240089 SE Visual Culture (P4) (2014S)

Museums?
Ethnographic museums face new challenges in times of globalization, of intensified travel possibilities as well as of flows of images and information. In other words, people today have multiple opportunities to inform themselves at home on societies and socio-cultural phenomena in any region of todays world.

They have to approach these situations on the basis of their permanent collections, which were collected in the larger part during the early twentieth century. It seems, however, that even recent acquisitions can only remedy to some extent the major problem, how the documentation of other cultures or cultural phenomena may be meaningful in our times and attract the public.

At present, this type of museum is confronted with a decrease of numbers of visitors in many countries. An exception is the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris with around 1,3 millions of visitors per year. That institution, actually, was re-oriented to being a museum of arts premiers under the auspices of former French President Jacques Chirac and his adviser Jacques Kerchache.

The seminar will deal with questions about the future of the ethnographic museum, and about the work such an institution has to fulfil. It therefore will be a mixture of a) scrutinizing the museum landscape in Vienna, how different museums deal with their respective challenges, and b) of studying relevant literature to the topic.