Critical Museology

La escenografia nos da un salto a otra realidad, periodo, espacio y hasta a otra vida que tiene sentido a traves de una linea de tiempo basada en una historia y el tiempo, asi el diseno escenografico debe tener cuidado en la aplicacion de los detalles que permitan acercarnos a esa realidad. Este proyecto presenta como el disenador de interiores puede llegar a desarrollar de una forma mas real la reproduccion de espacios cuidando no solo los detalles del interior o exterior arquitectonico sino tambien la estetica y las sensaciones psicologicas que se pretende lograr al espectador. La escenografia es multidisciplinaria pues ademas de requerir de muchos especialistas en diversas areas, tambien requiere conocimientos en varios campos que le permitan comprender las actividades y poder representar la historia lo mas creible posible; al disenador de interiores le permite aportar sus conocimientos en la interpretacion de espacios efimeros. Este proyecto en particular se trata de un escenari...

As said in the Introduction, it is an old text from a symposium in Granada. I believe it has never been presented in English. Being fascinated by the profound understanding of the concept and phenomenon of museums as they are contained in the idea so logically but so dingly named "Ecomuseum", - I could not resist bringing back the theme. Though presented i9n 2006, I declare it published at my blog/site this year to propose it to Academia.edu.

The study focuses on the theoretical and practical meaning of the museum as an institution that has influenced and been influenced by social relations since its foundation. The interview with Professor Richard Sandell is based on the question "what is the social role of the museum from past to present?". In this context, current museological approaches, social inclusion, access to culture and the museum's relationship with universities and other institutions are discussed. Concluding the interview, Professor Sandell, who is one of the directors of the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries at the University of Leicester, expounds on the initiatives and projects undertaken by the centre, underscoring the societal advantages that emerge from the symbiotic relationship between academic institutions and museums.

Neutrality as a contentious topic: Museums cannot be seen to be neutral when addressing certain topics, such as decolonization. Museums sometimes benefit from adopting a neutral stance in certain contexts, such as in difficult political contexts to prevent the escalation of tensions and to gain legitimacy.

This article identifies how a critical exploration of museums and restitution processes illuminates geographical thinking on relational ethics and care. In legacies of colonialism, critical approaches to museums and restorative action show a need to address colonial violence and dispossession from stolen cultural heritage. Restorative action reveals emergent, and more hopeful, practices of care across relational geographies. Research on relational ethics, Indigenous and postcolonial spatial approaches, and geographies of care expands frameworks of understanding in critical museum geographies. It advances that a relational ethics through restitution processes can foster translocal and transnational circuits of learning and exchange, in more care-full museum geographies. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

This  study  focuses  on  the  communication  of  intangible  cultural  heritage (ICH), defined to include the scientific production of researchers across both the hard sciences and the humanistic and social realms. Considering museums as institutions of memory undergoing transformation due to new technologies, we  analyse  institutional  definitions  of  ICH  and  museums  from  a  global perspective. We also examine the languages, technologies, and contexts suitable for communicating ICH in museums.Our  analysis  is  based  onan  empirical  study  conducted  in  Germany, exploring the use of digital technologies to transmit and valorize ICH through museum  initiatives,  with  a  focus  on  the  emotional  aspect.  In  addition  to  its theoretical  background,  this  study  reflects  on  the  roles  of  law,  human  rights, and  emotions  in  defining  cultural  identity,  concluding  with  a  provocative proposal on enhancing cultural communication.

This study focuses on the communication of intangible cultural heritage (ICH), defined to include the scientific production of researchers across both the hard sciences and the humanistic and social realms. Considering museums as institutions of memory undergoing transformation due to new technologies, we analyse institutional definitions of ICH and museums from a global perspective. We also examine the languages, technologies, and contexts suitable for communicating ICH in museums. Our analysis is based on an empirical study conducted in Germany, exploring the use of digital technologies to transmit and valorize ICH through museum initiatives, with a focus on the emotional aspect. In addition to its theoretical background, this study reflects on the roles of law, human rights, and emotions in defining cultural identity, concluding with a provocative proposal on enhancing cultural communication.

