Curating Transcultural Spaces

Curating Transcultural Spaces asks what a museum which enables the presentation of multiple perspectives might look like. Can identity be global and local at the same time? How may one curate dual identity? More broadly, what is the link between the arts and processes of identity construction? This volume, an indispensable source for the process of engaging with colonial history in Germany and beyond, takes its starting point from the 'scandal' of the Humboldt Forum. The transfer of German state collections from the Ethnological Museum and the Museum for Asian Art, located at the margins of Berlin in Dahlem, into the centre of Germany's capital indicates the nation's aspiration of purported multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism; yet the project's resurrection of the site's former Prussian city palace, which was demolished during the GDR, stands in opposition to its very mission, given that the Prussian rulers benefited from colonial exploitation. By examining the contrasting successes of other projects, such as the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC, Curating Transcultural Spaces compellingly argues for the necessity of taking post-colonial thinking on board in the construction of museum spaces in order to generate genuine exchange between multiple perspectives.

"Curating Transcultural Spaces asks what a museum which enables the presentation of multiple perspectives might look like. Can identity be global and local at the same time? How may one curate dual identity? More broadly, what is the link between the arts and processes of identity construction? This volume, an indispensable source for the process of engaging with colonial history in Germany and beyond, takes its starting point from the 'scandal' of the Humboldt Forum. The transfer of German state collections from the Ethnological Museum and the Museum for Asian Art, located at the margins of Berlin in Dahlem, into the centre of Germany's capital indicates the nation's aspiration of purported multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism; yet the project's resurrection of the site's former Prussian city palace, which was demolished during the GDR, stands in opposition to its very mission, given that the Prussian rulers benefited from colonial exploitation. By examining the contrasting successes of other projects, such as the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC, Curating Transcultural Spaces compellingly argues for the necessity of taking post-colonial thinking on board in the construction of museum spaces in order to generate genuine exchange between multiple perspectives"--

'Teaching In/Between: Curating educational spaces with autohistoria-teoría and conocimiento' is an iteration of an educator's embodied teaching and theorizing through testimonio work. Sotomayor, through a decolonizing feminist teaching inquiry, documents and analyzes her experiences as a facilitator in higher education while teaching the undergraduate course 'Latina Feminisms, Latinas in the US: Gender, Culture and Society'. This unique book is her interpretation and implementation of the seven recursive stages of Gloria Anzaldúa's conocimiento theory as transformative acts to guide her research design and teaching approach. Sotomayor's distinct bridging of Anzaldúa's theories of autohistoria-teoría and conocimiento offers an expansive perspective to how theorizing and curating our lived experiences can be transformational processes within academia. Sotomayor applies Anzaldúa's theories and her own theorizing to curate educational spaces that decolonize White hegemonic academic canons and empower underrepresented learners who may experience a deep sense of not belonging in academia. She situates herself in the study as curator, and her practice as curator as an agent of self-knowledge production and theorizing to create self-empowering learning environments. Sotomayor's work dwells within the lineage of border and cultural studies with shared voices of Gloria Anzaldúa, AnaLouise Keating, Mariana Ortega, Ami Kantawala, Maxine Greene, and Ruth Behar. Her work is considered a guide for teaching practitioners and researchers who hope to develop ways of knowing within their teaching environments that are inclusive and holistic for learners through a non-linear transformative process. 'Teaching In/Between' can be adapted for classroom use for pre-service teachers and instructors as well as creative interpretations for interdisciplinary works within Chicana/x, Latina/x, Art Education, Visual Arts and History, Women's & Gender Studies, Border and Cultural Studies.

This companion demonstrates how art, craft, and visual culture education activate social imagination and action that is equity- and justice-driven. Specifically, this book provides arts-engaged, intersectional understandings of decolonization in the contemporary art world that cross disciplinary lines. Visual and traditional essays in this book combine current scholarship with pragmatic strategies and insights grounded in the reality of socio-cultural, political, and economic communities across the globe. Across three sections (creative shorts, enacted encounters, and ruminative research), a diverse group of authors address themes of histories, space and land, mind and body, and the digital realm. Chapters highlight and illustrate how artists, educators, and researchers grapple with decolonial methods, theories, and strategies—in research, artmaking, and pedagogical practice. Each chapter includes discursive questions and resources for further engagement with the topics at hand. The book is targeted towards scholars and practitioners of art education, studio art, and art history, K-12 art teachers, as well as artist educators and teaching artists in museums and communities.

Situated at the crossroads of performance practice, museology, and cultural studies, live arts curation has grown in recent years to become a vibrant interdisciplinary project and a genuine global phenomenon. Curating Live Arts brings together bold and innovative essays from an international group of theorist-practitioners to pose vital questions, propose future visions, and survey the landscape of this rapidly evolving discipline. Reflecting the field’s characteristic eclecticism, the writings assembled here offer practical and insightful investigations into the curation of theatre, dance, sound art, music, and other performance forms—not only in museums, but in community, site-specific, and time-based contexts, placing it at the forefront of contemporary dialogue and discourse.

Germany developed a large colonial empire over the last thirty years of the 19th century, spanning regions of the west coast of Africa to its east coast and beyond. Largely forgotten for many years, recent intense debates about Africa's cultural heritage in European museums have brought this period of African and German history back into the spotlight. German Colonialism in Africa and its Legacies brings much-needed context to these debates, exploring perspectives on the architecture, art, urbanism, and visual culture of German colonialism in Africa, and its legacies in postcolonial and present-day Namibia, Cameroon, and Germany. The first in-depth exploration of the designed and visual aspects of German colonialism, the book presents a series of essays combining formal analyses of painting, photography, performance art, buildings, and space with the discourse analysis approach associated with postcolonial theory. Covering the entire period from the build-up to colonialism in the early-19th century to the present, subjects covered range from late-19th-century German colonial paintings of African landscapes and people to German land appropriation through planning and architectural mechanisms, and from indigenous African responses to colonial architecture, to explorations of the legacies of German colonialism by contemporary artists today. This powerful and revealing collection of essays will encourage new research on this under-explored topic, and demonstrate the importance of historical research to the present, especially with regards to ongoing debates about the presence of material legacies of colonialism in Western culture, museum collections, and immigration policies.

This book provides new insights into the relationship of the field of arts and cultural management and cultural rights on a global scale. Globalisation and internationalisation have facilitated new forms for exchange between individuals, professions, groups, localities and nations in arts and cultural management. Such exchanges take place through the devising, programming, exhibition, staging, marketing, and administration of project activities. They also take place through teaching and learning within higher education and cultural institutions, which are now internationalised practices themselves. With a focus on the fine, visual and performing arts, the book positions arts and cultural management educators and practitioners as active agents whose decisions, actions and interactions represent how we, as a society, approach, relate to, and understand ourselves and others. This consideration of education and practice as socialisation processes with global, political and social implications will be an invaluable resource to academics, practitioners and students engaging in arts and cultural management, cultural policy, cultural sociology, global and postcolonial studies.

With contributions from key scholars in a range of disciplines, this engaging new volume explores the complex issues surrounding collaboration between museums and their communities.