Plenary
Live Roundtable, Friday 11th September 2020 (4pm BST)
A live plenary with Dinah Casson, Ashoke Chatterjee, Tehmina Goskar and Ian Elsner closed the Museum Exhibition Design: Histories and Futures conference. Speakers shared their perspectives on the relationship between histories and futures of museum exhibition design, reflecting on the key themes of the conference from a range of professional and critical positions. A recording of the event is available here:
Speakers:
Ashoke Chatterjee
Centre for Heritage Management, Ahmedabad University, India
Prof Ashoke Chatterjee received his education at Woodstock School (Mussoorie), St Stephen’s College (Delhi University) and Miami University (Ohio). He has a background in the engineering industry, international civil service, India Tourism Development Corporation, and 25 years in the service of the National Institute of Design (Ahmedabad) where he was Executive Director, Senior Faculty, Distinguished Fellow and Professor of communication and management. He has served a range of development institutions in India and overseas, particularly in the sectors of livelihoods, handcrafts, drinking water, sanitation, education, and disability as well as working with artisans in many parts of India. He was Hon President of the Crafts Council of India for over twenty years and continues to serve CCI. Prof Chatterjee has served on the Board of Aid To Artisans (USA). An author and writer, his books include “Dances of the Golden Hall” on the art of Shanta Rao and “Rising” on empowerment efforts among deprived communities in rural Gujarat. Prof Chatterjee continues to assist design education, and is Adviser at Ahmedabad University’s Centre for Heritage Management. He lives in Ahmedabad with his son Keshav, daughter-in-law Prativa and grandchildren Kabir and Alisa.
Dinah Casson CBE RDI
Dinah Casson set up her design practice in 1970 and her partnership with Roger Mann in 1984. Since 1992, Casson Mann has focused most of its work on the design of museums and exhibitions. These have ranged from the object-based British Galleries at the V&A and the Great North Museum in Newcastle, through to the highly technological Churchill Museum and First World War Galleries for the Imperial War Museum. They also designed the Nelson Navy Nation and the four Endeavour galleries for the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Work in France includes La Cité du Vin in Bordeaux and Lascaux: Centre International de l’Art Pareital. During the last 25 years, they have also worked on projects across Russia, America, and the Middle East. Their work has been published extensively and has won numerous awards.
Dinah Casson was a trustee of The Charleston Trust and is now deputy chairman of Towner Eastbourne. In 2006, with Roger Mann, she was elected to the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry. She is a member of the Royal Mail Stamps Advisory Committee and a Trustee of the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust. Since the 1970s, she has taught at a number of design schools, in particular Kingston University and the Royal College of Art and is currently an external examiner for Middlesex University. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art and of the RIBA. She was awarded a CBE in 2018.
Her book Closed on Mondays: Behind the Scenes at the Museum will be published by Lund Humphries in November 2020.
Ian Elsner Museum Archipelago/RLMG, US
Ian Elsner makes museum exhibits and podcasts about museums. Interactive exhibits Ian has helped develop as a technologist and programmer for RLMG are featured in places like the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Idaho State Museum in Boise, Idaho, and the Infinity Science Center in Pearlington, Mississippi.
Ian hosts Museum Archipelago, one of the largest podcasts about the museum world. Over the course of 80 episodes, Museum Archipelago has visited and reported on museum institutions all over the globe, from Tasmania to Rwanda. His professional goal is to help develop the Apollo 11 Historic Site and Museum on the lunar surface.
Tehmina Goskar
Citizen Curators
Curatorial Research Centre, UK
Dr Tehmina Goskar is the Director & Curator of the Curatorial Research Centre. She has nearly 20 years’ experience in the cultural, arts, academic and private sectors with extensive knowledge of exhibition and event curation in a variety of settings from national museums to pop-up shops. She is a Fellow of the Museums Association and a member of its Ethics Committee, an Accredited Member of the Association of Facilitators, and a Research Associate at Swansea University. She is the Programme Leader and creator of Citizen Curators, a work-based curatorial training programme for volunteers, currently taking place in museums across Cornwall, UK, in collaboration with Cornwall Museums Partnership supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund. She is also the co-founder and co-organiser of Twitter’s ever-popular #MuseumHour.