In this thesis, I will examine the difficulties of documenting ephemeral art and the possible solutions that archivists, curators, artists and other museum professions have come up with. I will begin by presenting a background of the history of performance art, which was the impetus for all ephemeral art to come. Then I will present case studies of three artists: Allan Kaprow, Eva Hesse, and Richard Tuttle, and their archival processes, all of which provide very different approaches to similar artistic problems. Finally, I will discuss the implications of re-performance and re-creation of ephemeral artworks.

Through creative practice research this thesis investigates the concept of touch and its application to museums with the process defined as ‘practice of touch’. The main practical outcome of this thesis is an interface between the museum visitor and an untouchable museum object as part of the object interpretation. The implementation of this idea is realised with the ‘Tactual Explorations’ project. The format of this project is a tactile exhibition consisting of virtual and conventional artworks combined. The subject of the study focuses on interaction between museum visitors and exhibits in order to create an accessible and tactile solution around museums’ ‘do not touch’ policy; without being limited to but being especially for blind and partially sighted visitors. The reason behind paying special attention to these members of the audience is the significance of the sense ‘touch’ in communicating with the world around them. While the main objective of this research is to gain more understanding of the concept of ‘touch’, on a deeper level it investigates whether or not a haptic interaction with untouchable visual information can be achieved with the aid of a creative interface between the museum visitor and an untouchable museum exhibit. By using this creative interface, the aim of the research extends to gaining a better understanding of touch through curating with information design and artistic methods. The purpose behind the idea is to form an inclusive museum experience free from assumptions of just one interpreter without rejecting the traditional methods of object interpretation. The practical outcome enhances dialogue with the existing information by paying special attention to tactile properties of a museum object through a set of artworks. The project is supported by other practical experiments in order to understand the value of visual/photographic information attached to an untouchable object and involve other scholars and artists in interpreting this information tactually. While accepting museums’ policy of ‘do not touch’, the praxis of this thesis is proposed as a method of interpretation that aims to bring in the ‘missing interactivity of touch’ through an engaging tactile exhibition of physical and virtual artworks made by various artists. In contrary to more common approaches of involving artists in interpreting museum objects, in this model created works are not inspired by the original, but directly based on its texture information in order to create haptic interaction, without using a direct replica or embossed copies. In other words, this interface is presented as an addition to the object’s formal interpretation, not to replace it. The research adopts creative practice research methodology in general; and realises it with a reflective and participatory approach borrowed from action research within interpretive research paradigm. The main research strategy deployed is practice-led. Rather than staying in the boundaries of qualitative research, the study takes guidance from the manifesto of performative research which is declared as an alternative to the qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, by offering creative approaches to conducting a research project.

This thesis report is part of a larger thesis project which includes the museum exhibit Changing Tides and the UBC Museum of Anthropology Museum Note No. 13, entitled Changing Tides: The Development of Archaeology in B.C.'s Fraser Delta. This report chronicles the planning and production of this exhibit project and outlines the criteria on which it is based. The main objective of this project was to aid in the development of public appreciation for scientific archaeology. Justification for this objective is provided through a discussion of the role of public interpretation in archaeology. Funding, exhibit development, exhibit co-ordination and scheduling, exhibit conservation, Museum Note development, and related activities are discussed and evaluated. A series of appendixes are included which document the development of Changing Tides. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

Le sujet de cette thèse concerne les musées, la plus ancienne et la première institution culturelle en France. En choisissant de prendre l'exemple du Sud-Est, il s’agira de démontrer que les hommes politiques et les hommes de culture, localement et à l’instar du niveau national, ont pris conscience, dès la période révolutionnaire, du besoin de protéger les biens culturels en créant des institutions muséales. Ce sont donc les rapports complexes entre art, société et politique que nous tenterons de retracer. Nous ferons ressortir le particularisme culturel régional. / The subject of this thesis concerns museums, the oldest and the first cultural institution in France. By choosing to take the example of the South-East, it will be a question of culture, locally and following the example of the national level, became aware, from the revolutionary period, of the need to protect cultural property by creating museum institutions. It is thus the complex relationships between art, society and policy which we shall try to redraw. We shall highlight the regional cultural sense of identity.

