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This project examines opportunities for history exhibition design practices. Research into museum studies and creative work in typography, photography, graphic design and architecture result in curation and design of a prototypical exhibit about the granite quarrying industry of Stonington, Maine.

Cette thèse présente les modalités d’expérience muséale proposées aux visiteurs déficients visuels et auditifs. Elle expose pour cela à la fois les dispositifs d’accueil et de médiation culturelle des musées, leurs discours sur l’accessibilité et la différence, mais aussi la réception et l’expérience vécue par ces visiteurs. À partir d’un travail de terrain mené dans des établissements muséaux d’Île-de-France et auprès d’individus en situation de handicap, il s’agit d’abord de montrer comment ces institutions structurent et révèlent le traitement social du handicap. Les processus sociaux assignant une place et une identité sociale y étant fortement perceptibles, le musée est pris comme cadre d’analyse et de compréhension des trajectoires identitaires des personnes en situation de handicap. Plus encore, le dispositif muséal conditionne aussi le rapport sensible à l’environnement, notamment par le biais des outils de médiation culturelle. Il contribue en conséquence à imposer une image de soi, et à structurer la carrière de visiteur. En outre, cette recherche souligne la capacité des individus à s’emparer de ces éléments pour élaborer leurs propres trajectoires identitaires. Ainsi, la responsabilité portée par l’institution muséale est mise en évidence, puisqu’elle participe à la construction des identités sociales et des modalités d’être au monde des visiteurs en situation de handicap. / This PhD dissertation focuses on the ways and means of the museum experience for visitors with visual or hearing deficiencies. For that matter, the aim is to grasp both the cultural mediation systems, the welcoming apparatus proposed by museums but also the experience lived by the visitors. This allows to touch upon the discourses then carried out regarding accessibility and difference. A field work was carried out in the museums of the region Île-de-France and through interviews with people with disabilities. The main objective was to bring out the way in which museums, through the devices they propose and by the discourses they carry and relay on accessibility, organize and reveal at the same time the social treatment of disability. Museums can be considered frameworks for analysis and for understanding identity trajectories, since the social processes giving a place and an identity to people are strongly perceptible in this institution. Moreover, the sensitive connection to environment and, in this case to the exhibits, is also conditioned by the museum. It therefore contributes to establish a self-image for the visitor, and thus to structure the visitor's journey. In addition, by also highlighting the ability of individuals to seize these elements to develop their identity trajectories, this work highlights the responsibility of the museum as an institution, which participates in the construction of social and personal identities.

This thesis outlines a technique for rapid documentation of historic sites in volatile cultural landscapes. Using Holt Cemetery as an exemplary case study, a workflow was developed incorporating RTK terrain survey, UAS aerial imagery, photogrammetry, GIS, and smartphone data collection in order to create a multifaceted database of the material and spatial conditions, as well as the patterns of use, that exist at the cemetery. The purpose of this research is to create a framework for improving the speed of data creation and increasing the accessibility of information regarding threatened cultural resources. It is intended that these processes can be scaled and adapted for use at any site, and that the products generated can be utilized by researchers, resource management professionals, and preservationists. In utilizing expedited methods, this thesis specifically advocates for documentation of sites that exist in coastal environments and are facing imminent destruction due to environmental degradation.

