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Corinne A. Kratz (Emory University) presents 'What Makes Exhibitions Ethnographic?' at 'The Future of Ethnographic Museums', an international conference held at the Pitt Rivers Museum and Keble College, University of Oxford 19th-21st July 2013.
Corinne was introduced by Dr Dan Hicks, Lecturer and Curator (Archaeology), Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, UK. The talk was delivered on Saturday 20th July 2013.
http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/PRMconference.html
Corinne A. Kratz (Emory University)
'What Makes Exhibitions Ethnographic?'
Exhibition styles and genres are often associated with different subject matters: art exhibits, history exhibits, science exhibits, ethnographic exhibits. Yet while such canonical notions of genre persist, we also know and confidently assert that exhibition genres have blurred. Ethnographic museums today are not the ethnographic museums of a century ago, although they certainly bear the legacies from which they have grown. How do they communicate both their histories and their contemporary orientations to visitors through their exhibitions? What does an ‘ethnographic exhibition’ look like now, when the very categories of ethnography, history, and art exhibits have been blurring for decades? What elements signal the ethnographic in blurred genres, and what values, identities, and differences do they convey through their design and thematic content?
'Qu’est-ce qui rend les expositions ethnographiques?'
Des styles et des types d’exposition sont souvent associés à des thèmes différents: des expositions d’art, des expositions d’histoire, des expositions scientifiques, des expositions ethnographiques. Pourtant, bien que ces notions canoniques de type persistent, nous savons aussi et affirmons avec conviction que les frontières entre types d’expositions sont devenues floues. Les musées ethnographiques d’aujourd’hui ne sont pas les musées ethnographiques d’il y a cent ans, même s’ils conservent assurément les traces de l’héritage à partir duquel ils se sont développés. Comment communiquent-ils aux visiteurs à la fois leurs histoires et leurs orientations contemporaines à travers leurs expositions? À quoi ressemble une «exposition ethnographique » à présent, alors que les catégories mêmes de l’ethnographie, de l’histoire et des expositions d’art se sont estompées pendant des décennies? Quels sont les éléments qui signalent l’ethnographique dans des genres flous et quelles valeurs, identités et différences les expositions véhiculent-elles par leur conception et leur contenu thématique?
Corinne Kratz is Professor of Anthropology and African Studies at Emory University, where she co-directed the Center for the Study of Public Scholarship for a decade.
Her writing focuses on culture and communication; performance and ritual; museums, exhibitions, photography, and representation. Kratz began doing research in Kenya in 1974 and has collaborated with colleagues in South Africa since 2000. She is author of the award-winning book The Ones That Are Wanted: Communication and the Politics of Representation in a Photographic Exhibition (2002), Affecting Performance: Meaning, Movement and Experience in Okiek Women’s Initiation (2010), and co-edited Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations (2006). Kratz has published numerous articles, curated museum exhibitions, and received grants and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Fulbright, Social Science Research Council, National Science Foundation, and the Wenner Gren Foundation, among others. She lives in Santa Fe and is a research associate of the Museum of International Folk Art.
Corinne Kratz
http://anthropology.emory.edu/home/people/emeritus-faculty/kratz.html
Audio recorded by John Smith (AV technician at Keble College) and assisted by Jon Eccles (AV technician at the PRM).
Audio produced and edited by Dr Noel Lobley (ethnomusicologist at the PRM).
The Future of Ethnographic Museums Conference Website
http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/PRMconference.html
- Genre
- museum ethnography