Content

During this module, students will work in small groups on a client-requested intervention with regards to a stated problem concerning sustainability, inclusivity or technology. Students collectively develop a design concept and try to obtain support for new approaches and ideas for museum and heritage interventions, taking into consideration the conceptual and practical challenges addressed in the previous modules and being taught the principles of project and change management at the same time.

The intervention can take the form of a collection management advice, a proposal for an interpretive concept, or maybe a combination of these. This way, students will get the opportunity to study and research specific dimensions of museum and heritage work of personal interest more in-depth, while working in small teams for a real client. Some students may wish to focus on innovative, future-oriented strategies of participatory collecting and deaccessioning, inspired by current developments in the field of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) and community participation. Others will focus on interpretation, exhibitions and public programming, and will work with insights from visitor studies, storytelling and narrative exhibition development.

Parallel to these content-based seminars, principles of project and change management will be taught, including various approaches, team management, monitoring, and budgeting.

In the collection management-track of this module we will reflect on the basics of collection policy and collection management as well as on recent developments such as participative and contemporary collecting. The collection is seen as a dynamic resource that the museum must use to the (future) public’s best interests. This implies a complex balancing of historic values, limited budgets, vested interests, social responsibilities and rapidly changing contexts. With its collection, the museum has to deal with opposite ambitions like preserving the objects for many generations to come and make use of them to their best value for as many people as possible in the present time.

Learning outcomes & objectives

To be able to:

  • Identify (conflicting) interests, stakes and emotions of involved actors with multiple backgrounds;
  • Discuss various approaches to, and stages in, project management;
  • Discuss concepts and principles of interpretation and collecting in relation to various audiences;
  • Develop, in a diverse team and in a timely and collaborative fashion, a meaningful intervention concept;
  • Design a meaningful intervention within the museum and heritage field for a given client in relation to sustainability, inclusivity and/or digitality;
  • Write a proposal which considers the client in both tone and appearance;
  • Demonstrate awareness of, and critically reflect, on their own role in a collaborative process of intervention design;
  • Convincingly pitch your intervention ideas in professional English;

Assessment

Peer feedback is included half-way through the project to give team members a chance to reflect on each other’s performance. During peer feedback, students can set their own standards in line with the AMHS vision on assessment. A lecturer will be present to monitor the process. Pitch. The teams pitch their ideas to lecturers, who will give immediate feedback on the quality of the pitch and the handling of questions, and initial thoughts on the quality of the proposed intervention with regard to justification, ethics and practical feasibility.

Students will be assessed based on:

  • A collectively-made intervention proposal and the pitch thereof to the client. Having learned the clients problem, challenge, or issue in relation to one of the AMHS focus areas, students develop in small groups an intervention proposal for the client which could involve presentation, collections and or education. The fact that the students work on a real case for a real client and in teams, makes this a demanding, yet invigorating, element in the programme and a very appropriate preparation for future work. Given the AMHS view of professionalism as based on theory, ethics and practice, the intervention is, in general terms, assessed on analysis of justification (given the understanding of the problem), ethical concerns and practical feasibility. In addition, the proposal is assessed on presentation and style.
  • A process evaluation report, in which the student evaluates the group dynamics, work process and one’s individual performance during the development and presentation of the intervention design. This assessment format brings an individual component to a group project. At the same time the students is compelled to reflect on the lessons learned in project management.
Timing January - April  
Assessment chance 1 Intervention Proposal – 9 April Evaluation report – 9 April
Assessment chance 2 Intervention Proposal – 14 June/12 July Evaluation Report – 14 June/12 July
Code Int-Des  
Number of credits 10 EC  
Entry requirements None  
Contact hours 82h  
Character of the meetings Interactive seminars and field visits Incl. a one week international excursion
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