Museums are service-oriented information systems that provide access to information bearing materials contained in the museum's collections. Within museum environments, the primary vehicle for quality assurance and public accountability is the accreditation process of the American Association of Museums (AAM). Norbert Wiener founded the field of cybernetics, employing concepts of information feedback as a mechanism for system modification and control. W. Edwards Deming applied Wiener's principles to management theory, initiating the wave of change in manufacturing industries from production-driven to quality-driven systems. Today, the principles are embodied in the ISO 9000 International Standards for quality management systems (QMS), a globally-recognized set of standards, widely employed as a vehicle of quality management in manufacturing and service industries. The International Organization for Standardization defined a process for QMS registration against ISO 9001 that is similar in purpose to accreditation. This study's goals were to determine the degree of correspondence between elements of ISO 9001 and quality-related activities within museum environments, and to ascertain the relevance of ISO 9001-2000 as a technique of museum evaluation, parallel to accreditation. A content analysis compared museum activities to requirements specified in the ISO 9001-2000 International Standard. The study examined museum environment surrogates which consisted of (a) web sites of nine museum studies programs in the United States and (b) web sites of two museum professional associations, the AAM and the International Council of Museums (ICOM). Data items consisted of terms and phrases from the web sites and the associated context of each item. Affinity grouping of the data produced high degrees of correspondence to the categories and functional subcategories of ISO 9001. Many quality-related activities were found at the operational levels of museum environments, although not integrated as a QMS. If activities were unified as a QMS, the ISO 9001 Standard has potential for application as an evaluative technique in museum environments.

Internships have become a vital part of museum training, the premier way to gain field experience, and a service often required of perspective museum professionals (Danilov, 1994). One of the museum field's top organizations AAM (1978) wrote a collection of minimum standards for internship training programs; however a study conducted by Spanard (1983) established those minimum standards were not yet being met. In a field where internships are being used extensively for museum training we do not know what these programs consist of other than through our own individual experiences or anecdotal passages. The components, intent, and practices of internship coordinators in AAM-accredited academic art museums were collected through a national survey to develop evidence-based literature on the curriculum of internship programs using Van den Akker's Spiderweb Model (2003) and AAM's (1978) internship minimum standards as a model. The majority of museums are not meeting the AAM minimum standards but many are meeting or exceeding curriculum components. This study encourages the museum community to consider its own practices and re-evaluate the current minimum standards set forth by AAM. Examining current practices in the field has revealed the need for self-evaluation and further development of socialization methods through formalization of internship program curriculum. Including evaluation methods will also provide the museum with evidence they can showcase to their host university and thereby reach their cited purpose: to increase their value, visibility, and perceived worth to the university while also expanding insight into their primary audience (students). / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Art Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2015. / April 30, 2015. / curriculum design, experiential learning, internship, museum training / Includes bibliographical references. / Pat Villeneuve, Professor Directing Dissertation; Lisa Waxman, University Representative; Tom Anderson, Committee Member; Antonio Cuyler, Committee Member.

Orientador: Macioniro Celeste Filho / Resumo: A educação do século XXI trouxe consigo diversos desafios e perspectivas para o ensino de História e para a educação como um todo. O advento das novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação e as alterações ocorridas na sociedade exigem de nós professores um repensar de nossa prática docente. Diante desta nova realidade, a pesquisa buscou analisar novas estratégias de ensino e aprendizagem no ensino da disciplina de História conciliando com os ambientes não-formais de educação, dando ênfase no museu como ambiente educativo. Para tal, foi realizada inicialmente uma pesquisa bibliográfica com o objetivo de conhecer o que já se sabe sobre o assunto. Posteriormente foram realizadas entrevistas com quatro professores da educação básica e quatro monitores e mediadores de museus da região objetivando o aprofundamento da temática. Durante a pesquisa foi possível perceber que os professores realizam visitas técnicas a museus e reconhecem sua importância, no entanto elencam diversas dificuldades, tais como: falta de verba para realização da atividade, dificuldade em se conseguir transporte e preconceito relacionado as atividades extramuros da escola, muitas vezes entendida como perda de tempo. Ainda foi possível perceber certa discrepância entre as realidades das escolas públicas, municipais e estaduais, com as escolas privadas que possuem apoio e incentivo para realização das visitas técnicas. Em relação aos museus, embora enfrentem diversas dificuldades relacionadas a manutenção e re... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The education of the twenty-first century brought with it several challenges and perspectives for the teaching of History and for education as a whole. The advent of the new technologies of information and communication and the changes that have taken place in society require us teachers to rethink our teaching practice. Faced with this new reality, the research sought to analyze new teaching and learning strategies in the teaching of History, conciliating with the non-formal environments of education, emphasizing the museum as an educational environment. For this, a bibliographical research was initially carried out in order to know what is already known about the subject. Subsequently, interviews were conducted with four teachers of basic education and four monitors and mediators of museums in the region and neighborhood with the aim of deepening the theme. During the research it was possible to realize that teachers make technical visits to museums and recognize their importance, however they listed several difficulties, such as: lack of money to carry out the activity, difficulty in getting transport and prejudice related to activities outside the school, often understood as a waste of time. It was still possible to realize some discrepancy between the realities of public, municipal and state schools, in private schools that have support and incentive to carry out the technical visits. In relation to museums, although they face several difficulties related to the maintena... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Research on museum policy often focuses on provincial or national museums, which are typically government agencies. These institutions are directly accountable to government and have an articulated role in an explicit federal or provincial museum policy. However, most Canadian museums are community museums – that is, nonprofit or municipal museums that collect and interpret locally relevant materials and have public programs targeting the community in which they are based. Community museums’ relationships with government(s) differ due to their legal structures (municipal, nonprofit), relatively small budgets, and limited number of staff. Within museum policy, community museums are distinct because they lack a direct relationship with a provincial or national government. Yet, in Canada, all levels of government are involved in their governance through regulatory and supportive activities. In particular, provincial governments have included community museums in museum policies, which tend to focus on professionalization, standards of operation, and simplifying access to resources. In other words, policies targeting community museums often subject them to norms, aiming to establish parameters and best practices for their operations. These actions seek to define and shape community museums, which raises the question: how are these policies (re)created, (re)assembled, and coordinated? Using archival research and interviews, this thesis documents community museum governance in Ontario, where provincial museum advisors and associations emerged as museum professionals embedded in policy development and implementation in the 1950s. Considering the advisors and associations’ service delivery and advocacy activities, actor-network theory (ANT) is used to discuss their work assembling and coordinating policy for Ontario’s community museums. Their work distinguishes community museum governance from the governance of national or provincial institutions because they define and establish norms, contribute to change in governance, and enact ongoing change as they (re)assemble resources for community museums. The advisors and associations have facilitated relationships between museums and actors related to museums’ work as educational institutions, sites of local action, tourism operators, agents of social change, and collecting institutions, resulting in multiple configurations of actors supporting and regulating museum activities. This thesis has found the advisors and associations historically worked for a museum community to address its needs, resulting in written policy and museums’ inclusion in government instruments. These established instruments have, to some extent, reduced the need for ongoing advocacy by targeting museums with a clear objective and normalizing museums’ participation in policy areas outside of culture. However, these instruments also reflect and reinforce historic inequities in community museum governance, privileging municipal museums with historic access to provincial support and, as a result, the capacity to advocate for their own interest through an association. Responding to growing government disinterest, the provincial museum association has refocused its efforts from defining a community in need to defining a sector that contributes to society and the economy through partnerships that can address diverse policy objectives.

