Volume 54 Number 4 October 2011

FOCUS ON CO-CURATION

Co-Curation and the Public History of Science and Technology

TIM BOON

In October 2010, the Science Museum in Lon- THE LONG VIEW

don held a three-day international workshop to
discuss how science and technology museums If we want to enhance the effectiveness of
use their collections and represent the history of museums in the coming decades, we will do
science, technology, and medicine for today’s well to reflect on how—in a dynamic interplay
audiences. This was the first outward manifes- of context and developing practice—museums
tation of the museum’s Public History of Sci- have changed over the last generation. In the
ence, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine case of the Science Museum, London, it is
(PHoSTEM) project, and was designed to notable how the representation of contempo-
launch discussion of its main themes. At the rary science was transformed in this period, as
heart of the workshop’s concerns was the kin- exemplified particularly in our Wellcome
ship of two phenomena: public history and co- Wing. The museum’s staff achieved this in
curation. In broad terms, ‘‘public history’’ can large part by getting closer to audiences in two
refer to the ways in which lay people pursue his- ways: by taking part in the then-new university
torical interests—whether that be family and subject of science communication studies, and
local history, collecting, consuming historical by adopting the techniques of audience
magazines and television programs, or museum research (Boon 2010). Looking back over that
visiting—for fun. Co-curation and similar tech- period raises questions about how the museum
niques gathered together under the umbrella of will have changed in another quarter century,
‘‘participation’’ describe a range of practices in and what new techniques may turn into some-
which lay people work to develop displays and thing really significant in the decades to come.
programs within museums.1 The workshop was At a time when virtual and digital media have
convened to explore—via a series of sessions, increasing presence within culture, many
plenaries, and ‘‘provocations’’—the relevance to museum staff members seem to be begging the
the history of science of public history and co- question about the comprehensibility and value
curation used together. The gathered audience of museums’ collections of physical objects. For
of international and British delegates and Sci- science and technology museums in particular,
ence Museum staff debated different facets of collections may be becoming more remote
these core ideas, in the context of the history of from audience experience. Many visitors no
relations between science and the public; exper- longer possess the familiarity with machines
iments with new media; and especially reports that was commonplace in the nineteenth-cen-
of co-curating experiments and practices at tury world that gave birth to the great technical
home and abroad. museums. On the other hand there is the

Tim Boon (tim.boon@sciencemuseum.org.uk) is head of Research and Public History, the Science Museum,
Exhibition Road, London SW7 2DD.

383
CURATOR THE MUSEUM JOURNAL

optimistic possibility that museums, liberated including collecting and restoring archaic
by the Web’s capacity to make complex data instruments and machines. While this field of
available online, can seize the opportunity to ‘‘public history’’ has been the subject of much
do what they do best, providing experiences analysis in recent years,3 staff at the Science
focusing on the display of objects in powerful Museum have until recently not consciously
settings. Getting the new generation of dis- and deliberately addressed that part of each visi-
plays right is an opportunity, but one that tor’s experience that resonates with the past. It
requires reflection, research, and insight so that has become clear, however, that the majority of
it may be achieved with flair. Only with visitors engage in historical activities in some
thoughtfulness will we deliver the ‘‘life enhanc- form, mainly by watching historical documen-
ing experiences’’ we aim for.2 taries, visiting historical sites, or reading histor-
ical fiction.4 Once we understand what
THE MEDIUM TERM VIEW proportion of our visitors would self-identify as
having historical interests, an important part of
In the three years leading up to 2014, the the PHoSTEM project will be to conduct
Science Museum will be developing and experiments that enable them to apply their his-
delivering a major new gallery on the history of torical understandings to what we do in ways
communications. The PHoSTEM project is that engage them and enhance the potential for
designed to inform the new levels of audience others.
effectiveness required of this gallery. Producing Technological change has created new
galleries on these themes in the early twenty- forms of lay involvement in culture, via the
first century is necessarily different from doing Web: social networking, blogging, crowd-
so a generation, or even a decade, ago. The sourcing, and other kinds of user-generated
world has changed, and what it means to con- content. It seems that more lay people than
struct effective displays has also changed. To ever before expect to participate actively in cul-
explore the implications, this section of this ture generally, to create as well as to consume.
essay addresses history, today’s participatory But this is not just a technological phenome-
culture, and how we may think of visitors. non. We should recognize that our participa-
Enabling visitors to deepen their enjoy- tive culture also derives from the social
ment of collections and the histories of science revolution of the 1960s. What started as the
and technology are core elements of the Science identity politics of class, ethnicity, and gender
Museum’s remit. The eloquent phrase ‘‘adrift in has now produced an identity culture of origins,
the present,’’ coined by the American essayist interests, and tastes. In this, the existential
Wendell Berry, describes the mind-state of sense of what makes me ‘‘me’’ and you ‘‘you’’ is
those out of touch with the past, without a sense felt by millions of people.5 These same social
of the precedents that exist for our current expe- changes coincided with significant develop-
rience. But there is a huge groundswell of public ments in academic history: the Sixties gave
enthusiasm for history in general, with polls in force to the movement that visualized ‘‘history
the U.K. suggesting that more than 50 percent from below.’’ This, in E.P. Thompson’s felici-
of adults are interested in learning more about tous phrase, set out to rescue ‘‘the poor stock-
their family history, for example. Millions inger, the Luddite cropper, the ‘obsolete’
of people are pursuing historical hobbies, hand-loom weaver, the ‘Utopian’ artisan . . .

