- Title
- Creative activation of the past: Mechanics' Institutes, GLAM, heritage, and creativity in the twenty-first century
- Creator
- Tsilemanis, Amy
- Date
- 2020
- Type
- Text; Thesis; PhD
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/175258
- Identifier
- vital:14954
- Abstract
- This is an interdisciplinary, mixed-method thesis that explores contemporary curation as a means to creatively activate heritage collections and places. The central case study is Ballaarat Mechanics’ Institute (BMI), in Ballarat, Australia, where practice and action-led research was undertaken by the curator over the three-year period 2016–2019. Creative connections between five interlinked areas are critically examined: heritage; curatorial practice, by which heritage sites, collections and experiences are managed; historic cultural organisations; their city contexts; and the ways in which such cultural work is valued. The framework for analysis encompasses museology, critical heritage, and approaches to cultural value. Contemporary urban Mechanics’ Institutes (MIs) are placed in the museum context both through historic parallels and their contemporary positioning in the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) industry sector. This is in order to ask how heritage collections, and the organisations that house and present them, can creatively connect with the publics they serve with greater connectivity and relevance. Exhibitions and events held at BMI within Ballarat city are treated as case studies. Together with qualitative interviews with staff in the Ballarat GLAM sector and urban MIs, insights derived illuminate the role and challenges of such cultural organisations in the twenty-first century. It is argued that, when employing the practice and energy of the curator, creative activations have the potential to open new points of entry to, and provide alternative perspectives upon, heritage places and collections. This is achieved through arts practice, organisational thinking, and bringing to life the links between past, present and future. In this process, new and dynamic measures of value can be explored and create dialogic encounters between people, heritage and ideas.; Doctor of Philosophy
- Publisher
- Federation University Australia
- Rights
- All metadata describing materials held in, or linked to, the repository is freely available under a CC0 licence
- Rights
- Copyright Amy Tsilemanis
- Rights
- Open Access
- Subject
- Heritage; Creativity; Museums; GLAM; Mechanic institutes; Activation; Cities; Ballarat
- Full Text
- Thesis Supervisor
- Reeves, Keir
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