Considering the glass case

Material encounters between museums, visitors and religious objects

Bibliographic Data

ID2391077
AuthorsSteph Bern, Steph Berns (Lancaster University, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume21
Issue2
Pages153-168
Publication date2016-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Material Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1359183515615896
OpenAlexW2374052509
LanguageEN
Citations received16
References cited21

This article considers the often overlooked, or looked through, museum display case. Glass cases provide physical barriers between museum exhibits and visitors. Their efficacy is what keeps them hidden. But when the case obstructs a visitor-object interaction, their presence becomes strikingly obvious. The usually discerning cases are blamed for disrupting, distancing and inhibiting museum experiences. Yet, cases can facilitate many encounters that aid visitors' abilities to connect devotionally with exhibits. To explore the active role that glass cases play, this article employs an actor-network approach to examine interactions at an exhibition on medieval Christian relics, where the cases acted as channels and barriers within the process of veneration, as well as the means to erase traces of religious practices. Situated in debates about materiality and lived religion, this article considers the role of mundane material objects in visitor-object encounters and the mediated nature of religious experiences in non-devotional spaces

Distancing · Materiality · Veneration · Visitor pattern · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Museums and Cultural Heritage · Religious Tourism and Spaces

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