Many museums in the United Kingdom house fabulous collections of Chinese ceramics. These objects demonstrate, on the one hand, how craftsmen, connoisseurs and literati users made tactile contact with the object in the cultural context of traditional China and, on the other hand, reveal the interesting processes by which they were collected, adopted into museum culture and have created new meanings for British museum visitors. However, I argue that these objects are generally silent, because museum interpretation tends to reduce their materiality to visual narration, confining their interactions with visitors to the detached and static. This research aims to transform and animate object-human relationship through the development of an interpretive model highlighting sensory experiences, aesthetic sensibilities and reflective understanding. The proposed model outlines three interpretive principles - emphatic responses, metaphorical associations and multi-sensory designs - that define the object as an active enterprise embodying sensuous and emotive experiences of the past. In addition, it advocates a tactile mode of looking that empowers objects to speak of human experiences through their perceptual qualities while encouraging visitors to undergo self-discovery journeys in connection with the work. To ground my theory within a practical museum context, I examined visitors' interpretive strategies and conducted a series of interpretive experiments, involving Chinese material culture, at the Bristol City Museum (BCM) and the Museum of East Asian Art at Bath (MEAA). Informed by visitors' responses and my theoretical construction, these experiments aimed to develop a dynamic mode of object-human communication in exhibitions and to expand the scope of museum experiences. In relation to professional museum concerns with diversity and accessibility, it is contended that a sensuous theory of material culture will explore diverse voices embodied by the objects and contribute to the development of a truly communicative and inclusive culture in museums.

Over the years, prices for contemporary works of art have continued to rise to the point that many small, mid-sized and regional American art museums have difficulties collecting in this arena. Few authors have examined this phenomenon, or the different tactics in place to combat it. This study aims to fill this gap by undertaking a detailed analysis of successful museum acquisition processes at several museums. To ground the discussion I closely examine the hierarchical systems of the art world and its subset, the art market, and investigate the ways in which particular actors, including collectors, dealers and museum curators, negotiate this realm. Despite the economic hardships that they face, many museums embark on creative strategies to compete in this global market. In order to identify and evaluate these strategies I take an ethnographic approach to the research. Participant observations were undertaken at three American art fairs to fully understand the role of key participants in the market. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews with gallery dealers, museum curators and museum directors revealed both the challenges and solutions involved in the acquisition process, and led to the examination of six key strategies currently in place at museums around the United States. An analysis of these strategies demonstrates the creativity and entrepreneurial nature necessary for continued collecting of contemporary art in a market that has outpaced acquisition budgets.

This research arose from the desire to better understand the museum and inquire into its role while considering the often unexamined issues and assumptions that lie at the epistemological basis of the museum as seen in current practices and debates. This is a study of the poetics and politics of Portuguese museums in the sense that it attempted a semiotic and a discursive approach which is concerned with both how ideologies are represented in signifying practices and the effects and consequences of representations. The philosophy underlying these questions reflects the current concerns on reflexivity, regarding the social, political and ideological agendas of professional groups. The first part of this study presents the theoretical framework that informed its development as well as some conceptual / methodological tools, namely those of 'ideology1 and 'discourse' 'archaeology'/ 'genealogy' 'habitus, 'field, 'capital' 'structuration'. The second part of the study dugs into the archives of the group. From this archive we chose a set of documents (i.e. museum regulations, legislation), which helped us to chart the relation between the sayable and the visible. The following chapter aims at listening to the voices of individual privileged actors. Using what one may call an 'interpretative content analysis' approach, we studied Proceedings as ideological resource-rich information. The last chapter of part II undertook a general survey of museum professionals. It attempts to explore not only Portuguese museum professionals' constitution but also their views and attitudes towards the profession (principles and practices) and the institutions they work at. A final part offers some general conclusions in relation to these patterns and signs that assisted us unraveling this multifaceted field of meaning.

This research looks at museum making practice and pays special attention to the ways in which museums are made through processes of design and use. By delving into a case study, the investigation concentrates on the production of museum architecture and its significant histories of making to elucidate the closely intertwined connection among society, architecture, designers, space users, and the social parties involved. It looks for meaningful findings for both the fields of museum making and architecture. The research sets forward a detailed case study in the capital city of Taiwan, Taipei: Treasure Hill Artists Village (THAV), investigating the complex of processes through which the site has been produced since 1940s. THAV is an identified historic village, which was firstly built by retired veterans and migrants, in the high-urbanized Taipei City. Today, there are still some residents living at the site, although it has undergone a drastic alteration from a self-built village to an open art venue which accommodates international art-residential programs. The long history of the changes of the buildings in the village and their eventual transformation into a museumified venue, offers abundant content for analysis. As a detailed case study, the site provides an example of spatial change which can illuminate the shifting approaches and practices of museum making through both design and use. Overall, the research attempts to comprehend more about the nature of the case study and to develop a fuller understanding that architecture is produced by both design and use as well as the making of public art museums/venues in Taiwan. By examining the correlations among the society, the architecture, and involved social parties, such as museum institutions, designers, and various space users, the thesis seeks to orient museum making towards more engaging and meaningful museum environments with more social concerns and critical practices.

