7th International Biennal Conference of Museum Studies

Call for Papers

The International Biennial Conference of Museum Studies was founded in 2004, with the designated purpose of promoting a culture of academic research within Taiwan’s museums. After more than ten years of hard work, it has substantial results to its credit and has become the hallmark conference of the nation’s museum research community. On its existing foundation, the conference has, since the sixth biennial event, ever more actively expanded its field of learning, carrying out exchanges with the international museum community and developing substantive debate and dialogue.

The 2016 seventh biennial conference will aim to develop in the direction of deepening current topics and strengthening dialogue. Adopting the theme of “Museums in the Age of the Anthropocene - Art, Science and Changes in Contemporary Society,” the seventh biennial conference will discuss the epochal role and innovative actions of museums in this era in which we face social change and acute changes in climate and environment, with a view to adding the far-sightedness of the new era to the varied traditions of the event.

This Biennial Conference of Museum Studies wholeheartedly welcomes papers on the following sub-themes. The sub-themes are for reference purposes only; they are not intended to limit the written parameters of submissions.

I. How do museums face the current environment and social changes? How do museums exhibit the anthropocene? How do museums promote conservation of ecological diversity and sustainable development? What can museums learn from reviewing history? How can they respond to what they learn from so doing?

II. Through the conceptual framework of the anthropocene, to reflect on the functions of contemporary museums and shifts in cultural paradigms, especially as regards nature/binary opposition in culture, different academic disciplines or the increasingly vague developmental trends between the boundaries of different types of organization.

III. To explore how the current fiercely competitive media environment influences museums to begin to attach importance to the scientific effects of social, cultural and environmental change. To explore, also, how discussion of scientific issues is influenced by society, ethics and even politics.

IV. To analyze how art and science interact in contemporary museum exhibitions. How do they converse? From the perspective of an artist, how should the different structures of the different narratives of art and science, etc., be analyzed? How should artists understand and interpret scientific issues? Should they do so with an orientation of artistic creation, a creative orientation that cares for society and the environment and actively intervenes? What different thoughts will artists have as they cooperate with science museums? How do artists utilize and interpret the collections of science museums?

V. From the perspective of museums, why do contemporary science museums value cooperation with artists? What are their purposes and considerations? From the point of view of the promotion of the popularization of science, what new conceptions arise from contemporary art’s serving as a medium? How do science museums seek collaboration with contemporary artists? What methods and cases exist for sharing?

VI. From the perspective of visitors, how do visitors react to the ways museums deal with multiple questions of contemporary social changes? Did visitors play different roles in the past? If so, what were they? How can museums collect feedback from visitors?