Storytelling in museums
Issued Date
Copyright Date
2022
Resource Type
Language
eng
Text
Text
File Type
application/pdf
No. of Pages/File Size
293 pages
ISBN
9781538156940
Author(s)
Abstract
With chapters written by a diverse set of practitioners from across the museum field and around the world, Storytelling in Museums explores the efficacy and ethics of storytelling in museums.0The book shows how museums use personal, local, and specific stories to make visitors feel welcome while inspiring them to engage with new ideas and unfamiliar situations. At the same time, the book explores the responsibilities of museum practitioners toward the storytellers included in their narratives and how those responsibilities shift over time and manifest in different contexts.0The book?s eighteen chapters represent a conversation among a diverse set of professionals for whom storytelling connotes their daily museum practice. As educators, collectors, curators, designers, marketers, researchers, planners, and collaborators, the authors of this book consider the ?real work? of storytelling from every angle. From the inclusion of personal stories in educational programs to the meta-narratives on display in exhibitions, this book balances practical examples with ethical considerations, placing the praxis of storytelling within the larger context of the 21st century museum. The book moves beyond advocacy for storytelling as an essential part of the museum?s toolkit to explore the many ways in which museums use personal stories, and multiple storytelling techniques, to support the larger public narratives embedded in their missions.0The contributors demonstrate how museums that emphasize storytelling from multiple angles can serve as a kind of counterpoint to our tendency to fixate on singular images of things we know little about. They encourage museums to both acknowledge that they cannot control the narrative and to embrace their power to contribute to it through the multivalent, multivocal stories they choose to share.
Table of contents
Preface by Adina Langer ix--
Part One: Storytelling Methods--
1.The Why, What, and How of the Best Storytelling in Museum Exhibitions by Benjamin Filene 3--
2.Storytelling by Design: Inclusive Museum Experiences by Corey Timpson 13--
3.Telling Stories at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum by Amy Weinstein 25--
4.Building a New Museum on the Personal Stories Paradigm: How Design, Content, and Technology Come Together to Make a Museum Based on Storytelling by Anna E. Tucker 33--
5.Unearthing Buried Histories: Interpreting Individuals and Collective History in Cemeteries by Marcy Breffle and Mary Margaret Fernandez 53--
6.Interconnection: How Personal Stories are Expanding the Public Narrative by Miriam Bader 71--
7.Mobilizing Personal Narrative: Storytelling at Holocaust Museums by Adina Langer 81--
8.Reflections on Practicing Sankofa in Museums and Theatres by Deitrah Taylor 95--
9.Storytelling in Science Museums by Rebecca Melsheimer and Jose Santamaria 109--
10.Museums in Your Pocket: Digital Storytelling Strategies in Cultural Institutions by Lois Carlisle 119--
Part Two: Storytelling in the Community--
11.Working on Storytelling: A Pioneering Initiative in a Changing Context for the Moroccan Museum Culture by Samir El Azhar 133--
12.Turn On, Tune In: A Community Storytelling Project with the New Mexico History Museum by Judy Goldberg and Meredith Schweitzer 149--
13.Queer Museum Narratives and the Family Audience by Margaret Middleton 163--
14.From a Single Family’s Story to Diverse Stories of Immigration and Work in the Rondout by Sarah Litvin 177--
15.Threads in the Fabric of Legacy: The Stories in the Exhibit “Chinese Medicine in America: Converging Ideas, People and Practices,” Museum of the Chinese in America, New York City, April 2018 by Donna Mah 191--
16.Privileging Community Voices: The Indian Arts Research Center by Elysia Poon 205--
17.Transformative Inclusion in Exhibition Planning by Michelle Grohe 217--
18.Honoring the Ancestors: Descendant Voices at Montpelier by Iris Carter Ford, Patrice Preston-Grimes, and Christian J. Cotz 235--
Acknowledgments 259--
Bibliography 261--
Index 275--
About the Editor and the Contributors 287--