This research was developed as part of an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award, between the University of Leeds and Leeds Museums and Galleries. The central area for investigation was to establish the value to be gained from providing prisoners in a high security prison access to museum objects and activities inspired by them. The project itself was delivered to a group of prisoners in HMP Wakefield in 2012 over a twelve-week period. The four-stage project provided opportunities for different forms of interaction with the museum objects and culminated in a final exhibition of work created by the prisoner participants during the project. Throughout the project the findings were positive. They offer strong support to the idea that high security prisons can be viewed as a community in their own right where positive relationships can be established and negative stereotypes broken down. When looked at collectively, the findings indicate that participation in the project made both an immediate and longer-term impact on the wellbeing of those who participated. In some cases this also linked to a reduction in the fears associated with feeling institutionalised.

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This research explores the development of a theoretical framework for the design of the web presence and how it can be usefully and practically employed with a view to increasing the number of visitors to cultural organisations such as museums in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The paper adopts a qualitative and quantitative research method approach, including a critical review of relevant literature on web presence (website and social media design) and digital marketing to determine how these online technologies can provide an innovative means of promoting museums online in Saudi Arabia. At present, museums in Saudi Arabia use mainly traditional methods such as printed advertisement, for promotion which have a number of problems and limitations as the new challenge is not only how to reach your audience but also how to engage with them. However, with the adoption of internet technology, Saudi Arabia is quickly entering an information-based age and there is also the need for a shift in paradigm to correct misguided notions that museums are just for children or places for keeping worn-out artefacts. This research describes the development of a new web-presence framework and argues it can provide a number of benefits, namely: wider dissemination of information about museums to visitors; online promotion of museums for the benefit of a wider international audience; promotion of Saudi’s heritage, faith and culture online through social media; improved visitor satisfaction; effective management of visitors by museum workers; and effective payment online before actual visits to museums. The research concludes with a number of recommendations for policy-makers in Saudi Arabia to take full advantage of the internet and social media to effectively promote cultural organisations through their web presence using the framework in order to engage with visitors for greater competitiveness on a global market.

This thesis examines the relationship between feminist curatorship and art institutions and explores how feminism challenges and problematizes the museum. This thesis also examines the challenges in changing the structure of institutions: art organizations often respond with resistance to feminism, containing and ghettoizing feminist artists and artworks. This research project proposes that the aim of feminist curatorship is to change institutions, and their structures and hierarchies in a fundamental way. However, feminism’s objective of reorganizing the museum on a structural level has not been sufficiently discussed in feminist scholarship; feminist scholars have not been involved in a critique of art institutions or a theoretical analysis of the museum. On the contrary, feminist scholarship has focused on the criticism of institutions for the underrepresentation of women artists, on the production and display of women’s or feminist work and on adding more women artists to the museum. Thus, in this thesis I propose a redefinition of feminist curatorial practices as a broad strategy and an intervention whose objective is the museum’s reform. I propose that feminist curatorship should not simply focus on installing feminist art and curating feminist exhibitions but rather should aim at dismantling museological authority, destabilizing power structures and challenging patriarchy and hierarchy.

The present research examines the conflicted position of university museums as part of an overarching institutional structure - the university -, but yet are also characterized, as a result of a wide range of uniquely museological traits, as peculiar institutions in their own right. The objective is to understand what university and university museums enunciate about their institutional rationality. The notion of territory and territorial action offer the possibility to develop a flexible but tight research frame for analyzing the relationship between both institutions. The research explores a case study: the relationship between the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM, National Autonomous University of Mexico} and the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporánea (MUAC, Contemporary Art University Museum). The thesis is divided in 7 chapters and 2 appendices. Chapter one is the introduction, chapter two presents a panorama of research field about university museums, chapter three looks towards Mexican context, and how university has been a key agent to the develepment of museological context in Mexico, chapter four delivers the theoretical framework that has being used, chapter five addresses MUAC origins, chapter six delivers the core analysis of the study case, chapter seven presents key findings and conclusions; appendix 1 offers an example of discourse analysis, and appendix 2 delivers the transcriptions of the interviews held with MUAC's staff.

The intention of this study is to examine the cultural meaning of preserving heritage objects from the perspectives of First Nations, to understand the significant qualities of the object to preserve, and to compare these with values held in museum conservation. This research provides detailed information and analysis in order to understand more fully the perspectives of the indigenous cultures from which ethnographic museum collections originate. In addition, it illuminates if and how conservators can preserve the conceptual integrity of these objects while preserving their physical integrity. Preserving conceptual integrity or cultural significance is an ultimate goal in conservation; for example, the Canadian code of ethics for conservators states, "The purpose of conservation is to study, record, retain and restore the culturally significant qualities of the object with the least possible intervention" (IIC-CG and CAPC 1989: 18). This dissertation is divided into five parts: Chapters 1 and 2 (the review of the literature) introduce the research; Chapters 3 and 4 discuss conservation and establish the background context of values and perspectives; Chapters 5 and 6 present published aboriginal viewpoints on preservation and introduce the First Nations of British Columbia.