Module: AR7003-30 Collections and Collection

Level: 7

Credit Value: 30

Module Tutor: Ben Parry

Module Tutor Contact Details: b.parry@bathspa.ac.uk

1.Brief description and aims of module

The module discusses how today’s cultural landscape may be characterized by the homes of collections, from the great post-Enlightenment museums, the civic museum and museums of modern art, to the late 20^th century development of new forms of specialist museum and contemporary venues.

Curating, it may be argued, has its historical roots in historical collections. The module contrasts the museum collection by considering the nature of private collecting, and how institutions today collect the ‘alternative’. How contemporary curatorial practice deals with “difficult” collecting is discussed: theoretical and practical issues of collecting the digital, the ephemeral, time-based work and objects drawn from social history, and post-colonial anthropology are discussed.

Students often link their work on this module to internships or voluntary work. Your work is assessed by presentation of a personal encounter with a collector, as facilitated by the course. The collector may be a private individual or a senior curator, ensuring the diversity of approaches and challenges in curating and collecting can be explored.

The module content focuses on the visual arts, but gives an understanding of how museological disciplines such as archaeology, ethnography, fashion and design history, social history and natural history have played a part in establishing the contemporary sense of the curator

2.Outline syllabus

The module introduces through seminar based presentation and discussion the following areas of the theory and practice of collecting:

• Defining ‘collection’ and ‘collector’: theoretical and historical contexts

• The public collection: the formation and management of collections

• Policy and legal issues for public and private collecting

• Acquisition, documentation and de-accessioning for public and private collectors

• The ‘difficult’ collection – examples of problematic collections, such as the digital, the contentious, contemporary political events.

• Collecting and archiving the present - methodologies and risks

• The politics of collecting and display

• The private collector and the relationship to the market, consumption and knowledge

3.Teaching and learning activities

The key issues are introduced through weekly seminars and field visits to selected collections. This includes; formal lecture delivery, guest lectures, peer listening, student-led seminars and self-directed study

You will identify a collector (public curator or private collector) to research through studying documentation and texts and/or face-to-face interview and present your reflections on this individual as representative of a key issue for curatorial practice.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: Course Work
• Description: Presentation of Research
• % Weighting: 30%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: Course Work
• Description: Written Assessment, 5,000-6,000 Words.
• % Weighting: 70%