Museums as Assemblage

Book excerpt: Museums as Assemblage offers a new way of thinking about the dynamism of art museums. Using the concept of assemblage, this book unpacks relations between visitors, artists, museum staff, and the museum’s nonhuman components, providing an analytical framework that celebrates the complexity of museums today. It takes the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Tasmania as its primary case study but situates it in global trends by drawing on a range of examples from art museums across Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and East Asia. It provides insight into how perceptions around engagement are enabled and constrained in the context of different museums and highlights the necessity of an analytical framework that accommodates the complexity and multiplicity of the contemporary museum landscape. With an emphasis on visitor experience and curatorial strategy, the book is valuable for students and researchers in museum studies, art history, curatorial studies, and cultural studies.