CFP RAI Anthropology and Education Conference

Panel: Exhibiting Learning – Learning Exhibitions

Amy Johnstone (University of Glasgow)
Aimee Joyce (St Andrews University)
Vindhya Buthpitiya (University of St Andrews)

Short abstract:
Our panel brings together anthropologists and museum practitioners to explore exhibition as a pedagogic approach. We explore how producing creative public exhibitions offers new opportunities for understanding ethnography, and engaging with complex global entanglements with learners.

Long abstract:

Anthropology and museums have an entangled history as much at odds with each other as they have agreed. Teaching this history, particularly connections between museums and broader systems of oppression, is a vital part of teaching about collection and display of material cultures. The practical side of designing and organising an exhibition of material culture has received less critical pedagogical attention.

This panel seeks to explore opportunities for teaching and learning arising when exhibition is used as a creative practice that brings together techniques of exhibition from museums, galleries, and contemporary art, and applies them to anthropological research questions. In using exhibition as a model for learning, questions about what it means to conduct anthropological research emerge, and new solutions to these questions must be found. The inherent collaboration involved in exhibition design has potential not only to draw on critical models of learning, but also to question those models by asking learners to consider where gaps in knowledge making are and how they are filled.

The panel covers a wide range of teaching that uses exhibition as a pedagogic approach to explore the potential for exhibition to engage with complex global issues, polycrises, and to engage students in both critique of representational paradigms within anthropology. It also offers a pathway to explore through experimentation how artistic, collaborative and other exhibition practices can facilitate learning. The panel will offer an opportunity for both theoretical and practical discussion around the challenges and opportunities that arise through exhibition as a pedagogic approach.

The call for papers will is open and closes 13 January 2024.  The general call will be publicised via RAI’s website https://therai.org.uk/conferences/anthropology-and-education.