Design and evaluation of real-time descriptive mediation (RTDM) for live aquarium exhibits was proposed to support the participation of visitors with and without vision loss. RTDM was developed to address learning, entertainment, restorative, and social motivations. Data was collected during a lab study with adults to get feedback about the RTDM and compare it to traditional docent presentations and audio tours. Findings show that the RTDM made it possible for participants to address their exhibit motivations and led to specific personal and social aspects of participation. A majority of participants with and without vision loss reported that the RTDM was supportive of their motivations and perceived it to be more effective at supporting learning, social, and restoration motivations compared to audio tour and docent mediation. The main contributions of this work are in: 1) developing evidence-based information design criteria for mediation at live animal exhibits; 2) demonstrating that mediation designed to support exhibit motivations can facilitate participation in adults with and without vision loss; and 3) validating participation as a design goal.

Suiting the Modern Woman documented the evolution of women's power dressing in the 20th century by featuring four major components: thirteen period suit silhouettes, the power suits of twenty-eight influential and successful high profile Texas women, a look at the career and creations of Dallas designer, Richard Brooks, who created the professional wardrobe for former Texas Governor Ann Richards, and a media room which showcased images of working women in television and movie clips, advertisements, cartoons, and fashion guidebooks. The exhibition served as an application for contemporary museum education theory. Acting as both the exhibition coordinator and educator provided an opportunity to develop interpretative strategies and create a meaningful visitor experience.

No estado do Acre, sobretudo nas duas últimas décadas, foram implementadas obras, construções e reformas que modificaram profundamente as paisagens urbanas. Tais processos são mais visíveis principalmente na capital Rio Branco, onde diversos espaços foram criados e recriados para reafirmar o discurso identitário criado e veiculado na gestão do Partido dos Trabalhadores (1999 até o presente) inicialmente pelo \"governo da floresta\" (slogan do governo do Acre entre 1999 e 2006), e que ainda persiste nos governos subsequentes (2007-2013). Nesse contexto, os espaços de memória são utilizados como aparatos fundamentais para a divulgação de aspectos dessa identidade acreana. Partindo disso, esta pesquisa apresenta um estudo acerca das narrativas museológicas presentes em duas instituições localizadas em Rio Branco (o Museu da Borracha e o Palácio Rio Branco) por intermédio de uma análise crítica do discurso expositivo nos museus supracitados com o objetivo de identificar, avaliar e compreender as relações entre identidade, memória e as instituições museais no estado acreano. / Construction and renewal projects have fundamentally transformed urban landscapes in the state of Acre, Brazil, mostly in the last twenty years. This is most conspicuous in the capital Rio Branco where new urban spaces have been created and existing ones renovated in order to promote the discourse of public identity espoused by the Partido dos Trabalhadores in power since 1999. \"Governo da Floresta\" - the Party slogan from 1999 to 2006 - initially figured prominently in this discourse and has persisted during subsequent administrations (2007-2013). Museum spaces are among the most important means of disseminating this Acrean public identity. In light of this, the present study investigates museological narratives focused on two institutions located in Rio Branco: the Museu da Borracha and the Museu Palácio Rio Branco. We analyze these institutions\" expository discourse in order to identify, evaluate, and understand the relationships among public identity, collective memory, and acrean museums.

Five captive Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) were observed in order to better understand their spatial selection, behavior, and interaction with their environment and each other. A newly introduced adult male's interactions with a female group containing two adults, one adolescent, and one juvenile, was documented. Visual observations were performed to document individual behaviors, along with any interactions with silvery langur monkeys, public crowd levels, temperature, and enrichment props. Methods included 15 observation periods, 0.5-3 hours in length each, during which behaviors were verbally and visually confirmed using a HD video camera. Spatial locations of each individual were recorded every three minutes during each observation period. The orangutan enclosure was measured and mapped using terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), and observed behaviors and spatial locations were georeferenced to the resulting 3D model depicting the exhibit. Results were summarized as time-activity budgets and were geo-visualized using 3D plots and density maps. This research demonstrated how the application of spatiotemporal and behavioral analysis coupled with TLS and three-dimensional modelling can be used to better study captive primates. These types of studies are important as zoos increasingly become home to great ape species.

Presenting a case study of an American Indian exhibit at the Funk Heritage Center, I critically examine how this museum’s ideologies and preferred pedagogies shape public discourse about Southeastern Indians in the past and present. Using the methodology of Visitor Studies, this public archaeology project illustrates the benefits of incorporating applied anthropology into museological practice through collaboration with museum staff, volunteers, visitors, and American Indians. Operating within the theoretical frameworks of Charles R. Garoian (2001) and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1991), my results imply that inserting archaeological narratives into institutional pedagogy alters a museum’s traditional “performance” of the past by challenging its own authority; ultimately, I show how this process can increase viewer awareness about the politics of display.

