Charlotte Slark
MA work
MA work
Class and Inequality in Design Museums: The Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood, 1974-1994
Despite being part of the Victoria and Albert Museum since the nineteenth century, and being a popular museum in its own right, very little has been written about the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood.
My dissertation argues that museums adopted a more enterprise-focused approach in the 1980s as a result of changes to the funding landscape within the heritage sector. The Museum of Childhood serves as an example of how the pre-existing social, economic, and cultural capital of a museum contributed to its success or failure in this increasingly market-driven world. This dissertation examines the so-called new museology that developed as a response to the growing anxieties over audience and the function of the museum. Instead of arresting the integration of markets in museums, Â this new approach has instead helped to firmly embed it within the discourse, and therefore within the increasingly professionalised curatorial field.
Rather than focusing on individual exhibitions, which is a more common approach in design history applied to museums, this dissertation examines the wider culture of design and design education within museums, considering its influencers on a larger scale. Because of this institution-focused approach, the research draws upon mostly primary material, including internal correspondence, surveys, reports, and policy documents. This work demonstrates how design history can be about design education, policy, and culture within museums as well as about the objects such institutions display.
Info
Info
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MA Degree
School
School of Humanities
Programme
MA History of Design, 2017
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Contact
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Class and Inequality in Design Museum:Â The Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood, 1974-1994
Despite being part of the Victoria and Albert Museum since the nineteenth century, and being a popular museum in its own right, very little has been written about the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood.
My dissertation argues that museums adopted a more enterprise-focused approach in the 1980s as a result of changes to the funding landscape within the heritage sector. The Museum of Childhood serves as an example of how the pre-existing social, economic, and cultural capital of a museum contributed to its success or failure in this increasingly market-driven world. This dissertation examines the so-called new museology that developed as a response to the growing anxieties over audience and the function of the museum. Instead of arresting the integration of markets in museums, Â this new approach has instead helped to firmly embed it within the discourse, and therefore within the increasingly professionalised curatorial field.
Rather than focusing on individual exhibitions, which is a more common approach in design history applied to museums, this dissertation examines the wider culture of design and design education within museums, considering its influencers on a larger scale. Because of this institution-focused approach, the research draws upon mostly primary material, including internal correspondence, surveys, reports, and policy documents. This work demonstrates how design history can be about design education, policy, and culture within museums as well as about the objects such institutions display.
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Degrees
- BA Illustration, University of Brighton, 2009
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Experience
- Collection online project assistant (Prints and Drawings), The Royal Collection Trust, Windsor, 2012-2015.