Exploring Exhibitions

This week’s readings, Private History in Public: Exhibition and the Settings of Everyday Life by Tammy S. Gordon and Creating Exhibitions: Collaboration in the Planning, Development, and Design in Innovative Experiences by Polly McKenna-Cress and Janet A. Kamien both explore the process of creating successful exhibits.

 In Private History in Public, Gordon focuses on historical exhibits and explains the unique aspects of several different types of exhibits, from academic to corporate to community. She asserts that historical curation is a social experience, in which individuals interact with historic objects that serve to explain certain communities around a common historic narrative (Gordon, 4). Gordon’s discussion on private history exhibits, which are rarely acknowledged by museum professionals, stood out to me in contrast to McKenna-Cress and Kamien’s work. Gordon explained that private historical exhibits are “cross-class, cross-ethnic, cross-cultural conversations that can ultimately lead to social and economic change” (Gordon 5). Rather than using artifacts, like academic exhibits, private exhibits use belongings that have a connection to the curator of the exhibit. Further, some private exhibits attempt to replace the larger, well-known historical narrative assumed by most of society. Even after her discussion of examples, Gordon’s claim that private historical exhibits restructure the authority of historical knowledge, create conversations, and serve to further democracy seemed like a bit of a stretch. However, learning about the different types of exhibits proved helpful, particularly when reading Creating Exhibitions.

McKenna-Cress and Kamien provide an in-depth, almost textbook-like discussion about the process of collaboration within exhibit design. Unlike Gordon’s book, which seemed to favor the private or vernacular exhibits, Creating Exhibitions focused on more large-scale professional exhibitions. The authors explained the importance of collaboration, asserting “Basing program and exhibit development on the limited experience and knowledge of a single person is simply not acceptable in an age where access to information, knowledge, and people are at one’s fingertips” (McKenna-Cress, 7). Though McKenna-Cress and Kamien focus on different types of exhibits, they agree with Gordon that real objects can affect visitors in a powerfully transformative way and that authenticity it significant. Gordon writes that only private exhibits, when objects are belongings rather than artifacts, allow visitors to connect on a higher level with the object. Creating Exhibitions will continue to guide me as I come closer to graduating and entering the field of public history professionally.