Imaginary Museums and Visual Memory. Dynamic Art History Learning Through Crafting Atlases of Images - Archive ouverte HAL
Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2024

Imaginary Museums and Visual Memory. Dynamic Art History Learning Through Crafting Atlases of Images

Résumé

My paper introduces a pedagogical tool I implement in my art history classes in higher education: imaginary museums. Drawing inspiration from Aby Warburg's "Bilderatlas" and André Malraux's "Imaginary Museum", this tool aims to stimulate visual memory by virtually curating a fictional exhibition. Modern technologies redefined the essence of both the Bilderatlas and the Imaginary Museum, particularly in art history education. Students often capture images of artworks during field trips or in class, easily accumulating and storing a large visual repository. The imaginary museum project questions their ability to select and curate in the abundance of image reproductions at their disposal. Could anything constitute a meaningful collection? Throughout the weeks of the term, students are asked to progressively create a coherent selection of 5-10 images - half of them seen in class, and the remainder seen elsewhere, physically or digitally. Thus, they learn how to spot common threads between images, identifying repetitions in patterns, colours, themes, and materiality. A crucial part of the assignment is to build a compelling argument sur-rounding the collection, explaining the impact of combining these images, therefore practicing writing about art. Lastly, students take their peers on a virtual tour of their collection, with a quick interactive presentation. This paper aims to share the practice, the outcomes and the challenges of the assignment based on the work of previous cohorts of students. Through the feedback from fellow academics, artists and art educators, I am working on reshaping it, extending it and improving it.
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Dates et versions

hal-04671328 , version 1 (14-08-2024)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04671328 , version 1

Citer

Barbara Bessac. Imaginary Museums and Visual Memory. Dynamic Art History Learning Through Crafting Atlases of Images. Visions Unveiled – Unfolding Narratives of Art History, Visual Culture, and Modern Languages, AHVC/ML PGR Annual Conference, University of Exeter, Jun 2024, Exeter, United Kingdom. ⟨hal-04671328⟩

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