Off the Wall
In response to new technologies, visions, and markets, the lines among among education, design, collection, advertising, activism, memorialization, and art are increasingly blurred. This area of the blog will address those kinds of questions by continuing the work of “Off the Wall: Critical Reviews of History Exhibit Practice in an Age of Ubiquitous Display,” launched by NCPH in 2010. These reviews aim to expand (or perhaps to explode) our understanding of what constitutes a historical exhibit, and to work on developing a set of conventions for critically evaluating a wider range of history exhibit practice than is currently reviewed in our disciplinary and professional forums.
Related Posts
The telephonic heart: A “machine autopsy” in OttawaThis spring, I’ve been teaching an urban anthropology class at Tufts University. In the class session before I left for the National Council on Public History conference, we talked about how digital technologies have become ever more interwoven with urban … Continue reading
Embodying the archive (Part 2): Lineages, longings, migrationsThe second part of this art and public history conversation series features artist E.G. Crichton. In addition to being professor in the Art Department at UC Santa Cruz, Crichton is the first artist-in-residence for the GLBT Historical Society in San … Continue reading
Embodying the archive (Part 1): Art practice, queer politics, public history“All we have to open the past are our five senses. And memory.” ~ Louise Bourgeois We public historians are increasing our fluency in languages. We are conversing with colleagues across the globe and across disciplines, we are ever dexterous … Continue reading
Two sides of the same coin: standing at the intersection of Hollywood and historyPick up a penny. On one side, we observe Lincoln as he was; on the other side, Lincoln as we have chosen to remember him. Public historians face the challenges and rewards of interpreting history for a population obsessed as … Continue reading
Does the “Ken Burns Effect” work in an age of social media?Early last year, the NBC television show Community produced an episode entitled “Pillows v. Blankets.“ The episode depicts a pillow fight that reaches epic brother-against-brother proportions by involving the entire Glendale Community College campus. It very cleverly relates the war’s … Continue reading
More Off the Wall Posts →