UCL events: Voices in (and around) the Museum

A series of four discursive events 

Co-organised by the UCL Mellon Programme and 
UCL Centre for Museums, Heritage and Material 
Culture
Studies

Wednesdays 6pm, May 4,11,18,25,2011 
University College London



From being perceived as a collective resting place for mute objects and a
silent, ocular-centric space to showcase them, the museum is increasingly
called upon to account for the voices in its midst. Objects are now widely
understood to tell stories, speaking in different ways to different
constituencies. In turn, the voices of visitors, source communities,
curators, collectors and makers – whether in the form of reminiscence,
testimony, storytelling, myth or song – play an increasingly prominent
role in determining the museum’s approach to knowledge production and
dissemination.

This series of oral interventions – by architects, artists, curators,
historians, musicians, theorists, and writers – aims to understand how the
voices emanating from objects and subjects in the museum impact the
institution’s traditional remit of researching, collecting and displaying
objects. How do these voices condition the visitor’s affective and sensory
experience? How do the narratives told by the museum through objects
change over time? Which voices have been suppressed, and why? What can
museums do to preserve the immaterial traces of the voice? And what new
technologies and outreach strategies will be required to listen to and
broadcast voices both in and outside of the museum?

Speakers include:

Sarah Byrne (UCL Mellon Programme)
Debbie Challis (UCL Museums and Collections)
Emma Poulter (British Museum)
David Toop (London College of Communication)
Colin Fournier (UCL Bartlett School of Architecture)
Marysia Lewandowska (Konstfack, Sweden)
Sarah Lowry (Foundling Museum, London)
Steve Cross (UCL Public Engagement Unit)
Toby Butler (University of East London)
Paul Elliman (Yale School of Art)
Seph Rodney (The London Consortium)
Imogen Stidworthy (Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht)
Jack Maynard (Tate)
Linda Sandino (V&A and UAL)
Susan Hawkins (Kingston University London)
Hillary Young (Museum of London)

For more information
visit:http://www.ucl.ac.uk/mellon-program/events/voices

Or contact Sarah Byrne: s.byrne@ucl.ac.uk; Anthony Hudek: a.hudek@ucl.ac.uk