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Authors

  • Tandi Agrell

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5617/nm.3197

Keywords:

exhibition design, authentic artefacts, post-structuralism, realism, fiction, relational aesthetics, content-form, phenomenology

Abstract

Most visitors to a museum exhibition expect the presence of authentic artefacts. With their materiality and history, these artefacts are considered to be specific to the exhibition medium. The author goes beyond this to assert that the use of authentic artefacts makes it more difficult to bring about the communication that the exhibition is trying to achieve. Despite the attempt to use it as a means of communication, the authentic artifacts in the exhibition are actually a hindrance in the communicative process. By relating artefact-focused museum exhibitions to contemporary neo-realistic art installations, the author illustrates the role of the artefacts in the museum exhibition. The article points out how problematic the authentic artefacts are from a practical design perspective, and how the demand for authentic artefacts in the exhibition is actually a convention that limits what the exhibition can achieve as a means of communication. 

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