384 Focus On Co-Curation: History of Science ⁄ Technology

 Volume 54 Number 4 October 2011

from the enormous condescension of posterity’’ ent if you know that it relates to your ancestor’s
(Thompson 1980, 12). experience. Similarly, if you’ve soldered-up a
All these strands—Web media, identity radio, all radios look different to you than they
culture, and the personal history of lay people— do to anyone who has just bought one off the
are active in public history. Most family history shelf. If you’ve ever plugged an electric guitar
activity these days, for example, takes place through a waa-waa pedal and attempted a funk
online rather than in regional record offices. lick, that object, when encountered in a
Increasingly the bud of genealogy is blooming museum, will have special meaning to you, just
into social history, tracing the life experience of as dancers are said to have a kinaesthetic appre-
peoples’ antecedents. Ordinary people are res- ciation when watching ballet. These are
cuing themselves and their forebears from the authentic ways into the material culture of the
condescension of posterity. Similarly, local his- past that we can build on. But crucially we need
torians continue to make sense of the world that to explore whether another person’s experience
surrounds them, a local world that can touch on of the past is infectious; whether my neighbor’s
science and technology collections too. A enthusiasm can light a fire in me too.
research laboratory—such as the General Post This participatory culture provides enor-
Office’s Research Station at Dollis Hill, home mous opportunities as well as challenges to
to most of the British state’s efforts in electronic museums. But let us be clear: museum spaces
research and development up to the 1970s—has have always been participatory in the sense that
local meanings relating to lives lived as well as our visitors have always made their own uses of
universal histories of research published and our exhibitions, bringing their own life experi-
devices perfected. And subject enthusiasts and ence to bear as they make sense of what our gal-
collectors find personal fulfillment in under- leries show. Generally speaking, museum staff,
standing the science and technology of the past as Michel de Certeau says of all élites, assume
(see Geoghegan 2009). An incidental conversa- ‘‘that ‘assimilating’ necessarily means ‘becoming
tion with a local historian revealed the kind similar to’ what one absorbs, and not ‘making
of path that we hope many might take. Ruby something similar’ to what one is, making it
Galili started her research with the history of one’s own, appropriating or reappropriating it’’
her own house, then got interested in the land it (de Certeau 1984, 166). Visitors will always be
sat on and the family who owned it. Before ahead of us in following their knowledge, tastes
long, she was researching a scion of the local and proclivities. And, importantly for us, this
landowners, John Walker of Arnos Grove provides an opportunity for us to move our col-
(1766-1824). She found his Common Place lections and storytelling closer to them. It’s not
Book in the local archive and discovered notes as though lay expertise in the past is limited to
of lectures by Humphrey Davy and Michael those who undertake active historical research.
Faraday that he had attended. As she said Everyone’s lived experience gives them access to
‘‘I hadn’t realized I was interested in the history the past and to historical change, as I suggest in
of science, but now I am.’’ 6 the article in this issue: ‘‘A Walk in the Museum
One of the tasks of the PHoSTEM project with Michel de Certeau.’’
is to explore how museum displays can open up These are some of the factors that we
the experience of people like this, to help others are taking into account as we develop the
to see the way they see: An object looks differ- new galleries. The Public History Project is

