Catch + Release: Experiential Learning through Contemporary Art in a Heritage Museum Context

• Published in: The international journal of the inclusive museum 2013, Vol.5 (3), p.27-36
• Main Authors: Beer, Ruth, Grauer, Kit, Huijnen, Patricia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Art galleries & museums; Artists; Contemporary art; Cultural heritage; Experiential learning; Fishing; Historic buildings & sites; Interdisciplinary aspects; Mapping; Museums; Pedagogy; Release; Teaching
• ISSN: 1835-2014; 1835-2022
• DOI: 10.18848/1835-2014/CGP/v05i03/44402

The paper will focus on the project Catch + Release: Mapping Stories of Cultural and Geographic Transition (2009-2013), a SSHRC supported collaborative research and creation project involving artists, art educators and designers, and the related exhibition created for the Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historical Site in Steveston, British Columbia, Canada. The Catch + Release project exhibition explores issues around the demise of the fishing industry and the changing coastal conditions on the west coast of British Columbia from a contemporary and interdisciplinary artistic perspective. Situated in a heritage museum context, this artistic research project is at the crossings of multiple disciplines such as art, pedagogy and museology. Drawing from site-specific art practices and the ways artists engage with the museum as site, this paper examines how this artist/museum partnership expands the traditional ways in which non-art museums display, present and provide pedagogical experiences. In relation to what has recently been described as the educational or pedagogical turn of artists and curators towards education as a form of art making, the paper discusses how contemporary art in heritage museum settings can provide learning experiences such as those described by constructivist theories as well as by educational philosopher John Dewey.