Based on a theoretical and empirical exploration of the theme, in mixed groups, students of the University of St Gallen and the Copenhagen Business School create their own exhibitions on the “new organization of museums” under the guidance of Prof. Chris Steyaert (OPSY-HSG) and Prof. Daniel Hjorth (Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School).
Besides the university, the museum is one of the oldest forms to think about and effectuate the organization and representation of knowledge, its history of ideas and its repertoire of artifacts and objects. At the same time, it is currently undergoing an enormous shift: Whereas the role of the “classical” museum was the conservation and exhibition of the “great works of civilization” (Hetherington, 2006), the commemoration of artists, historical periods and events and the education of the public, the “new museum” (Message, 2006) is part of the leisure industries. Visiting a museum today is not anymore fundamentally different from going to a movie or shopping.
This enormous change in how museums perform their own functions has not in the least been instigated by an entrepreneurial shift in urban governance and by a shift to an experience economy (Hjorth and Kostera, 2007). With this transformation of urban governance into a mode of entrepreneurialism (Harvey, 1989), cities are heavily competing on the global catwalk to appear as the most creative or entrepreneurial. In particular, museums function as flagship projects to brand these images of a creative city. Ever since the “Bilbao effect”, where a seemingly unknown city was able to put itself on the (touristic) map by attracting the star architect Frank O’Gehry to build a new Guggenheim museum, museums have become a prominent and privileged strategy in reshaping cities as attractive places for cultural and artistic consumption (Czarniawska, 2003).
In the spirit of the Haniel Foundation who supports academic projects which encourage international knowledge transfer and the exchange of experiences, in mixed groups, students of the University of St Gallen and the Copenhagen Business School create an exhibition on the museum and its new organization. Group work will include the exploration of data and materials as well as the opportunity to visit a number of museums in the German speaking part of Switzerland and the neighbouring parts of Austria and meet its representatives. At the end of the week-long seminar, students present their exhibitions in a museum in St Gallen.
References
Czarniawska, B. (2003). A Tale of Three Cities – or the globalization of city management, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harvey, D. (1989). From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: The transformation in urban governance in late capitalism. Geografiska Annaler. Series B. Human Geography, 71(1), 3-17.
Hetherington, K. (2006). Museum. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(2-3), 597-603.
Hjorth, D. & Kostera, M. (2007). Entrepreneurship & The experience economy. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press.
Message, K. (2006). The New Museum. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(2-3), 603-606.