1st Edition

Analysing Museum Display Theory and Method

By Christopher Whitehead Copyright 2025
256 Pages 84 Color & 9 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

256 Pages 84 Color & 9 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

256 Pages 84 Color & 9 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Analysing Museum Display is the first comprehensive book to bring together approaches to studying museum displays. Drawing on global examples, it reviews different theoretical frameworks and methods, charting major contributions to the field and exploring their potentials and limitations. How and why should we study museum display, and what is its nature as a complex form of representation?... Read more

Walkthrough I: First Australians, Canberra, 2019; 1. Introduction: What is display?; Walkthrough II: Atrocity and trauma, Oslo, 2015; Walkthrough III: A world of shape and colour, Corfu Town, 2021; 2. Why analyse display?; Walkthrough IV: In the shadow of colonialism, Heldenplatz, Vienna, 2023; 3. Script, ritual, performance; Walkthrough V: Your face, Bratislava, 2023; 4. Text, narrative, exposure; Walkthrough VI: Atmospheres of deep time, London, 2022; 5. Affect, assemblage, atmosphere; Walkthrough VII: The web of life, Lyon, France, 2022; Walkthrough VIII: Momentous encounters, Verona, 2023; 6. Map, space, positioning; Walkthrough IX: A long-gone display, London, 1878; 7. Orientations for analytical practice; 8. References; Index.

Biography

Christopher Whitehead is Professor of Museology at Newcastle University, UK, where he is the current Dean of Global Humanities and Social Sciences, and Honorary Professor of Humanities at the Australian National University. He teaches museum and heritage studies and has trained generations of students in curatorship and exhibition development. He has published extensively on museum history, theory, and practice, and on the politics and experience of heritage and memory. He is series editor of Routledge Critical Heritages of Europe.