Deconstituting Museums: Participation's Affective Work

Examines the core reasons that museums struggle to be more participatory.

In recent years, museums have turned to encouraging visitor participation in hopes of becoming more inclusive, accessible, and diverse. Despite these efforts, significant gaps between the politics of museum administration and those of participatory practice have often led to disappointment and anger. According to Helen Graham, while museums embody a logic of representational liberalism whereby museum professionals make decisions on behalf of "future generations" and "the public," participation pulls from direct and horizontal political traditions. In light of this problem, Deconstituting Museums develops critical and creative interventions in implementing museum participation, envisioning how the affective component of participatory practice could enable new possibilities in both museum practice and political ontology.