Ματούλα Σκαλτσά
Συνθέτοντας ‘υλικούς τόπους’ μνήμης: μουσειολογία, ιστορία και μνήμη, εισήγηση στο συνέδριο της Εταιρείας Ελλήνων Ιστορικών Τέχνης με τίτλο Πολιτικά μνημεία από τον 20ό στον 21ο αιώνα: Μνήμη, μορφή, νόημα, Θεσσαλονίκη, 2018.

Με το τέλος του 20ού και τις αρχές του παρόντος αιώνα αλλάζουν τόσο πολύ και τόσο γρήγορα οι αντιλήψεις μας και επαναπροσανατολίζονται οι οπτικές μας για τις κοινωνίες  και τις ταυτότητες, συλλογικές, κοινωνικές ή ατομικές για την ιστορία και τη μνήμη, που η βεβαιότητες του υλικού κόσμου -με την διπλή του σημασία ως πραγμάτων και ανθρώπων- στα μουσεία είναι πια παρωχημένη αν δεν είναι επικίνδυνη.
Ταυτότητες επανεξετάζονται και επανακαθορίζονται, τραυματικά παρελθόντα μπαίνουν στην πρώτη γραμμή, αποσιωπημένες συλλογικές και ατομικές παρουσίες φανερώνονται, η ευρωπαϊκή δυτική κληρονομιά επανανοηματοδοτείται, το δυτικό εθνοκεντρικό μοντέλο αποδομείται, πολύπλοκα, αντινομικά και συνθετότερα αφηγήματα διεκδικούν την παρουσία τους.
Το μουσειακό τοπίο αποτελεί πεδίο όπου πολλά από τα παραπάνω συγκρούονται και συνυπάρχουν.
Τις αγωνίες μας για το έλλειμμα σύγχρονου ιστορικού προβληματισμού και εν γένει της κρισιμότητας της ιστορίας για την έρευνα, την ερμηνεία και την παρουσίαση στα μουσεία του υλικού και άυλου πολιτισμού έχουμε να μοιραστούμε μαζί σας εδώ. Θα επικεντρωθούμε στις δύο βασικές παραμέτρους της εκτιθέμενης και εκτεθειμένης δουλειάς κάθε μουσειολόγου: το νόημα και τον χώρο. Αναφέρομαι δηλαδή στον νοηματικό μουσειολογικό σχεδιασμό και στον χωρικό μουσειολογικό σχεδιασμό.

Matoula Scaltsa
Composing 'material sites' of memory: museology, history and memory, paper presented at the conference of the Society of Greek Art Historians entitled Political monuments from the 20th to the 21st century: Memory, Form, Meaning, Thessaloniki, 2018.

With the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the present century, our perceptions are changing so much and so quickly and our perspectives on societies and identities, collective, social or individual on history and memory are being reoriented, that the certainties of the material world - with its double meaning as things and people - in museums is now obsolete if not dangerous.
Identities are reexamined and redefined, traumatic pasts are brought to the fore, silenced collective and individual presences are revealed, European Western heritage is reimagined, the Western ethnocentric model is deconstructed, complex, antinomic and complex narratives assert their presence.
The museum landscape is a field where many of the above collide and coexist. The museum landscape is a field where many of the above collide and coexist.
Our anxieties about the lack of contemporary historical reflection and the criticality of history in general for the research, interpretation and presentation in museums of material and intangible culture are what we have to share with you here. We will focus on the two key parameters of the exhibition work and exposed self of every museumologist: meaning and space. That is, I refer to meaningful museological conceptual design and spatial museological design.
Our anxieties about the lack of contemporary historical reflection and the criticality of history in general for the research, interpretation and presentation in museums of material and intangible culture are what we have to share with you here.

"A kritikai múzeumnak aktív szerepet kell vállalnia a közönség bátorításában, abban, hogy megértsék a jelen világ komplexitását, és felismerjék az emlékezet és a múlt jelentőségét a civil társadalom nemzetek feletti ( kozmopolita ) és szerteágazó fejlődésében."1 ( Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius és Piotr Piotrowski ) Magyar Nemzeti Galériában 2012. január 3-án nyílt meg a Hősök, királyok, szentek. A magyar történelem képei és emlékei című, egy teljes évig látogatható kiállítás, amely Magyarország Alaptörvényének kiadása alkalmából, direkt politikai megrendelésre született. Iniciátora a 2018-ban elhunyt színházi rendező, Kerényi Imre miniszterelnöki megbízott volt, aki az Alaptörvény széleskörű terjesztése és az érzelmi kötődés kialakítása érdekében egy képekkel illusztrált díszalbum kiadását és egy kiállítás megrendezését javasolta. A kormányzati támogatás, illetve nyomás eredményeként mindkettő hamarosan meg is valósult. Az előbbi az 1902-ben kiadott Ősi erény. Fényes korszakok a magyar nemzet történelméből című díszalbum illusztrációs anyagából indult ki, s ezt egészítette ki kortárs, állami megrendelésre született festményekkel, melyek éles kritikát váltottak ki.2 2011-ben a korábban szakmai autonómiával rendelkező Magyar Nemzeti Galéria helyzete megrendült.

El trabajo colectivo gira en torno al tema de Museología y Educación. Es un labor de la Asociacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico donde participaron 12 autores y su editora.

The collective work revolves around the theme of Museology and Education. It is a work of the Association of Teachers of Puerto Rico where 12 authors and their editor participated.

In Oregon, the vast majority of community museums are history museums focusing on local history. According to the Oregon Museums Association, of the 58 museums registered with them, 52 of those museums are focused on local and regional history. These museums have largely focused on pioneer history and display how white Europeans settled the land. While this is one aspect of Oregon history, many Oregon community museums fail to display difficult histories, or history that recalls trauma, oppression and/or violence. With current museology focusing on the diversification of exhibits through the inclusion of difficult histories, there is an apparent disconnect between this research and actual practice in Oregon museums. In this survey, I critically analyze visual representations at eleven (11) Oregon community history museums through site observations, document analysis and with three (3) of the museums, through interviews of curators and/or museum directors. I argue that as important sites of history and community outreach, these museums miss opportunities to educate the public and include minorities that have largely been left out of the Oregon narrative.

If in the ancient mouseion, the site on the Parnassos where the Muses are said to have danced, one can recognize the museum’s performative myth of origin and in the story of Noah and his Arch the other, scientific one, a further mythical motif determining the shape of the museum can be derived from the moment of the Babylonian confusion of tongues: it is the status of ambiguity to which all things included in a museum are subjected and through which they above all distinguish themselves from their status in practical everyday life. These considerations provide the background for a critique of the current state of museums and the demand for their own enlightenment through an aesthetic reflection in the sense of Baumgarten and Kant.

La escenografia nos da un salto a otra realidad, periodo, espacio y hasta a otra vida que tiene sentido a traves de una linea de tiempo basada en una historia y el tiempo, asi el diseno escenografico debe tener cuidado en la aplicacion de los detalles que permitan acercarnos a esa realidad. Este proyecto presenta como el disenador de interiores puede llegar a desarrollar de una forma mas real la reproduccion de espacios cuidando no solo los detalles del interior o exterior arquitectonico sino tambien la estetica y las sensaciones psicologicas que se pretende lograr al espectador. La escenografia es multidisciplinaria pues ademas de requerir de muchos especialistas en diversas areas, tambien requiere conocimientos en varios campos que le permitan comprender las actividades y poder representar la historia lo mas creible posible; al disenador de interiores le permite aportar sus conocimientos en la interpretacion de espacios efimeros. Este proyecto en particular se trata de un escenari...

