How do objects and collections acquire meaning? How are those meanings conveyed to museum visitors? How, for example, can museums depict the experience of immigrants to Australia, or the relationship between people and the environment? What is the purpose of a museum exhibition? What constitutes a ‘successful' exhibition in terms of design, visitation and impact? Should museums be seeking to challenge their visitors, to educate, to entertain ... or all of these? Are all visitors the same? Can new technologies, including virtual museums, broaden museum's impact and enhance visitors' understanding? This course will address these questions and many more. It will consider how museums and cultural heritage sites communicate, allowing students to explore these questions by examining both theory and practice. themes addressed during the course include:

• Understanding and assessing significance, and its role in communication planning
• The principles of interpretation and communication and incorporating these into best
• practice planning
• Understanding museum audiences for more effective communication
• Designing exhibitions, public programs, education kits and other forms of museum communication.

Course aims:

On completing this course, students will have the knowledge and skills to:

1. Explain the different interpretive roles of different kinds of museums and heritage sites, understand their approaches toward representation and communication, and evaluate their changing relationships with the audiences and communities they serve;

2. Assess and report on the significance of heritage objects, collections or sites, and demonstrate critical conceptual and practical understanding of how to present and interpret these objects within the context of a museum exhibition or heritage site, including an understanding of relevant marketing and funding;

3. Synthesise key concepts from the fields of communication, interpretation and museum studies and apply these concepts to specific situations and case studies;

4. Model best practice and a commitment to ethical, reflective practice in the way museums communicate with their audiences and communities.

Learning outcomes:

1.     To gain skills in written and verbal expression for a variety of relevant professional and academic purposes that include essays, collections assessments, funding applications, proposals for exhibitions and public programs, and interpretive text.

2.     To develop skills in interdisciplinary thinking and the ability to apply theoretical ideas to case studies developed from personal observation.

3.     To gain skills required for humanities research and museum work. This includes data-collection, analysis, and verbal and written presentation at the standard of a postgraduate degree.

4.     To gain understanding and a basic set of skills required for working in the cultural and collecting sector, including a functioning knowledge of current industry standards and protocols, policy frameworks, and funding regimes.

Significance Assessment (30% / 1200 wds); Travelling exhibition proposal (35% / 2000 wds), a public program or education kit, and in-class presentation (35% / 2000 wds).

Entry to the course requires the permission of the Course Coordinator.

Elaine Heumann Gurian (2006) Civilizing the Museum: the collected writings of Elaine Heumann Gurian. London: Routledge.

Bettina Messias Carbonell (ed) (2004) Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts. Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing.