OverviewConservation, Corporeal Ethics

Part III The Radical Potential of Museum Transparency

21. Sharing conservation ethics, practice, and decision-making with…visitors

Part IV Visual Culture and the Performance of Museum Ethics

22. The body in the (white) box: Corporeal ethics & museum representation

ConservationSharing Conservation Ethics, Practice, and Decision Making with Museum Visitors

Author’s purpose

To “enable conservators to demonstrate their unique contribution to

the making of meaning in museums and engage the public in a

deeper debate on the value and implications of conservation ethics

and decision-making.”

Public Perception

Importance of making the creativity

required in preservation accessible

Share the process of exploration and

learning.”

Reveal rather than conceal “the fact

that most displayed artifacts have

undergone treatment before they are

presented to the visitor.”

Technological

International Council of Museums Code of Ethics for Museums

“Takes a technological view of conservation,

rather than seeing it

as a means of making and communicating

meaning”

Explanatory | “Behind-the-Scenes”

Science

Principles & PracticePreserving the Past at the J. Paul Getty (1991)

Virtual Exhibition

Impact & Public Value“Activity to reflect the past, the diversity of world cultures and their living and material heritage”

“Body” Ethics22. The Body in the (White Box): Corporeal Ethics and Museum Representation

Artifact Piece (1987)

“Professional Savages”Saartje Baartman, South Africa (1789 – 1815)Ishi, Native North America (1864 – 1884)Tambo,Aboriginal Austraila (1860 – 1916)

“The Continuous Path”Poeh Museum of the Pueblo of Pojaqque near Santa Fe

“Opened in 2005, its 1,600 foot permanent exhibit Nah Poeh Meng (“The Continuous Path”) tells Pueblo history in small-scale Native-made dioramas.

Maori heads• 2008. Two heads on view in the Pacific Galleries at the Royal Museum of Art and

History in Brussels.• 2010. French parliament approves repatriation of Maori head from Musee

d’histoire naturelle de Rouen

Plastinated BodiesBody Worlds has traveled worldwide since its 1995 premier in Tokyo

Human Remains“In 50 years will the repatriation efforts…be seen in a vastly different light?”

Untitled/TowerCharles LeDray

(1999 – 2000)

Wadsworth Atheneum

Institute of Contemporary Arts

“After James Luna:

The Lives of Bodies

in Contemporary Art”

Mining the Museum (1993 – 1994)“After James Luna: Bodily Traces”

Authors’ purpose

The production of active audiencescapes in response

both to challenging, new forms of display for indigenous artifacts,

as well as the increasing presence of body and performance art in the museum,

ultimately energizes visitors and increases their awareness of their own bodies

within the building and among the artworks

as much as it situates the audience body in an art-making role.

This new way of conceiving the audience’s relationship to the contemporary museum

is living and embodied; it fully demands our ethical awareness.