The exhibition innovations workshop encourages students to gain a hands-on introduction to innovative exhibition development. Workshop leaders include curators, collections staff and exhibition developers from national cultural and collecting institutions (including the National Museum of Australia, the Australian War Memorial, the National Portrait Gallery, Questacon and the National Gallery of Australia) and other museums and galleries as well as guest speakers including visual artists, social and art historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and others. The workshop considers experimentation in different kinds of museums and exhibitions, the fate of conventional notions of ‘object’ and ‘representation’, and the impact of technology on the interdisciplinary museum space. Hands-on components of the workshop include exhibition development, design, writing for exhibitions (wall texts and catalogue), and object handling and hanging. This is an intensive and skill-based course that correlates particularly with MUSC8007, which explores exhibition concept and theme development, proposal writing, public program development etc.

1. To gain elementary skills required for exhibition development work in the cultural, collecting, and heritage sectors with a particular focus on developing interdisciplinary exhibitions.

2. To gain skills in written and verbal expression for a variety of relevant professional and academic purposes such as writing for exhibitions and developing interpretive text.

3.     To develop skills in interdisciplinary thinking and the ability to combine complex concepts with collection-based materials to develop innovative exhibitions.

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

1. Portfolio that includes:

• Visualisation of design (eg. poster or CDROM that includes 2-3 sample wall texts): 50%

• Catalogue essay (800 words): 15%

• Project exegesis (1500 words): 25%

2. Attendance and presentation of design on final day: 10%

All other courses listed in the Museums and Collections sub-plan of Liberal Arts program but especially MUSC8007: Museums and Collections Key Concepts and HUMN8010: Material Culture Studies.

• Paul Basu and Sharon Macdonald (eds), Exhibition Experiments, Malden MA: Blackwell, 2007.

• Georgia Rouette, Exhibitions: A Practical Guide for Small Museums and Galleries, Museums Australia (Victoria), 2007.

• Paul Basu and Sharon Macdonald (eds), Exhibition Experiments, Malden MA: Blackwell, 2007.

• Georgia Rouette, Exhibitions: A Practical Guide for Small Museums and Galleries, Museums Australia (Victoria), 2007.