The word “museology” means the science of museums – including research into museal processes such as collection, registration, preservation and communication. The research programme in museology is conducted by scholars from Aarhus University who adopt a wide variety of approaches to the ways in which society (both now and in the past) chooses, institutionalises and communicates the values which people wish to preserve as their common cultural, art and natural heritage.
The proposed network will bring researchers in Denmark, Norway and Sweden together to exchange knowledge and experience about how the museums in their countries contribute to cultural sustainability in society. The network’s activities will be grounded on the constitutive hypothesis that museums’ core tasks have an impact on cultural sustainability and therefore our overall research question is: How can cultural sustainability be used theoretically and methodologically as a cultural political parameter for identifying this impact? According to international research, cultural sustainability adds a fourth dimension to the three traditional dimensions of sustainability (economic, social and environmental). The term is by no means unambiguous but can i.a. be understood as the adhesive that binds the other three dimensions together. Not many empirical studies of cultural sustainability at museum have been carried out and none at all in Scandinavian museums.
Museology participants play an active role and are part of the steering committee for Dansk Center for Museumsforskning.
Museological research programme participate in a network collaboration with The Association of Danish Museums (ODM)
The research programme in museology participates in Uses of the Past, which is a special focus area at the Faculty of Arts.
The research unit engages with the past and present of architecture, design, and the built environment, with a focus on the history and theory of 20th century architecture and the city.
Integrating the multiple discourses that constitute architecture, the project approaches spatial design as creative practice and as a rooted social and cultural phenomenon.
The research group address the mediation process and meaning making when art and culture is analysed and documented digitally in museums and collections.
The group is affiliated SMK Open, The National Gallery in Denmark’s digital initiative.
The research group focus on strategic communication at museums and other cultural institutions. Within the cultural domain there is a large focus on dissemination but less on the communication part. In the research group we will therefore discuss and investigate how cultural organisations can be supported in using communication as a strategic tool both internally as well as in collaborations with and towards external stakeholders.
The research unit deals with learning partnerships between cultural institutions and educational institutions, focusing on theory and methods that make it possible to explore and analyze the learning and practice that emerge at the interface between the two types of institutions.
A national research and development project about innovative and digital museum communication. Participants from Aarhus University: Ane Hejlskov Larsen, Mia Falch Yates, Christiane Særkjær and Lise Skytte Jakobsen
View the project website (University of Southern Denmark)
The Research Programme in Museology participates in the conference Nordic Museum Histories in Odense, Denmark, 31 January 2018.
The research programme in Museology is represented in the research committee at the School of Communication and Culture by Ane Hejlskov Larsen.
