What Do Museum Objects Want? Re‐Thinking Photographic Conventions In Ethnographic Museums

Bibliographic Data

ID12410286
AuthorsDiana J B Young (0000-0002-5443-3712, The University of Queensland, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume38
Issue1
Pages60-84
Publication date2022-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueVisual Anthropology Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1058-7187 • E-ISSN: 1548-7458
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/var.12265
OpenAlexW4280607993
LanguageEN
References cited23

This paper critiques the visual conventions applied to the photography of ethnographic museum collection objects. To “think photographically” in a museum collection, I draw a productive parallel between my fieldwork with Indigenous women artists in central Australia, and photography of poorly documented museum collection objects. I explore the presence of an intersubjective affective gaze in the central Australian Indigenous art works which is amplified through photography. This resistance inspired an experimental exhibition entailing photography of sculptural museum objects with faces. The exhibit's aim was to resocialize these objects into the present through photographs of them

Art · Ethnography · Exhibition · Gaze · Indigenous · Photography · Sociology · Visual arts · Anthropology · Computer Science · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Museology · Museums and Cultural Heritage

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