Visitor-Centered Exhibitions and Edu-Curation in Art Museums

Pat Villeneuve is professor and director of arts administration in the Department of Art Education, Florida State University, where she has developed graduate programs in museum education and visitor-centered exhibitions. Pat is editor of the book From Periphery to Center: Art Museum Education in the 21st Century and recipient of the National Art Education Association national museum educator of the year award in 2009. She has published and presented extensively nationally and internationally and has developed supported interpretation, a model for visitor-centered exhibitions.Ann Rowson Love is the coordinating faculty member for the museum education and visitor-centered exhibitions program in the Department of Art Education at Florida State University. She is also faculty liaison to The Ringling. Ann has been a museum educator, curator, and administrator for over 25 years. She presents and publishes widely on curatorial collaboration, visitor studies, and art museum interpretation.

• Foreword by Kaywin FeldmanPrefaceAcknowledgementsPart I. Foundations: The Need for Edu-Curation1. From There to Here: In Support of Visitor-Centered ExhibitionsPat Villeneuve 2. Edu-Curation and the Edu-CuratorAnn Rowson Love and Pat Villeneuve3. Rethinking Curator/Educator Training and Interaction in the Co-Production of Art Museum ExhibitionsBrian HogarthPart II. Readiness: Structuring Your Approach4. From Consultation to Collaboration: Mechanisms for Integrating Community Voices into Exhibition DevelopmentJudith Koke and Keri Ryan5. Dynamic Moments: Testing High-Engagement Visitor Experiences at the Asian Art Museum of San FranciscoMaia Werner-Avidon, Deborah Clearwaters and Dany Chan6. Cu-Rate: Starting Curatorial Collaboration with Evaluation Ann Rowson Love7. Aligning Authority with Responsibility for InterpretationKathryn E. Blake, Jerry N. Smith and Christian Adame Part III. Collaboration in Action8. Beyond the Gate: Collaborating with Living Artists to Bring Communities into the Museum and the Museum into CommunitiesMaureen Thomas-Zaremba and Matthew McLendon9. Collaboration Within and Outside the Museum: Student-Written Labels in a Featured Exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of ArtRosie Riordan and Stephanie Fox Knappe10. Supported Interpretation: Building a Visitor-Centered Exhibition ModelPat Villeneuve11. The Absolute Resolution Photography Exhibition: Facilitating Visitor Engagement with Supported Interpretation (SI)Alicia Viera, Carla Ellard and Kathy Vargas12. Visitor as Activist: A Mobile Social Justice Museum's Call for Critical Visitor Engagement Monica O. Montgomery and Hannah HellerPart IV. Seeing Inside the Process13. Multivocal, Collaborative Practices in Community-Based Art Museum ExhibitionsMarianna Pegno and Chelsea Farrar14. For the Use of ArtAstrid Cats15. Philosophical Inquiry: A Tool for Decision Making in Participatory CurationTrish Scott, Ayisha de Lanerolle, Karen Eslea and individual participants16. Teaching Visitor-Centered Exhibitions: A Duoethnography of Two Team Members Ann Rowson Love and John Jay BodaPart V. Sustaining Engaged Organizational Learning17. Complementary: Reflections on Curator-Educator Teamwork at the Denver Art MuseumStefania Van Dyke18. Building a Workplace That Supports Educator – Curator CollaborationJennifer Wild Czajkowski and Salvador Salort-Pons19. Visitor-Centered Exhibition Design: Theory into PracticeElizabeth K. Eder, Andrew Pekarik and Zeynep Simavi About the Editors and ContributorsIndex

The 19 essays in this collection introduce and explore the concept and impact of ‘edu-curation’ with regard to exhibition development in art museums. Edu-curation promotes equal collaboration between art museum educators and curatorial staff. Villeneuve and Love developed the concept of edu-curation, the tenets of which draw from feminist systems theory. The collection is divided into five parts: ‘Foundations: The Need for Edu-Curation,’ ‘Readiness: Structuring Your Approach,’ ‘Collaboration in Action,’ ‘Seeing inside the Process,’ and ‘Sustaining Engaged Organizational Learning.’ The essays emphasize implementation of sustainable edu-curatorial practices. The book includes both theoretical essays pertaining to the philosophy supporting edu-curation and essays presenting models and case studies of edu-curation in practice. Ancillary materials include black-and-white illustrations and graphics. This study, with its innovative research, will be of interest to museum professionals in educational, curatorial, and exhibitions-related roles, as well as to educators and students in the fields of museum studies, education, and art history.Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.