Through discursive essays and poetic narrative, Antithetical Commentaries on X, Y and the Disruption of Being explores the tenuous relationship between modes of measurement and the struggle for human relevance in the post-contemporary digital age. In the introductory essay, “Not the Feather, but the Bird”, I give an overview of the inherent problems of object-oriented ontology, and how it relates to aesthetics and social issues of our times. In the Developmental Overview, I detail how I developed my installation approach and techniques, particularly with regard to the three-way dynamic of the artist:work:viewer relationship and how it can encourage a ‘transgression’ that leads to the possibility of a transformative awareness of being. Subsequently, I present a series of ‘antithetical’ commentaries that neither explain nor expand the installation, rather, they create a non-binary duality that, through an entirely non-linear anti-narrative, work to erode the overlay of personal, civic and collective grids present in the memory space/time referenced in the video, TAG. Finally, in “Grid: Towards a Transgressive Humanism.” I propose a path by which installation art might serve to create transgressive opportunities for viewers, rather than the transcendence sought through religious rituals, which often reinforce stigmas, fears and authoritarian social dynamics, or worse, the reductive loop, of many contemporary approaches to art which proclaim their detachment in wordy displays, essentially leading to a form of aesthetic nihilism. This Transgressive Humanism is not presented as a dogma, but rather a revitalization of the work as a vessel of possibilities, an agent of creative growth for the artist and the viewer.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Organization of American States (OAS), a multinational political organization headquartered in Washington, DC, attempted to mediate U.S.-Latin American political and cultural relations. This dissertation traces how, in the United States, Latin American art emerged as a field of art historical study and exhibition via the activities of the OAS. I center my analysis on José Gómez Sicre and Rafael Squirru, two prominent curators who influenced the circulation of Latin American art during the Cold War. Part I focuses on Gómez Sicre, who served as head curator at the OAS from 1946 to 1981 and who founded the Museum of Modern Art of Latin America in 1976. I offer an analysis of Gómez Sicre’s aesthetic tastes, contextualizing them in relation to his contemporaries Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Marta Traba, and Jorge Romero Brest. I also discuss his efforts to build a network of art centers across the Americas, indicating how his activities fed into a Cold War struggle around notions of the “intellectual.” Part II examines the activities of poet and art critic Rafael Squirru, who served as Director of Cultural Affairs of the OAS from 1963 to 1970 and who theorized Latin American art in terms of the “new man.” I reconstruct how the phrase “new man” became a point of ideological conflict in the 1960s in a battle between Squirru and his political rival, Ernesto Ché Guevara. Throughout this dissertation, I indicate how Gómez Sicre and Squirru framed modern art within different Pan-American dreams of future world prosperity, equality, and cooperation. By examining the socio-political implications behind those dreams, I reveal the structures and limits of power shaping their influence during the Cold War. My study concentrates on the period from the founding of the OAS in 1948 to the establishment of the Museum of Modern Art of Latin America in 1976, and I contend that the legacies of Pan-Americanism continue to affect the field of Latin American art today. / text

Louis Delaporte est un personnage méconnu de l’histoire de l’étude de l’art khmer en France. Il a cependant occupé, entre sa première mission aux ruines khmères, en 1873, et sa démission du Musée indochinois du Trocadéro, en 1924, une place centrale dans l’archéologie de l’Asie du Sud-Est. Cette thèse fournit un premier éclairage sur le travail entrepris par Delaporte pour faire connaître l’art khmer, et constituer une collection d’œuvres devant servir de base pour son étude. Des sources inédites (correspondance familiale, documents de travail conservés par la famille Delaporte et le musée Guimet) permettent de retracer le parcours professionnel de Louis Delaporte, de sa première visite sur le site d’Angkor, en 1866, au développement du Musée indochinois du Trocadéro, entre 1884 et 1924. Si la concentration du travail de Delaporte autour de l’art khmer est fortuite (sa première mission aux ruines khmères a ainsi été conçue comme l’étape initiale d’un voyage plus large d’exploration du Tonkin), il développe cependant dès son retour en France une stratégie réfléchie pour assurer aux œuvres rapportées de son séjour une place de choix sur la scène scientifique française. Grâce à la création d’un très vaste réseau, dans l’administration aussi bien que dans les milieux scientifiques, Louis Delaporte devient ainsi, dès les années 1880, un personnage incontournable dans l’étude des monuments khmers. Faute des connaissances nécessaires, il ne réussira cependant jamais à s’imposer comme le fer de lance de l’archéologie khmère, et se concentrera plutôt sur le développement d’une collection destinée à devenir, en France, indispensable à qui s’intéresse à l’archéologie khmère. / Louis Delaporte is an underrated character in the history of the study of Khmer art in France. Between his first travel to the Khmer ruins, in 1873, and his resignation from the Musée indochinois du Trocadéro, in 1924, he held, however, a central position in the archeology of Southeast Asia. This thesis provides a first insight into the work undertaken by Delaporte to make Khmer art renowned, and provide a collection of art works meant to be the basis of its study. Unpublished sources (family letters, working papers kept by the Delaporte family and the musée Guimet) help relate Louis Delaporte’s career, from his first visit to Angkor, in 1866, to the development of the Musée indochinois du Trocadéro, between 1884 and 1924. If the focus of Delaporte’s work on Khmer art is born of fortuitous circumstances (his first travel to the Khmer ruins was designed to be the inital step of a broader exploration trip to Tonkin), he however developed a conscious strategy to ensure the works of art he brought back became prominent in French scientific circles. Thanks to the creation of a vast network, in the administration as well as in scientific circles, Louis Delaporte became, in the 1880s, a key character in the study of Khmer monuments. Due to his lack of knowledge, however, Delaporte never succeded in becoming the spearhead of Khmer archeology, and focused instead more on the development of a collection designed to become, in France, essential to whoever had an interest in Khmer archeology.