places to explore these topics
by presenting a range of viewpoints? Or should they take a more active role, as
transformative spaces to challenge and change views? Should museums act as provocateurs
and take a leading role as social and political activists to bring about change, and to assist in
the resolution of issues on a personal or political level? Alternatively, is the primary role of
museums to offer non-challenging social experiences? And can museums be all of these
things at once?
Third, exit surveys were conducted at the Australian Museum and the Australian War
Memorial drawing on randomly selected samples of 197 and 248 respondents respectively.
We used the same range of questions from the telephone survey to compare the responses of
the broader community with those of visitors and to gather more detailed demographic data
about age, gender, cultural or ethnic affiliation, social, economic and family circumstances.
With a generous grant from the Canadian Museums Association, we were able to conduct
visitor surveys at three Canadian Museums, the Museum of Anthropology Vancouver, the
Canadian War Museum and the Musee d'Art in Montreal, with a total of 286 visitors. This
survey was administered in French and English in Ontario and Quebec, and English only in
British Columbia. In Canada, respondents were asked about cloning, residential schools,
torture and genocide in Canadian history, French-Canadian nationalism, the hanging of
Louis Riel, civilian casualties of war, women and war, East and West Coast fisheries, and health care.
Quantitative exit surveys and questionnaires were analysed using SPSS (data
analysis software) to enable comparisons between all data sets, cross-correlations, comparing
results from different cultural contexts, while extending the research sample.
The qualitative phase of the research involved five focus groups with museum visitors
in Sydney and Canberra according to the following demographic profiles: Adults 18-30 no
children; Adults, 30-49 with children; Adults 50-64, with a total of 40 participants. Here we
sought to explore, unpack and discuss the findings from both the phone and exit surveys on
topics, the civic roles and social responsibilities of museums as well as experiences of
museum visiting, museum functions and activities, as sources of information, museum
authority, expertise, trust and censorship.
As a contrast, we investigated the perspectives of museum staff and stakeholders
using an online survey (sample 148), in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with
over 100 staff and stakeholders in 26 institutions in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the
USA and UK. In the focus groups, participants were asked to identify any topics or issues
that were particularly controversial or 'hot' in that country, or for that museum, at that time.
This enabled the research to capture emerging controversies and contemporary responses.
Other questions related to museums, social responsibilities and civic roles, as information
sources including authority, expertise and censorship, the impact of controversies on
institutional functioning, successful programming and funding arrangements. By comparing
the different geo-political, social, cultural and institutional contexts within which the
international museum community operates, we sought to illuminate the challenges,
limitations and opportunities that institutions face in presenting contentious subjects.
This volume of the Open Museum Journal, the proceedings from the symposium
Contest and Contemporary Society: Redefining Museums in the 21st Century (held on Friday
28th November 2003, at the University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia) presents the key
findings from the Contested Sites project. These results are presented in the form of three
refereed journal articles by the research team, Dr Fiona Cameron (Chief Investigator, Centre
for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney), Lynda Kelly (Australian Museum)
and Linda Ferguson (Australian War Memorial)
Fiona Cameron's paper Beyond Surface Representations: Museums, 'Edgy' Topics,
Civic Responsibilities and Modes of Engagement explores the potential roles museums might
play around these subjects and suggests ways museums might be reconceptualised as
dynamic discursive spaces.
From the qualitative and quantitative findings with audiences,
Cameron posits three models: museums as places for historical reflection; places for
contextualisation learning from the past to understand the future and as social activists.
She goes on to suggest that museums are uniquely placed to engage in debates on contentious
topics because they are safe havens open to everyone, they are perceived as providing
trustworthy, credible scholarly information, and they are seen as impartial. Cultural
institutions, Cameron argues, can act as trusted incubators for change by providing a range of
information sources, offering challenging and participatory experiences but most importantly
for museums to facilitate audiences to engage topics on their own terms in their capacity as
expert informants as opposed to the older pedagogic paradigm as authorities.
Using Chakraparty's pedagogic and performative democratic models, the author also
argues that the way citizens and knowledge have been conceptualised in the political sense has
largely determined the way institutions have dealt with contentious subjects. Rather the author
suggests that institutions might consider repoliticising practice. That is, to move away from a
pedagogic model, view the public sphere as diverse and non-unifiable, position audiences at
the centre of debates and create landscapes of diverse and accessible forms of expert and
citizen knowledges with opportunities for audiences to reclaim cultural territory and play out
their political potential. Moreover Cameron reconceptualises the institutional context as a
hierarchical and complex web of values held by heterogenous actors exhibiting significant
differences in status, accountabilities and responsibilities and as spaces shaped by particular
interests that intersect with debates in other arenas. Developing a more nuanced understanding
of institutions as political places and controversy as a phenomenon, according to the author, is
done by engaging with the idea of moral authority and the operation of stakeholder ideological
hegemonies.
