3 November 2023 – 17 EAT/10 EDT/7 PDT
Registration is now open! Through 2 November
This webinar is exclusive to ACASA members and will be held virtually over Zoom. Use the button at the bottom of this email to join or renew your membership. You must log in to your member account to register.
Register for the Webinar
Understanding Museum Audiences and African Arts Provenance
Highlighting provenance—the ownership history of a work of art or other object—has been growing in museums as part of important conversations about collecting and exhibiting African cultural heritage. But how much do museum visitors understand about provenance, and what is their interest in it? Do museums present provenance in a way that is engaging and easy to understand? The Department of Research and Evaluation of the Cleveland Museum of Art has undertaken audience evaluations in 2021 and 2023 that seek to answer these questions. These digital and in-person evaluation projects center on the museum’s African arts gallery, and a September 2020 reinstallation of eight works from the Benin Kingdom that include full provenance on their gallery labels in addition to on the museum’s website. As one of the few museums with an R&E department, this research represents a unique perspective on visitor viewpoints about provenance and an important tool for enhancing communication.
In this webinar, CMA’s Hannah Ridenour LaFrance (Research Manager, Department of Research & Evaluation) and Courage Kusena (Past Undergraduate Intern, Department of Research and Evaluation) will discuss the goals, methods, and findings of these evaluation projects. Facilitating the conversation, Kristen Windmuller-Luna (Curator of African Arts) will discuss the history of sharing provenance information at CMA, and consider how insight gained from evaluations of museum visitors’ engagement with and understanding of provenance can be implemented in future exhibitions.
This webinar is exclusive to ACASA members and will be held virtually over Zoom. Use the button at the bottom of this email to join or renew your membership.