Tim Boon 385

CURATOR THE MUSEUM JOURNAL

generating research findings through a variety includes research projects and working with
of techniques that will bring lay people into our universities, for example in research networks.
enterprise upstream of exhibitions opening and The workshop brought together people with
events being staged. Since the Public History similar interests who don’t necessarily often
and Co-Curation Workshop, we have devel- meet: museum staff; people who promote, serve,
oped some of the nascent ideas proposed there. or study the kinds of history that non-profes-
In one strand, we have been co-curating events sionals do for fun; historians of the relations
and a small exhibition on the history of elec- between science and the public in the past; and
tronic music since the 1960s. This activity has people working in participatory new media.7
centerd on the Oramics Machine, a unique syn- The small selection of essays that follows
thesizer developed in the 1960s by Daphne emphasizes those aspects of the conversation
Oram, who founded the BBC’s Radiophonic that particularly can be expected to interest
Workshop, an electronic music studio estab- Curator’s readership. Three of the essays present
lished in 1958 to provide incidental music and different directions for participation. Emma
sound processing for radio and television pro- Bryant describes how a group of school children
grams (Niebur 2010). The first outcome of this curated Shhh. . . It’s a Secret, an exhibition from
was Oramix, a performance on this subject by the holdings of the Wallace Collection of
students from the National Youth Theater. French eighteenth-century painting, furniture
Further stages of co-curation involve working and porcelain, Old Master paintings and armor.
with original participants in 1960s British elec- Jaime Kopke outlines her project for a commu-
tronic music and present-day amateur digital nity museum in Denver, an enterprise that in
and electronic musicians. In every case, in addi- many ways might be considered as a kind of art
tion to producing events or displays for the gen- practice, but which also throws down a chal-
eral museum audience, we have been learning lenge to more conventional museums. Differ-
about how these different groups construct a ently, Alexandra Kim’s contribution explains
historical account of electronic music, a subject how Britain’s Historic Royal Palaces have taken
which is historically recent and more often asso- advantage of a building project to curate Ken-
ciated with the future than the past. Similarly, sington Palace as a theatrical experience, involv-
we are promoting our collections to family his- ing visitors in new ways. The last paper opens
torians who want to understand the social his- up a different aspect of sensitivity to, and
tory of their ancestors’ lives, both in articles in opportunities for, lay collaborators. Andrew
Family Tree (a genealogical magazine) and in a Chitty describes London Recut, a competition
planned exhibition. that made archive films available for people to
re-edit online to tell their preferred stories.
THE WORKSHOP Together, these four short contributions indi-
cate the liveliness in participation activities in
At the same time as we aim to be properly recent years. In a separate piece in this issue, an
generous about lay expertise, the PHoSTEM article conceived within the context of
project also needs to be credible among museum London’s Science Museum, I apply Michel de
practitioners and academics and to develop Certeau’s ideas about cultural consumption to
sound intellectual foundations. The workshop promote reflection on how museum visitors
was the first step in this process, which also interact with displays, and how museum

386 Focus On Co-Curation: History of Science ⁄ Technology

 Volume 54 Number 4 October 2011

professionals may respond if they accept de ca.1980–2000, in Science for the Nation:
Certeau’s proposition that cultural consump- Perspectives on the History of the Science
tion is, in fact, a ‘‘‘kind of production’ . . . that Museum, P. Morris, ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
de Certeau, M. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life.
shows itself not in its own products . . . but in an
Berkeley: University of California Press.
art of using those imposed on it’’ (de Certeau
de Groot, J. 2009. Consuming History: Historians
1984, 31). END
and Heritage in Contemporary Popular Culture.
London: Routledge.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT Geoghegan, H. 2009. ‘‘If you can walk down the
street and recognize the difference between
I should like to thank Gaetan Lee, who undertook cast iron and wrought iron, the world is
the practical organization of the workshop and altogether a better place’’: Being enthusiastic
selected some of the speakers. about industrial archeology. M ⁄ C Journal
12(2) (May). Accessed July 29, 2011 at http://
journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/
NOTES mcjournal/article/view/140.
Niebur, L. 2010. Special Sound: The Creation and
1. Nina Simon, author of The Participatory Legacy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. New
Museum, spoke via video link at the Workshop. York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. ‘‘Defining, planning and measuring a life- Rosenzweig, R. and D. Thelen. 1998. The Presence
enhancing experience.’’ Internal guidance of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American
document, National Museum of Science and Life. New York: Columbia University Press.
Industry, 2009. Thompson, E. P. 1980. The Making of the English
3. See, for example, Rosenzweig and Thelen Working Class. London: Gollancz.
(1998), and De Groot (2009).
4. Science Museum Audience Research and
Advocacy group, ‘‘Visitors, History and the
History of Science: Marketing Survey Results,
February 2010’’ (internal document).
5. This is not to diminish the importance of
addressing the politics of social, ethnic, and
cultural identity for achieving greater
inclusion—because we certainly work to achieve
that—but it is to recognize what we all have in
common.
6. Conversation with the author, September 19,
2010. See also: http://www.southgategreen.
org.uk/local_history/walkerbros.php.
7. A complete program for the workshop is
available from the author and can be accessed
at www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/publichistory.

REFERENCES

Boon, T. 2010. Parallax error?: A participant’s

account of the Science Museum,

Tim Boon 387