In Pushing Buttons Linda Ferguson examines the issue of topics and considers what
topics are currently controversial for museums to engage with, for what reasons and to
whom. More importantly, Ferguson presents a nuanced understanding of what topics might
tell us about the role of museums and the context in which museums operate early in the 21st
century. By examining a range of topics with audiences from sex and drugs to asylum
seekers, terrorism, racism and religion, Ferguson concludes that museums are perceived as
places to record and present history, are powerful symbols and signifiers of identity and
remain primarily collections focussed with many struggling to understand how issues could
be represented in exhibitions. But most significantly, they are institutions that provide
certainty and act as a moral technology for many, thus explaining the moral panic incited
by some exhibitions. Controversy , according to Ferguson, is difficult to predict but is almost
always entirely dependent on context, and institutions that effectively engage with hot topics
are those that don't go out of the way to be controversial but rather deal with pertinent and
important issues.
Leading on from this, Lynda Kelly in Museums as Sources of Information and
Learning: The Decision Making Process examines in detail the roles of museums as credible
sources of information in an increasingly complex contemporary information society and in
the context of contentious subjects. Kelly problematises the concept of museum information
and credibility in terms of a range of sources, posits questions about how information is used
and by whom, about the learning process and the roles of museums in influencing and
shaping decision making. The author concurs that museums can potentially operate as
powerful places for the engagement of such topics and as places for social transformation as
long as audiences engage topics on their own terms and are left to resolve issues in their own
minds. And through new information and alternative sources, a significant majority of
people are open to reviewing or changing their own opinions on a range of science and
humanities topics.
Taken together these papers provide a framework that enables museums in Australia
and overseas to be more informed of their social, civic roles and responsibilities. Further to
this, this research contributes to improving the capacity of museums to anticipate and deal
with controversial issues and debates.
Renowned museum thinker and consultant Elaine Heumann Gurian along with a
panel of speakers comprising of a museum director, Dr J. Patrick Greene (Museum Victoria,
Melbourne), historian Professor Graeme Davison (School of Historical Studies, Faculty of
Arts, Monash University, Melbourne) and media academic and practitioner, Associate
Professor Chris Nash (Director, Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, University of
Technology, Sydney) were invited to respond to the findings.
Their responses are presented
in the how and Tell' segment of the journal along with transcripts of the industry forum.
The objective of the day was to extend museological debates about the contemporary
and future roles of museums as civic enterprises and spaces and for the engagement of
contentious topics. Significantly it aimed to provide a platform for debate and renegotiation
in order to consider the next stage in the development of the museum sector.
The symposium was generously sponsored by the Museums and Galleries Foundation
of NSW, History Department, University of Sydney and the Australian Museum Audience
Research Centre. The project was funded by the Australian Research Council and the
Canadian Museums Association.
References:
Anderson, David, 2005, 'New Lamps for Old', Keynote paper presented at the Museums
Australia 2005 national conference Politics and Positioning 1-4th May 2005.
Boyd, Willard, L 1999, 'Museums as Centers for Controversy', Daedalus Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, America's Museums, 128/3, 185-228.
Cameron, Duncan F, 1971, 'The Museum, A Temple Or The Forum', Curator, Vol Xiv/1
1971, 11-24.
Cameron, Fiona, 2003, 'Transcending Fear engaging emotions and opinions - a case for museums in the 21st century', OMJ (Open Museum Journal) 6. Retrieved May 31,
2005 from http://amol.org.au/craft/omjournal/journal_index.asp
Casey, Dawn, 2002a, ‘Museums as Agents for Social and Political Change, First anniversary
address from the Director of the National Museum of Australia to the National Press
Club’, Wednesday 13 March 2002’ unpub mans.
Cohen, L. & L. Manion, 1994, Research Methods in Education. London: New York:
Routledge
Crouch, Tom, 2002a, 'Contested Sites' project interview, Smithsonian National Air and
Space Museum, 16 September 2002, transcription, unpub mans, University of
Sydney, History.
Dubin Steven, C, 1999, Displays of Power: Memory and Amnesia in the American Museum, New York and London, New York University Press.
Harris, Neil, 1999, ‘The Divided House of the American Art Museum’, Daedalus Journal of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, America’s Museums, 128/3: 33-56
Hirzy, Ellen, 2002, Mastering Civic Engagement: A Challenge for Museums. Washington
D.C.: American Association of Museums
Heumann-Gurian, Elaine, 1995, ‘A Blurring of the Boundaries’, Curator 38, 1, 31 37.
2002, ‘Museums today – panacea or provocateur?’ A forum at the National Museum
of Australia, Tuesday 26th February 2002.
Issues Laboratory Collaborative, 1995, Communicating Controversy: Science Museums &
Issues Education, Washington D.C, A.S.T. Centers.
Macdonald, Robert, 1996, ‘Museums and Controversy: what can we handle?’, Curator, 39:
167-169. Mastering Civic Engagement: A Challenge for Museums, 2002, American Association of
Museums Museums for the New Millennium: A Symposium for the Museum Community, September
5-7, 1996. Center for Museum Studies, Smithsonian Institution in association with the
American Association of Museums Washington D.C. 1997.
Wallace, Mike, 1995, ‘The Battle of the Enola Gay’, Museum News July/August 1995, 40-45
& 60-62.
Williams, Caleb, 2001, ‘Beyond Good and Evil? The Taboo in the Contemporary Museum:
Strategies for negotiation and representation’, Open Museum Journal 4 Taboo, http://amol.org.au/omj/volume4/williams.pdf Retrieved May 31, 2005
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