Después de diferentes ubicaciones, fue en 1910 cuando el Casino inauguró su sede definitiva en la calle de Alcalá. Cien años después, su maravillosa biblioteca neogótica, con un ambiente que rememora las antiguas bibliotecas monásticas, sigue invitando a disfrutar del placer de leer las cerca de 40.000 obras que alberga pero, eso sí, con las miras puestas en el futuro… Alejandro Riera Guignet Bibliotecario del Casino de Madrid Doctor en Filología Hispánica b ibliotecas DEL CASINO DE MADRID

The museum, like the university, is a form of knowledge technology empowered by the European enlightenment and Western epistemology. This technology prioritises and enables a knowledge system based on observation, objectification, measurement, quantification and classification.

My book "Contested Antiquity: Archaeological Heritage and Social Conflict in Modern Greece and Cyprus" reviewed by Prof. Artemis Leontis.
The review appeared on the
Journal of Modern Greek Studies (Johns Hopkins University Press),
Volume 41, Number 2, October 2023,
pp. 293-301.

The aim of this conference is to present, examine and contextualise curatorial practices in
contemporary art, in Croatia and the region, but also specifically in regard to our lecturer
Pedro Lorente’s thesis on “museums as cathedrals of urban modernity”. It is important to
note that the history of curatorial practices is a relatively little studied area in Croatian art
history, while it is increasingly present at the international level. Our objective with this
conference is to address this important subject at the crossroads of art criticism, theory and
practice. There has been increasing interest in exhibition history and contextualisation of
curatorial practices in art-historical research. While we can trace back exhibition history in
the modern sense of a universal right to publicness to the revolutionary turmoils of the late
18th century, it was the avant-garde tendencies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that
gave the history of exhibition practices a new dimension, paving the way for innovative
methods, participation and the questioning of existing institutional policies, contextual
frameworks and models of presentation. The emergence of neo-avantgarde and the
institutional critique of the 1950s and 1960s destabilised the conventional meanings and
institutional positions of artists, artworks, curators and audiences, which led to a more
active role of curators in mediating new artistic expressions, but also to radical questioning
of their own position. Curators became increasingly active in the creation of meaning,
assuming more and more often, with their gestures or texts, the role of meta-artists,
especially in the domain of conceptual art. Redefining the position of the curator-author has
increasingly come into focus since the emergence of conceptual/neo-avantgarde tendencies
in art.
The starting point of the conference is the curatorial figure of Želimir Koščević, the 2018
laureate of AICA Croatia’s Annual Award and Lifetime Achievement Award. Exposed to late
modernism but also to counterculture in former Yugoslavia, as a relatively young art
historian, Želimir Koščević won a fellowship from Stockholm’s Moderna Museet.

Anthropology and its institutions have come under increased pressure to focus critical attention on the way they produce, steward, and manage cultural knowledge. However, in spite of the discipline’s reflexive turn, many museums remain encumbered by Enlightenment-derived legitimating conventions. Although anthropological critiques and critical museology have not sufficiently disrupted the majority paradigm, certain exhibitionary projects have served to break with established theory and practice. The workshop described in this article takes these nonconforming “interruptions” as a point of departure to consider how paradigm shifts and local museologies can galvanize the museum sector to promote intercultural understanding and dialogue in the context of right-wing populism, systemic racism, and neoliberal culture wars.

