Bringing museal silence into focus

Eight Ways of Thinking About Silence in Museums

Bibliographic Data

ID5700520
AuthorsRhiannon Mason (0000-0002-3609-5780, Newcastle University, corresponding author), Joanne Sayner (Newcastle University)
Year2019
Volume25
Issue1
Pages5-20
Publication date2019-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Heritage Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1352-7258 • E-ISSN: 1470-3610
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13527258.2017.1413678
OpenAlexW2780289325
LanguageEN
Citations received26
References cited32

In recent years memory studies scholars have begun to focus on how silence is an integral part of processes of remembering. As places of memory we would expect museums to be at the heart of such debates. However, until now there has been no systematic attempt to delineate different ways that silence is present and operating within museums. In this article we draw on a series of international examples to ask how the specifics of museums as forms of media, representation and cultural practice produce certain kinds of silences. We focus on eight ways of thinking about silence in museums: silences in the historical record as collected by museums; museums being silenced by external pressures; museums’ collusion in society’s silences; museums using silence obliquely; museums thinking they have nothing to say; silence by design; museums staying respectfully silent; and communities wishing to remain silent. By bringing these silences together and exploring how they come into focus in individual museums at different points in time we hope to provoke future work within museum studies which looks at the intersections between different silences across and between museums and geographical contexts and, in doing so, contributes to the wider debates in memory studies

Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Media studies · Nothing · Political science · Politics · Silence · Sociology · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Museums and Cultural Heritage

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