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Making Histories Visible produces visual art projects with internationally recognised museums and galleries, in which new artworks and installations activate institutional and curatorial policies to re-examine collections and collecting. By investigating the historic through the contemporary, using the mechanisms of display and interventions, youth centred workshops, symposia, web-sites and publications; we help museums find new relevance within contemporary society.
Thin Black Line(s) Tate Britain (2011/12), Cotton Global Threads Whitworth and Manchester Galleries (2011/2012), Jelly Mould Pavilions NML (2010), reflect collaborations and sustainable relationships with a wide, influential range of museum curators, directors and community leaders.
An exhibition researched and co-curated by the University of Reading's Alun Rowlands — The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art — at Tate St Ives presented an accessible new approach to the display of the Cornish gallery's artworks. It widened public access to this important resource and enabled public understanding and appreciation of 20th-century British art by juxtaposing, and drawing connections between, famous historical artworks, contemporary pieces and examples from popular culture, literature, film, music and local folk ritual. This democratic approach was extended through the associated educational projects, performance events and publications. The model has subsequently influenced strategy at Tate museums across the UK, demonstrating that connections can be drawn across different categories of culture as a way of emphasising the contemporary relevance of previously underused and obscure public collections and as a way of promoting public interaction.
The case study demonstrates how research conducted by staff in the Centre for Museology has informed the development of innovative display and interpretation practices in public museums in the UK and overseas. It shows how applied critical and reflexive museology has been used in a range of curatorial contexts, thereby directly affecting institutional practice and, in turn, providing visitors and volunteers with new opportunities for engagement. The impact is evident in the curatorial process, involving both staff and stakeholders, and in critical responses from practitioners and policy-makers.
This case study demonstrates how research has informed and influenced the policies and practices of a leading UK museum group, the Tate; and specifically to (a) barriers to access to publicly-funded culture and (b) responses to cultural policies advocating cultural diversity amongst audiences.
Impact includes: (i) repositioning of Tate's On-Line strategy leading to a more permeable web-site; (ii) recognition and acceptance by Tate Trustees, Management and funding authorities of the significance of longitudinal social science research in shaping the plans and future development of Tate; (iii) informing and influencing the Tate's Audience Development Strategy, 2012-15; (iv) modelling conceptual categories of audiences to allow for effective audience recognition and engagement; and (v) advising Tate's learning programmes in relation to the use of new media and making them more relevant to a diverse youth audience.
Research at the University of Bristol on the international contexts of British art has made a distinctive contribution to a renaissance of British art studies that began in the late 1980s. Over the past five years, scholars at Bristol have worked with museums in London, the regions and overseas to engage the widest possible audience in fresh thinking about British art. Exhibitions and catalogue essays informed by their research have raised awareness of individual artists and changed public and critical perceptions of British art as a whole. They have also brought many benefits to the museum partners, attracting visitors, generating income and enhancing the museums' understanding of their own collections. Some exhibitions have inspired additional collaborations which have fed back into research and further extended audiences for British art.
The `Northern Spirit` research project entailed the co-production of a new gallery about the visual culture, histories and identities of North-East England at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, the region's foremost public historical art gallery. The project generated a range of impacts across the local and national cultural, social and policy spheres:
Curatorial Resource for Upstart Media Bliss (CRUMB) has provided a resource for curators of new media art, which in turn has impacted upon the practice and policy of Curators, Museum and Gallery Directors in connection with collecting new media art. Here, the major impact has been upon the practice of a regional, local-authority-funded art museum and gallery, The Harris Art Museum and Gallery. CRUMB researchers worked over some years with curators and Museum staff on exhibitions and symposia, building up to changes in collecting policy.
Wylie and Seawright's research extends longstanding work in the field of art and conflict at Ulster. Their photographic work has enhanced public and national understanding of conflicts in which the United Kingdom has been directly involved. Much of this research extends conventional visual responses to conflict by mainstream media agencies and publications, expanding the field by enhancing the long-term documentation of conflict through the production of artworks. Using contemporary art-based contextual and methodological strategies of production and dissemination, the research has provided new material through which contemporary and historic conflict can be commemorated and interpreted in international museum collections, publications and exhibitions.
Research into the artist Dora Gordine established her importance in twentieth-century art and design, and her significance in the wider cultural and political arena. This research led to the establishment of an ambitious large-scale exhibition on Gordine at Kingston Museum.
This exhibition had a lasting beneficial impact on the practices and capabilities of the museum, enabling it to use the skills and experience gained in the Gordine exhibition to launch a new exhibition on Eadweard Muybridge and to build new partnerships with the British Film Institute and the Tate. This has significantly changed the culture and approach of Kingston Museum, enhancing its local, national and international standing.
The impact comes from Ekserdjian's authentication and attribution of Renaissance paintings and the curatorship of international exhibitions, both of which have had substantial financial impact on institutions and individuals involved in the art market, in particular the auction house sector, galleries and museums. This also includes cultural impacts on the art-loving public by introducing them to newly-discovered and attributed artworks which might previously have never been exhibited publicly and by offering innovative ways of exhibiting and understanding masterpieces gathered from around the globe.