MCMH-EU COST Action Lecture Series
«Writing the History of Post-war Housing Complexes and Neighborhoods. A Take on Research Strategies and Methodologies»

FOURTH TALK

«Participatory Exhibitions and New Forms of (Academic) Knowledge Production»

Inge Daniels | Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford

Date: Wednesday, 30 September 2020 | 15:00 CET

Place: Microsoft Teams virtual class (link)

The talk challenges the common view that exhibitions are primary research outcomes to disseminate findings with by demonstrating their untapped potential as methodological tools to produce new forms of democratic, participatory knowledge that starts long before, and that may continue after the end of a show. The lecture explores this innovative model of exhibitions by drawing on the exhibition ‘At Home in Japan’, that I. Daniels curated at the Geffrye Museum in London in 2011, as well as the project “Disobedient Buildings” that Daniels designed around a major exhibition about aging housing, welfare and wellbeing in the UK, Romania and Norway (www.disobedientbuildings.com).

Inge Daniels is an Associate Professor in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include housing, atmosphere and the built environment. She has conducted several long-term ethnographies inside homes in Japan culminating in her 2010 monograph ‘The Japanese House’. I. Daniels also has an ongoing interest in curation and exhibitions. She has curated an exhibition at the British Museum (2001) and her recent book What are exhibitions for? (2019) is based on an ethnography of visitors to her 2012 exhibition at the Geffrye Museum in London.

The talks are part of the lecture series “Writing the History of Post-war Housing Complexes and Neighborhoods. A Take on Research Strategies and Methodologies”, organized by Gaia Caramellino and Filippo De Pieri in the framework of the COST Action European-funded MCMH-EU CA18137, “European Middle-Class Mass Housing” and of the Phd Program in Architecture. History and Design (Politecnico di Torino).

Organizers:
Gaia Caramellino, DAStU_Politecnico di Milano
Filippo De Pieri, DAD_Politecnico di Torino