A museum in public : revisioning Canada's Royal Ontario Museum

Abstract

A Museum in Public critically examines the idea of museums as institutions of the public sphere. Using as a case study the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), Canada's largest museum, the book interrogates the public nature and political dynamics of the ROM as it completed a multi-million-dollar Renaissance' architectural project. Employing an empirically engaged cultural analysis of how publicness was reflected in the ideas, attitudes and behaviours of management, staff, and vis- itors, the book builds upon an ethnographic description of four public inter- faces of institutional operations: structuring, positioning, exhibiting, and interacting. Conceptualizing ROM's new nature as 'celebrity publicness': engagement as publicity and not politics, Ashley offers insights into how – and whether - museums like the ROM might achieve political publicness through transparent, open communicative action. As a whole, the book asks museum practitioners and scholars to seriously consider how the ideals of contact zone and engagement with their real need for dissent, conflict, and alternative ways of thinking – can truly be made possible within an administrative setting. A Museum in Public will be a unique resource for scholars and students around the world who are engaged with the ongoing process of democrat- ization in museums. Its on-the-ground reporting on practical organizational ISsues, offered in a shorter more accessible format, will attract and provoke museum practitioners.