Following the 6 th International Congress of University Museums and Collections in Mexico City in 2006, the National University of Colombia (the Master's Degree in Museology and Patrimony Management together with the Fine Arts Museum) began discussions with colleagues from other Latin-American museums about the creation of a museum network which might provide a mechanism for regional integration, foster the sharing of knowledge, of experience, initiatives and projects, and communicate information about resources such as collections and museological programs, and set an agenda for Latin

Much of the curatorial and anthropological literature on museology has oversimplified museum spaces as monolithic colonial entities. However, recent developments in museum practice as a process of collaborative and public cross-cultural exchange are changing the way these spaces are interpreted and used. In this thesis, I examine contemporary curatorial endeavors at a number of museums and galleries in Vancouver, British Columbia, that attempt to revitalize the ways in which the cultural expressions of Indigenous artists and their communities are represented. The artists whose works are examined in this thesis locate their traditional territories along the coastline of B.C. As both separate and similar institutions, museums and art galleries are useful venues from which one may examine and chart ongoing processes of cross-cultural exchange. A curatorial exhibition project of my own: Understanding Place in Culture: Serigraphs and the Transmission of Cultural Knowledge will explore some of the obstacles and benefits of engaging in cross-cultural conversations of cultural representation. The exhibit looks at a selection of prints by Indigenous artists from the Smyth and Rickard Collections of Northwest Coast Prints from the University of Victoria Art Collections (UVAC) chosen specifically because they concern the artists' perspectives of place as it relates to physical locations, identity, and cultural practice. The relationship between the organization of knowledge and culturally specific attachments to space and place are central to understanding how we think about, and engage with, the world around us. The relationship between places and local knowledge connects the content of the images with the space in which they are to be exhibited: the Maltwood Prints and Drawings Gallery in the McPherson Library at the university. Through interviews with artists and curators, and a review of the literature surrounding these issues, I have attempted to create an argument for the importance of space and place in support of an agentive curatorial practice. As an attempt to decolonize the museum/gallery space, this thesis argues that diverging perspectives of place are essential to the way we understand the world and our position within it. iv

Amorós, L. (2023). El Museo Pedagógico Nacional y las primeras colecciones de material y mobiliario. Resumen. En E. Ortiz, J. A. González de la Torre, J. M. Sáiz, L. M. Naya y P. Dávila (Coords.), Nuevas miradas sobre el patrimonio histórico-educativo. Audiencias, narrativas y objetos educativos. Programa y resúmenes de comunicaciones (pp. 65-66). Santander: Cdentro de Recursos, Interpretación y Estudios de la Escuela.

“Nuevas miradas sobre el patrimonio histórico-educativo: audiencias,
narrativas y objetos educativos” es el título de las X Jornadas
Científicas de la SEPHE. El evento tuvo lugar en Santander,
del 22 al 24 de marzo de 2023, bajo la organización del Centro de Recursos, Interpretación y Estudios de la Escuela de Polanco de la
Consejería de Educación y Formación Profesional del Gobierno
de Cantabria (España).

_____________o0o_______________
New perspectives on historical-educational heritage: audiences, narratives and educational objects" is the title of the 10th Conference,
narratives and educational objects" is the title of the X Jornadas
Scientific Conference of the SEPHE. The event took place in Santander,
from 22 to 24 March 2023, under the organisation of the Centro de Recursos, Interpretación y Estudios de la Escuela de Polanco de la
Education and Vocational Training of the Government of Cantabria (Spain).
of Cantabria (Spain).

The Art and Object Engagement (AOE) program commenced at Macquarie University as an outreach program for participants living with dementia. It used contemporary art and social history objects from university collections to engage and build sustainable community relationships through a novel combination of art and reminiscence therapy. Originally it was an 'on-campus' collaboration between the University Art Gallery and the Australian History Museum with the involvement of researchers from the Department of Psychology designed for people who have limited cultural engagement opportunities. The program enabled creative use of higher education material collections and supported all three university missions through a complex ecology of teaching, research and engagement interrelationships (Thogersen et al. 2022).

