Exhibition Analysis

PhD research project ‘Exhibition Analysis: Premises, Principles and Perspectives of a new Method in Museology/Museum Studies’ 
This research project combines premises and principles of already existing theoretical approaches and develops by that a new method for exhibition analysis. What is special about this new method? It responds to the complexity of the medium exhibition by taking all kind of exhibition elements into account and enables the detection of and critical reflection on the (un)intentional statements made by the ‘expository agency’ (Bal, Double Exposures 1996). Furthermore, it recognizes the researcher’s subjectivity and strives for intersubjectivity in the exhibition analysis report.

The research project started in 2017 and will be finished in 2023. Supervisors are Guido Fackler (University Würzburg, Germany), Hester Dibbits (Reinwardt Academie), and Michaela Fenske (University Würzburg, Germany). 

2021-2022
Last year, Carla-Marinka has tested her method in different settings: She organized several workshops with non-professionals, art history students and professionals to introduce them to exhibition analysis and to her method in particular. She also coached museology students in Würzburg in using the method. The outcome of these workshops and tests is that the method really works for different backgrounds regarding knowledge and experience.

If you like to know more about the method, you can watch a presentation by her and Guido Fackler (in German). 

Carla-Marinka has also started to work on a new handbook for exhibition analysis together with Luise Reitstätter (University Vienna, Austria). They assemble about 20 methods with different approaches to exhibition analysis. For this handbook, she wrote a chapter on her method and she is currently working on the introduction chapter. 

Carla-Marinka Schorr
Carla-Marinka Schorr is a PhD candidate at the University of Wuerzburg, Germany, Department of Museology/Museum Studies. She holds a BA in Museology and European Ethnology and is alumna of the Master Museology Programme at the Reinwardt Academie.

Publications 2022

• Schorr, Carla-Marinka. 2022. #neuland: neue Dinge, alte Werte. Eine Ausstellungsanalyse im Hinblick auf Formen, Funktionen und Praktiken der Wertzuschreibung. In Alte Dinge – neue Werte. Musealisierung und Inwertsetzung von Objekten, edited by Michael Farrenkopf et. al., no page. Göttingen: Wallstein-Verlag (available from 2.11.22)).