Artifacts and Alliances (2015) concerns museums and storytelling

A previous post is entitled: Storytelling: Getting attention; playing the role; collaboration.

As noted at the post, a Dec. 1, 2016 Canadian Museum of History article is entitled: “Canadian History Hall Storytelling: The Human Experience.”

The opening paragraph reads:

As the Canadian History Hall team began its task of creating an exhibition spanning 15,000 years, we looked closely at how we could tell stories about the people of the past in ways that would connect with our visitors. Our goal was to go beyond the well-documented lives of leaders and elites to explore the lives of ordinary men, women and children. Further impetus to do this came from a variety of sources, including the public engagement exercise that we undertook in 2012–2013, and from feedback received from the Canadian History Hall advisory committees encompassing academics and community representatives.

[End]

The above-noted article brings to mind Artifacts and Allegiances: How Museums Put the Nation and the World on Display (2015)

A University of San Francisco blog post regarding the latter study provides background; it shares a version of the backstory.

The book is not available at either the Toronto PublicLibrary nor the Mississauga Library System. I bought a copy, so I could read it.

Like everything else, museums and art galleries demonstrate a close relationship between storytelling and everyday life. A wide range of people are involved in shaping such a relationship. Each generation re-shapes the relationship anew, taking into account current resources, trends, and frames of reference.

The same is true of the shaping of history. Each generation interprets the past in terms of the present moment, taking into account what the current generation knows (e.g. through the most recent unearthings of archival resources and archeological artifacts), and taking into account current perceptions (worldviews) of reality.

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Update

A June 19, 2017 WBUR article is entitled: “Tackling The Challenge Of Museum Design In The 21st Century.”