Since the 19 th century Spaniards had been studying museums with uneven zeal, somehow disconnected from the outburst of theoretical scholarship that was shaping a new academic discipline in other parts of the world after World War II. A period of political transition and growing internationalisation coincided with the tenure of Luis Monreal Tejada as Secretary-General of ICOM, from 1974 to 1985. However, only at the turn of the second millennium Museology boomed in the Spanish cultural context with numerous specialised publications and postgraduate courses, including the veteran M.A. in Museums Education and Communication of Saragossa University. Such academic blossom was in tune with the highest predicament worldwide of the Nouvelle Muséologie, which found a stronghold in Spain, emulating influential precedents in France and Latin America; then, Spanish universities were also an early cradle for the development in Europe of the so-called Critical Museology. Nowadays, despite some exceptions, such as the Study Programme in Critical Museology offered by the National Museum of Contemporary Art Reina Sofía in 2024, not only our training courses but also our book publishers are broadening their focus to encompass extra-museal or para-museal issues: Heritage Studies are proliferating in all our campuses. Are we experiencing the advent of a science to be called Patrimoniología or 'Heritology'?

This paper documents a novel combination of art therapy and reminiscence therapy for people living with dementia and their carers. The Art and Object Engagement program was a collaborative community engagement project between two campus museums involving art and social history collections for a group of people with limited opportunities for cultural engagement. The open-ended, exploratory structure of the program and the rationale for this approach is articulated. A qualitative analysis of the positive impact of the program on participants is outlined. It is also argued that programs such as this, enabling the creative use of material collections in higher education, supports all three missions of the university through a complex ecology of teaching, research and engagement interrelationships.

The article introduces the concept of "critical museology" as a framework for the analysis of the social legitimacy of museums. Critical museology is seen as a theory that advocates the idea that traditional museology as well as one of its basic concepts-museality-is the product of the society in which is created i.e., it is defined by the social, political, and economic context where the museologist and the museum institutions are immersed. This approach could shed some light on the differences between museums of Latin America and museums of Europe and the United States. It also advocates the idea that museums should become spaces where, paraphrasing Marx and Engels: "all that is solid melts into the air all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind". CRITICAL MUSEOLOGY: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Museology is a scientific discipline 2 that studies certain relationships between human beings and their environment and it entails the expression, valorization, and affirmation of various forms of identity; therefore it has a wide social significance. 3 Although museology deals in part with the inner workings (i.e., research, cataloging, registering, and exhibiting of objects) of museums, its scope transcends the walls of the museum: it studies the place and function of museums in society, their social, political and economic roots and their possible role in the improvement of society. The idea of critical museology is not new, it has been around since the late seventies in the Reinwardt Academy in the Netherlands and so far, it does not have specific doctrinal principles. 4 According to María del Mar Flórez Crespo, "The critical museology arises from the constant crisis of the concept of the museum as a space of interaction between the public and the collection". 5 This interaction comprehends the use of history and education in the building-(re)presentation and communication of a message that implies a certain notion of identity, culture, and nation as well as progress and science.