Science centres have been identified as an important resource in encouraging teenagers to choose higher education in science and technology. This is of interest to society, since there seems to be a problem in getting sufficient numbers to do so. And accomplishing this is sometimes described as a fatal question for a nation’s future prosperity and development. Still, there is an international trend where teenagers fail to visit science centres.   Through research, little is known about what is interesting or useful to the public, as well as how to reach those who are ‘unengaged’. Considering teenagers as exponents for what distinguishes today’s society makes their apparent unwillingness to participate in science centres interesting to study with regards to what culture, history and ideology these centres were initially produced. Hence, from this point of view, what is missing in science centres that would make them interesting for the young people of today?   Many studies of learning in science centres have come to focus on visitors who visit voluntarily and how well the embedded messages in the exhibits have been acknowledged by these visitors. This study focuses instead on teenagers who are reluctant to participate in science centres, with their perspective of science centres as the point of departure, specifically what kind of social activities are formed in their encounters with science centre exhibits. This encounter is regarded as an encounter between the two different practices of the science centre and the teenagers. The applied theoretical perspective is mainly assembled from socio-cultural theories of learning.   This research is a microanalytic study of five teenagers who were equipped with video cameras and asked to film a visit to the local science centre, Teknikens Hus. The films were later discussed in a focus-group interview consisting of the teenagers and the researcher. Visual ethnography provided the theoretical framework for this research design.   The results showed that the teenagers want to use exhibits to have the authority of interpretations and the possibilities to contribute to the meaning of the activity. At the same time, they want to use the exhibits in a way that the activities become places for developing social identity. To negotiate the meaning of the exhibits there is a need for an openness that may be constrained by too inflexible and limiting exhibit designs. This pattern is described as two different forms of participation in the exhibits; ignoring or extending the intended meaning of the exhibits. Meaningfulness also demands a closeness created by connections between the exhibit and the user’s personal experiences. This pattern is described as two different ways in which the teenagers identified the exhibits; exhibits which they dissociated from or to which they had an ongoing relationship. Providing a space for negotiation seems crucial to inviting teenagers into opportunities of meaningful experiences, even more significant than any specific physical feature in the exhibit.   The teenagers’ agenda, in which forming practices where they can express themselves and contribute to the meaning seem to be very important, appears not to be greatly enabled by science centre exhibits. In this situation they learn to not participate. Science and technology represented in this matter show a ‘ready-made’ world that they cannot change. The missing link in learning in science centres is here described as the part of the meaning making process where the teenagers get to re-negotiate the meaning of the activities in the centre and use the exhibits as tools to accomplish this.

This thesis compares two contemporary artists who practice institutional criticism, Marcel Broodthaers and Fred Wilson. Looking specifically at Broodthaers's fictional museum project the Musee d Art Moderne, Departement des Aigles from 1968-1972 and Wilson's 1992 installation Mining the Museum at the Maryland Historical Society, this thesis will critically analyze each artist's similar application of deconstruction as a method. Both artists employ allegory and history as aesthetic strategies of deconstruction; using allegorical structure, the artists mobilize objects that have been arrested in history, disrupting a historical continuum that would otherwise remain foreclosed. The focus of this study will be to explore the critical approaches of Broodthaers and Wilson individually as well as the similar theoretical tendencies of the artists jointly; this investigation will assess the effect of institutional criticism on the museum's present condition, unfolding both what has changed and what is still at play within this practice.

This thesis investigates Western exhibition practices and the problems that arise when they involve cross-cultural encounters. Two exhibitions of Chinese painting in Paris that were co-planned by French curators and Chinese artists will serve as case studies in this regard. The first exhibition is Exposition de la peinture chinoise held at the Musee du Jeu de Paume in 1933. The second show is Quatre artistes chinoises contemporaines held at the Musee Cernuschi in 1977. Using archival material, I will reconstruct the planning of the exhibitions and reveal diverging French and Chinese agendas. An examination of the press reviews of the two shows will demonstrate that location is key in the public reception of an exhibition. The analysis of the encounter of self and other underlying the two exhibitions will lead to a probing of Western exhibition practices and bring issues of power, authenticity and identity-making to the fore.

No estado do Acre, sobretudo nas duas últimas décadas, foram implementadas obras, construções e reformas que modificaram profundamente as paisagens urbanas. Tais processos são mais visíveis principalmente na capital Rio Branco, onde diversos espaços foram criados e recriados para reafirmar o discurso identitário criado e veiculado na gestão do Partido dos Trabalhadores (1999 até o presente) inicialmente pelo \"governo da floresta\" (slogan do governo do Acre entre 1999 e 2006), e que ainda persiste nos governos subsequentes (2007-2013). Nesse contexto, os espaços de memória são utilizados como aparatos fundamentais para a divulgação de aspectos dessa identidade acreana. Partindo disso, esta pesquisa apresenta um estudo acerca das narrativas museológicas presentes em duas instituições localizadas em Rio Branco (o Museu da Borracha e o Palácio Rio Branco) por intermédio de uma análise crítica do discurso expositivo nos museus supracitados com o objetivo de identificar, avaliar e compreender as relações entre identidade, memória e as instituições museais no estado acreano. / Construction and renewal projects have fundamentally transformed urban landscapes in the state of Acre, Brazil, mostly in the last twenty years. This is most conspicuous in the capital Rio Branco where new urban spaces have been created and existing ones renovated in order to promote the discourse of public identity espoused by the Partido dos Trabalhadores in power since 1999. \"Governo da Floresta\" - the Party slogan from 1999 to 2006 - initially figured prominently in this discourse and has persisted during subsequent administrations (2007-2013). Museum spaces are among the most important means of disseminating this Acrean public identity. In light of this, the present study investigates museological narratives focused on two institutions located in Rio Branco: the Museu da Borracha and the Museu Palácio Rio Branco. We analyze these institutions\" expository discourse in order to identify, evaluate, and understand the relationships among public identity, collective memory, and acrean museums.

The Master’s thesis deals with achievement of high-quality logistic activities concerning work with exhibits which should lead to the increase of cultural value of the National Technical Museum. As for the content of the work, it includes theoretical knowledge from the branch of museums, the description of the current premises for storing of the exhibits and the analysis of the curators’ activities. After the analysis some embarrassments are discovered and possible solutions are designed afterwards. The construction of a new depositary hall and the creation of a new division are the results.