Das Beispiel der Dresdner Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen zeigt, welche tiefgreifenden Veränderungen sich in den Museen Deutschlands seit Mitte der 1930er Jahre vollzogen, wie die Bestände skrupellos durch Stücke fragwürdiger Provenienz ergänzt wurden und welche Verluste andererseits zu beklagen waren. Dabei werden neben manchen Gemeinsamkeiten gravierende Unterschiede in der Entwicklung der Museen im Osten und Westen erkennbar. Zu den Zugängen gehörte seit 1933 enteignetes oder geraubtes jüdisches Eigentum. Dazu kam im Osten seit 1945 adliger Kunstbesitz aus der Bodenreform. Auf der anderen Seite haben die Ost-Museen nach 1945 durch die Beutekunst- Beschaffung der Roten Armee ihre Bestände zunächst verloren. Die überraschende Rückkehr Hunderttausender von Objekten aus der UdSSR (1955 bis 1958) war ein großer Schritt, hat aber das Problem der Beutekunst noch nicht vollständig gelöst. So sind die heutigen Museen im Westen und Osten als Institutionen wie in ihren Beständen komplexe Resultate und Spiegel der Verwerfungen der jüngeren deutschen Geschichte mit all ihren Ungleichheiten. / The example of the Dresden State Art Collections demonstrates the profound changes which have affected German public museums since the mid-1930s. On the one hand, the museums acquired works of doubtful provenance, especially Jewish property, during the Nazi years. After 1945, albeit on a quite different scale, the property of expropriated aristocrats in Eastern Germany also found its way into the depots of the museums. On the other hand, museums in Eastern Germany lost the greatest part of their works of art when they were removed by the Red Army at the end of war. The sudden and surprising return of most works of art between 1955 and 1958 still did not finally solve the problem of this so-called “looted art”. Today's museums in Eastern and Western Germany reflect the enormous upheavals of German history

Museums and heritage tourism sites are highly curated places of memory work whose function is the assembling and ordering of space and narrative to contour visitors’ experiences of the past. Variations in such experiences within and between sites, however, necessitates a method that: (1) captures how guides, visitors, and exhibits interact within spaces when representing and performing history and (2) allows researchers to document those variations. We developed narrative mapping, a mobile and geographically sensitive form of participant observation, to enable museum scholars and professionals to systematically capture, visualize, and interpret tendencies and variations in the content, affective qualities, and spatial arrangements of museum narratives over multiple sites and across multiple tours at the same site. Two antebellum plantation museum case studies, Laura Plantation in Louisiana and Virginia’s Berkeley Plantation, demonstrate the method’s utility in documenting how stories are spatially configured and materially enlivened in order to analyze the ways enslaved persons are placed within these narratives.