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CREATING MAMI WATA: An Interactive, Sensory Exhibition
Author(s) -
Drewal Henry John
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
museum anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.197
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1548-1379
pISSN - 0892-8339
DOI - 10.1111/j.1548-1379.2012.01121.x
Subject(s) - exhibition , dialogic , presentation (obstetrics) , the arts , visual arts , interactive media , interactive art , aesthetics , sociology , media studies , multimedia , history , art , computer science , art history , pedagogy , performance art , medicine , radiology
Abstract In A frica and its diasporas, call and response is an enduring and widespread interactive performance tradition. To encourage such interactive, dialogic activity between audiences and objects in a museum, as guest curator of M ami W ata: Arts for Water Spirits in A frica and Its Diasporas I devised a number of exhibition strategies to create an exhibition as interactive and multisensorial as possible, using a theoretical and methodological approach I term sensiotics . This essay details various interactive dimensions and the importance of sensory experience, including notions of “re‐creation,” “re‐membering,” and “re‐presentation,” and the challenges and objectives of this effort to engage and enlighten audiences.