Museum Gallery Interpretation and Material Culture

Juliette Fritsch is Head of Gallery Interpretation, Evaluation and Residencies at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. The V&A recently completed £100 million gallery renovation project, for which Juliette led the gallery interpretation team. She is known for developing visitor-focused interpretation, and for innovative interpretation in art museums.

1. Introduction . Juliette Fritsch Part I: Situating Interpretation in the Museum Context 2. "The Museum as a Social Instrument": A Democratic Conception of Museum Education. George E. Hein 3. Invoking the Muse: The Purposes and Processes of Communicative Action in Museums. Paulette M. McManus 4. Interpretation and the Art Museum: Between the Familiar and the Unfamiliar. Cheryl Meszaros, eds. Jennifer J Carter, Twyla Gibson Part II: The Role of Interpretation in Art Galleries 5. Towards Some Cartographic Understandings of Art Interpretation in Museums. Christopher Whitehead 6. Art for Whose Sake? Sue Latimer 7. The Seeing Eye: The Seeing "I". Sylvia Lahav 8. Part III: How Can We Define the Role of Language in Museum Interpretation? Juliette Fritsch Part IV: Interpretation, Personal Experience, and Memory 9. "I loved it dearly": Recalling Personal Memories of Dress in the Museum. Torunn Kjolberg 10. Welcome to My World: Personal Narrative and Historic House Interpretation. Mariruth Leftwich 11. Narrative Museum, Museum of Voices: Displaying Rural Culture in the Museo Della Mezzadria Senese, Italy. Marzia Minore Part V: Evidence-Based Practice 12. An Evaluation of Object-Centered Approaches to Interpretation at the British Museum. Steve Slack, David Francis and Claire Edwards 13. The Other Side of the Coin: Audience Consultation and the Interpretation of Numismatic Collections. Effrosyni Nomikou Part VI: Interpretive Strategies for Specific Audiences 14. Designing Effective Interpretation for Contemporary Family Visitors to Art Museums and Galleries: A Reflection of Associated Problems and Issues. Patricia Sterry 15. Interactive Gallery Interpretation for Design Students: Help or Hindrance? Elizabeth Dyson 16. Empower the Audience! How Art Museums Can Become Enriching Creative Spaces for a Wider Audience through Deliberate and Strategic Use of Experience and Learning Theories. Karen Grøn Part VII: Process and People 17. "Reading the Walls": A Study of Curatorial Expectation and Visitor Perception. Sarah Ganz Blythe and Barbara Palley 18. "Education is a department isn’t it?" Perceptions of Education, Learning and Interpretation in Exhibition Development. Juliette Fritsch