Chris Whitehead and Rhiannon Mason are part of an international consortium working on a four-year research project funded by the European Commission under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities Programme (FP7). The overall project value is approximately €2.8million. MeLa intends to define new strategies for the multi-inter-transcultural organization, conservation, exhibition and transmission of knowledge in ways and forms which reflect the conditions posed by the migrations of people, cultures, ideas, information and knowledge in the global world. It aims to evaluate how much these changes can interfere with the physical structures and the architecture of the exhibition places.
ICCHS is leading the first Work Package within the project, which will provide historical, contextual and theoretical premises for much of the other work to be done over the life of the project. Our Work Package has been conceived in order to stimulate and develop knowledge on the theme of Museums & Identity in History, by investigating the relationships between European museum representations and identity within the contextual structure of place.
Funded by: the European Commission
Academics involved: Chris Whitehead, Rhiannon Mason, Susannah Eckersley
External website: http://www.mela-project.eu/
Andrew Newman, Chris Whitehead and Anna Goulding have been awarded a major grant (£251,000) from the cross-council New Dynamics of Ageing Programme which is a a unique collaboration between five UK Research Councils - ESRC, EPSRC, BBSRC, MRC and AHRC. The project, which starts in April 2009, will help us to understand the relationships between older people's identity construction processes, their wellbeing and their engagement with contemporary art exhibitions. The research will address significant societal questions concerning the role of culture within older people's quality of life. The research is a development of an exploratory study (funded by ACE and Channel Five) which looked at older people’s responses to the British Art Show 6. We will be working with BALTIC, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Arts Council England, Age Concern, Gateshead, Gateshead Older People's Forum, Equal Arts and the University’s Institute for Ageing and Health.
Funded by: Economic and Social Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Medical Research Council and Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Academics involved: Andrew Newman, Chris Whitehead and Anna Goulding
This project will explore relationships between identity, place, and art by working with different communities in the redevelopment of the Laing Art Gallery’s permanent display 'Art on Tyneside'. The Laing is the flagship art venue of Tyne and Wear Museums (TWM) based in Newcastle city centre and in 2007 attracted 273,673 visitors. The research project will run from 2008 to 2010 when the new display is scheduled to open to the public. A portion of the grant will go towards the cost of displaying the results of the research in the gallery and the researchers will work closely with the staff of Tyne and Wear Museums on the redevelopment.
The project will involve working with community members to develop new user-generated content for the display in a variety of media including documentary film, photography, oral history, and digital storytelling. The audio-visual materials produced by participants will be integrated into the new display to illustrate the diverse ways that people think about place, identity; it is hoped that this will also give the display wide appeal for a range of potential visitors.
By involving participants from the outset, the project will provide an opportunity for members of the public to participate in the curatorial process of redeveloping this major, art display and provide them with more awareness of the Laing and its collection. It will also offer curatorial staff, academic investigators and designers new insight into how members of the public view and respond to the Laing Art Gallery, its collection, and specifically, how they engage with the idea of ‘art on Tyneside’. The project will draw upon recent academic research about place, identity, curation, audiences, and the use of technology within gallery visiting.
The films, photographs, oral histories and digital stories generated through the research process will be collected and cared for by Tyne and Wear Museums so that future researchers and exhibitions will be able to make use of them. The project will bring academics in the University and curators in the city's museums and galleries closer together enabling them to further share their knowledge and providing a public face for the University’s research. The two organisations are already working together in many ways, most notably on the city's Great North Museum project.
Funded by: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Academics involved: Dr Rhiannon Mason and Dr Chris Whitehead
Art on Tyneside project website: http://artontyneside.wordpress.com/
In collaboration with University of Leicester, University of Manchester, University of Glasgow and Collections Trust
The aim of this initiative is to support doctoral students, as well as trainers/supervisors, working (on campus and at a distance) in the emergent and specialist area of ‘Digital Heritage’, through the design and production of a blended research training programme, comprising of a variety of on-line tutorials, skills camps and a specialist community web page. This innovative training resource is expected to support the development of skills required in the collection, analysis and writing-up of data in the intersection of cultural heritage and digital media research.
The training units will include:
The project, which intends to involve the research community in the design, development and evaluation of the material, will be developed in the academic years 2008-2010. The materials will be made available for free from the Collections Trust website.
Funded by: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Academic involved: Dr Areti Galani
Ancient Stone Monuments (ASMS), dating back to the Neolithic and Bronze Age, are indicative of Britain’s rich prehistoric past. Despite their apparent robustness and resilience, these iconic archaeological sites occupy a fragile place in the rural landscape. Responding to this predicament, the AHRC/EPSRC Science and Heritage Programme funded this cluster to assemble a group of experts to address scientific and heritage issues regarding their conservation and management. The overarching goal of the cluster is to identify the environmental processes that promote ASM decay (e.g., anthropomorphic, biological, chemical, and physical weathering); determine how such processes might be affected by changing climate and environmental conditions; prioritise research to generate more effective treatments of decay to improve conservation practices; investigate monument monitoring procedures in light of new scientific methods; and develop ASM heritage science as a platform for future heritage and scientific investigation. The cluster held two Workshops; the first one took place in March 2009 and included a visit to rock art panels at Lordenshaw; the second workshop took place in June 2009. More information about these activities can be found on the ASM Science & Heritage website.
Funded by: Science and Heritage Programme, sponsored by Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
Academics involved: Aron Mazel and Myra Giesen (SAC) and David Graham (CEG)
This series of three workshops focused on responses to issues associated with instrumental museum and gallery policy. The rationale for this is that such policy regulates most aspects of practice in UK museums and galleries and its consequences are inadequately researched. This initiative was the result of a growing interest in the benefits of collaboration between academic researchers in cultural policy, museum and gallery practitioners and policy makers. The proposed workshops for the first time, brought together these parties to identify and address matters of common concern.
Further information about the workshops and the presentation materials are available on the Instrumental Museum and Gallery Policy website.
Funded by: Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Academic involved: Mr Andrew Newman