Los textos que conforman este volumen centran su atención sobre el «objeto» de exposición y catalogación desde una doble perspectiva: en primer lugar, proponiendo un proceso de «reobjetualización» de la práctica museográfica; en segundo lugar, afrontando las problemáticas museográficas y catalográficas que plantea la creciente «desobjetualización» experimentada por las producciones artísticas contemporáneas y por las propias experiencias museísticas. 
Por una parte, y adoptando como punto de partida el concepto de tutela del bien patrimonial, se formula una vuelta al objeto cultural en su doble entidad (artefacto material con unas características físicas específicas y producción simbólica que demanda un juicio interpretativo) con el objetivo de situarlo, de nuevo, como base y centro de la conceptualización museográfica. A este respecto, se reflexiona sobre los efectos de determinadas acciones de la museografía contemporánea, que, al calor de las experimentaciones e innovaciones acontecidas en los últimos años, más que abrir la mirada sobre el objeto, la oscurecen, la reducen o la imposibilitan.  Por otra parte, y asumiendo la transformación ontológica que el campo cultural viene experimentando desde hace tiempo como consecuencia del avance de los procesos de digitalización, que aúna desobjetulización y desfisicalización (que no desmaterialización), se analiza desde distintos enfoques qué desarrollos teórico-críticos y prácticos podrían dar respuesta a algunos de los interrogantes museográficos que este nuevo contexto suscita
Lo imposible, por tanto, se nos muestra en este libro en su densidad semántica: por una parte, en su sentido tradicional de carencia. Así se revela, por ejemplo, en la imposibilidad de ver y de comprender que deriva de las acciones limitadoras de cierta museografía; o en la imposibilidad de mantener determinadas categorías museográficas y catalogares en un ecosistema cultural esencialmente diferente en su configuración y funcionamiento. Por otra parte, se nos desvela en su sentido de apertura cognoscitiva, esto es, como marco epistémico de referencia para pensar no lo que «es» (es decir, lo dado, lo actual, lo que acontece, lo que vemos y percibimos), sino para indagar en lo que puede ser o podría ser, y también en aquello que se nos antoja imposible o escapa a toda determinación. Pensar en términos de imposibilidad es, pues, una herramienta intelectual para enfrentar las complejidades de un futuro imprevisible que, en cuanto tal, solo podemos imaginar con altas dotes de audacia.

Cada vez más museos exhiben no solo sus contenidos sino también a sí mismos, de manera que los visitantes sean conscientes de las labores y designios curatoriales. Una reflexión y auto-reflejo que pone énfasis sobre cuestiones relativas a la propia identidad histórica, a veces mediante souvenirs y montajes historicistas, pero cada vez más consagrando un espacio específico a la autobiografía institucional. “Prado 200” será un paso más, siguiendo ejemplos cercanos, en sintonía con las actuales tendencias museológicas mundiales.

The Denver Art Museum's Native Arts Artist-in-Residency Program is an interdepartmental project dedicated to the collaboration between the museum, artists, and visitors. The residency and the physical studio were established to formalize artist involvement in the museum. There is no written mission statement for the program, but visitor engagement is central to the organization of the program and experience of the artist. This thesis explores the question: What can the experiences of the artists and museum professionals involved in the Native Arts Artist-in-Residency program tell about the residency's contribution to critical museology and decolonization? Through exploring the definitions of critical museology and decolonizing practices, examining the history of artist interventions, and identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the Native Arts Artist-in-Residence program, this thesis provides a discussion of the role a Native artist residency program plays in expanding democratization in museum spaces through selfrepresentation and social practice art. This research found that the Indigenous perspective does not have to replace the curatorial view, but it can augment the contexts and themes that can make the art more relatable and alive for audiences. Both artists and curators are making compromises in practice. This type of program does not have the ability to influence the atmosphere of Indigenous inclusivity significantly outside the residency.

Avant-Garde Museology is the first title in e-flux classics, a new book series focusing on an emerging historical canon specific to an era when the world’s many eccentric modernities, economies of knowledge, and shared political histories seek to be recognized through contemporary art.

The museum of contemporary art might very well be the most advanced recording device ever invented in the history of humankind. It is a place for the storage of historical grievances and the memory of forgotten artistic experiments, social projects, or errant futures. But in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Russia, this recording device was undertaken by a number of artists and thinkers as a site for experimentation.

Arseny Zhilyaev’s Avant-Garde Museology presents a collection of crucial essays documenting the wildly encompassing progressivism of this period, by figures such as Nikolai Fedorov, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Bogdanov, Andrey Platonov and many others—several of which are translated from the Russian for the first time.

While the first question for any progressive curatorial practice and museology concerns how the errant futures stored in the museum can be played back, for the authors in this compendium, the more urgent question becomes: How might the contents of the museum be reanimated so as to transcend even the social and physical limits imposed on humankind?

Critical study and approaches to comparative culture Critical studies has brought a breath of fresh air into art education. Perhaps the most welcome aspect of critical studies has been its insistence on privileging the student's own account and analysis of art. This places critical studies in the