Please write an essay of 2000 words on the question “Should museum objects be repatriated?” Convince the reader that they should not be repatriated. Use a lot of examples of uk museums. (For refrences try to include these) For reading, there’s a great book of essays called The Long Way Home (Turnbull and Pickering) that would be really useful. There’s also a book called Museums and Restitution that looks at some contemporary ideas around this. Any book or chapter you find on museum ethics will also generally cover issues of repatriation (Routledge has a couple of good collections on museum ethics).
James Cuno has written and spoken extensively about this – he argues against repatriation. He has a good book called Whose Culture? and has also written a lot of articles.
You can also find a lot of discussion about this in newspapers like the Guardian, as it’s a contested topic and often written about! The only thing to bear in mind is that newspapers aren’t always an entirely rigorous academic source, as they can be opinion-based; they’re best used in your essay to talk about public opinion and media debate on topics, rather than as sources of fact.
Then please write 4 (300 words each) blog posts on these questions.
1. Choose an exhibition or museum where you think the space is in tension with the artworks or artefacts. Explain why, using theoretical texts to support your answer. (Choose museum in london uk)
2. How do exhibition visitors interpret or make meaning from exhibitions? Draw on theoretical texts to develop your position
3. What do you think is the role of the contemporary curator? Make an argument for your opinion, drawing on theoretical texts
4. Choose an exhibition and analyse the strategies of display it uses. What message does it communicate? What effects does it have? (Museum in london UK)
Please approach both essay and blog posts on the topic of exhibition design in the art field.
